EFF's Reading List: Books of 2013

At the end of each year, EFF puts together a list of some of the interesting and noteworthy books that have been published in the past 12 months or so. We don't endorse all of their arguments, but we find they've added some valuable insight to the conversation around the areas and issues on which we work.

Some notes about this list: it's presented in alphabetical order by author's last name, and the links contain our Amazon affiliate code, which means EFF will receive a portion of purchases made through this page.

The Internet Police: How Crime Went Online, and the Cops Followed, by Nate Anderson

Nate Anderson is a writer for Ars Technica and has had occasion to report on many stories of crime—and investigation—online. In The Internet Police, he gets a chance to re-tell the most interesting, using those anecdotes to make points about how law enforcement reacts to technology. The opinions Anderson presents don't always match up with EFF's, but his take is always readable and informative.

On Internet Freedom, by Marvin Ammori

In this short volume, available as a DRM-free ebook, the established First Amendment scholar and longtime digital rights advocate Marvin Ammori takes on the question of why everybody should care about keeping the Internet free. Along the way, he explains how online battles like the SOPA protests have helped shape our understanding—and the reality—of our online rights. It's also available at a name-your-own-price through Techdirt.

Beyond WikiLeaks: Implications for the Future of Communications, Journalism and Society, edited by Benedetta Brevini, Arne Hintz, and Patrick McCurdy

This collection of essays looks toward the broader implications and consequences of WikiLeaks and similar ventures on politics, media, and transparency activism. It includes writing from Yochai Benkler, Gabriella Coleman, Birgitta Jónsdóttir, and EFF's Jillian C. York.

Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess, edited by Jerry Brito

This collection of essays starts from the premise that the U.S. Constitution requires a balancing act in copyright policy, but our laws no longer reflect that. Many of the contributors are prominent libertarian writers and thinkers, and where the essays take a political stance, it's a conservative one. But deeper than that, it's a pragmatic look at the problems with a half-century of an unbalanced copyright debate.

Coding Freedom, by Gabriella Coleman

Gabriella Coleman is an anthropologist, so her book on hackers and free software communities was sure to be more rigorous than a pop science or even journalistic take. Coding Freedom delivers spectacularly, with a readable and hugely informative ethnography of the hacker, focusing on the Debian project in particular. In true hacker spirit, the book is also CC-licensed and available for free download.

Captive Audience, by Susan Crawford

Using the Comcast-NBC Universal merger as a case study, Susan Crawford explores consolidation in the telecommunications industry. Accessibly written, "Captive Audience" is one of the fullest accounts to date of why telecom monopolies result in slower connection speeds at higher prices.

Black Code: Inside the Battle for Cyberspace, by Ronald J. Deibert

Ronald Deibert runs the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, a group EFF regularly works with on computer security issues and malware analysis; his take on these issues and the problems we collectively face is highly informed and incredibly important. Better yet, he gives real suggestions on what we must do to make the networked world safer for all of us.

Homeland, by Cory Doctorow

In this highly-anticipated sequel to the young-adult bestseller "Little Brother," EFF Fellow Cory Doctorow takes our protagonist Marcus to the next level, weaving together straight-from-the-news plotlines that include a cache of 800,000 top secret government documents and a cutting-edge local political campaign. The relevance of the novel is underscored by the poignant afterword written by Aaron Swartz just months before his death. This book is also available for free download.

This Machine Kills Secrets, by Andy Greenberg