Password

ISBN-13: 9781501314872 / Angielski / Miękka / 2016 / 136 str.

UK) University of London Dr. Martin Paul (Birkbeck College

Opis

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.Where does a password end and an identity begin? A person might be more than his chosen ten-character combination, but does a bank know that? Or an email provider? What's an 'identity theft' in the digital age if not the unauthorized use of a password? In untangling the histories, cultural contexts and philosophies of the password, Martin Paul Eve explores how 'what we know' became 'who we are', revealing how the modern notion of identity has been shaped by the password. Ranging from ancient Rome and the 'watchwords' of military encampments, through the three-factor authentication systems of Harry Potter and up to the biometric scanner in the iPhone, Password makes a timely and important contribution to our understanding of the words, phrases and special characters that determine our belonging and, often, our being.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

Recenzje

An erudite and interesting amble through the history, philosophy, and psychology of passwords. Bruce Schneier, Security Technologist and New York Times-Bestselling Author of Data and Goliath The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World

Spis treści

1. Introduction2. "Who goes there?": Military, Mortality and Passwords3. Special Characters: Passwords in Literature and Film4. P455w0rd5 and the Digital Era5. IdentityList of IllustrationsNotesIndex

O autorze

Martin Paul Eve is Professor of Literature, Technology and Publishing at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. He is the author of Open Access and the Humanities: Contexts, Controversies and the Future (2014); Pynchon and Philosophy: Wittgenstein, Foucault and Adorno (2014); Password (2016); and Literature Against Criticism: University English and Contemporary Fiction in Conflict.