Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security by Brian W. Kernighan

Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security Reviews

• 
  Gabrielam13

  Dacă ideea conform căreia stăpânești cu adevărat un subiect atunci când îl poți explica în termeni atât de simpli încât și un copil poate înțelege, e adevărată, atunci negreșit Brian W. Keninghan are o profundă înțelegere a lumii digitale. Probabil și anii în care a predat cursul introductiv de teoria informaticii unor studenți din științele sociale, l-au ajutat în a crea această carte, scrisă într-un stil atât de clar și ușor de înțeles.
  
  Mi-a făcut plăcere să citesc prezentarea sa a lumii digitale, a modului cum funcționează computerele, internetul și a problemelor pe care acestea le pun. Cu toate că spre sfârșitul cărții, când începe să explice vulnerabilitățile pe care le avem în domeniul privacy-ului și al securității și toate riscurile la care suntem supuși atunci când folosim internetul fără a ne proteja în fața nenumăratelor metode de a fi urmăriți, am resimțit atitudinea sa puțin paranoică, așa cum și singur o descrie.
  
  La final am înțeles că partea explicativă a cărții, care reprezintă 85%, nu a fost decât un preludiu pe care autorul l-a oferit pentru a ajuta cititorul să înțeleagă mai bine provocările pe care lumea modernă a internetului le oferă. Acest aspect mi s-a părut cu atât mai evident în momentul în care a menționat mândru că o fostă studentă de a sa a învățat ceva din cursul său astfel că a renunțat la Facebook și a descoperit că poate avea prieteni în continuare.
  
  O carte care se adresează tuturor și care ne pune în gardă în fața unor aspecte atât de actuale ale lumii digitale, oferind în același timp o frumoasă introducere a modului cum aceasta funcționează.
  
• 
  Ben Rothke

  Anyone who has taken a computer science or programming class will likely know of Brian Kernighan. He had significant contributions to the development of Unix, and also wrote the AWK and AMPL programming languages. For the last 20 years, he’s been a professor of computer at Princeton University.
  
  He is the author of many technical books. When I got his latest book Understanding the Digital World: What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security (Princeton University Press 978-0691176543), I did a double-take at first, as this is more of an introductory text.
  
  Notwithstanding, the book personifies what Albert Einstein noted: if you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well. The book is a basic introduction on how hardware, software and network systems work. There is a huge amount going on under the hood of desktops, laptops and mobile device; to which Kernighan explains this in a matter that would make Einstein proud.
  
  Besides giving an overview of how these technologies operate, Kernighan shows how they often introduce security and privacy risks. He then shoes how those risks can be mitigated.
  
  Kernighan looks not just at the computing systems, he also details how they affect our security, privacy, and other sociological elements. While Understanding the Digital World is meant as an introductory text, there is significant value for those they want to know how these myriad systems operate, and how these technologies influence our daily lives.
• 
  Ervin Susanto

  Needless for me to say that technology constitutes a large part of our daily lives today. But how many of us really understand how it works? e.g. how can we send messages or make calls from our phones to someone who are thousands of miles away within seconds? or why is our data so easily stolen by hackers from all over the world? If you want the answers to these questions without going too deep into the technicals (in laymen terms), this book will solve it for you. Not all of us aspire to be computer engineers but we should at least have a basic understanding on how the gadgets we use 24 hours a day or 365 days a year work!
• 
  Daneel Lynn

  就算是 C 語言聖經作者 K&R 的 K 所寫，本書還是不折不扣的通識級計概課本，內容方向與範圍恰好和商職當作考科的計概/數位科技概論相同。甚至以知識灌輸的質與量而言，商職課本在大多數章節還勝過本書，可見這份課綱編得還不錯。
  
  （反而普通高中資訊科技被魔改成以「運算思維」解決問題貫串的架構，加上APCS檢定推波助瀾，操作不好恐怕會形成「人人當碼農」......）
  
  然而大師不愧是大師，開卷與結尾以四個「通用」涵蓋整個數位技術，而且最後提出的未來發展課題也著實一針見血。
  
  而在第十一章，作者一反其他章節常態，仔細勘破網路與雲端技術如何蒐集、追蹤、探勘各式各樣的資料與資訊。果然實際秀一次，讀者就會很有感，進而開始思考資訊流通的風險了。
• 
  Adrian

  Excellent primer for somebody ( like myself) who is studying their first University module in Computer Science. This book covers the basics needed to understand the vast, and complex subject of Computer Science.
• 
  Jill

  I read an article that commented that if our kids were to ask us questions like "why is the sky blue?" or "why do the leaves of trees change colour?", we'd probably be able to give them a semi-decent answer. Or at least have a good sense of how we might go about figuring out the answer. But if they were to ask us "how does a smartphone work?" or "what is the cloud?" (vs "what are clouds?") most of us would probably be stumped. We blithely refer to "surfing the web" or "Photoshopping an image" but how do these things work exactly? Hence Understanding the Digital World by Brian Kernighan.
  
  I'm not a techie. At all. I'm not a Luddite but I stayed away from engineering and computer science courses (more fool me) when I was in college and now wish I'd at least audited a class or two in those fields, if only to understand a bit more about how the physical and digital infrastructure that shape so much of our lives today work. Kernighan's book helped plug that gap a little, by taking a big, hairy technical subject and breaking it down into bite-sized, accessible chunks. Computers for non-techies, so to speak.
  
  Understanding the Digital World starts off by getting the tech stuff out of the way.
  #1: The universal digital representation of information - how computers represent information in bits (binary digits) and everything from text to sound to images can be reduced to combinations of 1s and 0s.
  #2: The universal digital processor, i.e the digital computer that fundamentally comprises (a) a CPU that performs calculations/operations; (b) RAM to store information that is in active use by the CPU and other parts of the computer; (c) disk storage that stores information on a longer term basis (compared to RAM); and (d) other devices like the keyboard, screen that are all connected inside the computer via wires knowns as the "bus". Computers work by running programmes, i.e. series of instructions telling the computer what to do.
  #2a: Software refers to the sequences of instructions that make a computer do stuff. An algorithm is "a precise and complete specification of a computational process, but abstract and not directly executable by a computer, in contrast to a program". By contrast, a program is "the concrete expression of all the steps necessary to make a real computer do a complete real task" and has to deal with real life constraints like limited memory and time, for instance.
  #2b: There are two major kinds of software: operating systems that manage the hardware of the computer and make it possible to run other programmes, and applications, which are these other programmes that perform myriad functions like sending email, surfing the web, playing music and videos, etc.
  #3: The universal digital network, i.e. the Internet, that connects digital computers and allows for the exchange of information (through mail, social networks, etc).
  
  Section 3 on the universal digital network was the most interesting for me (as a non techie who's interested in policy issues). Having dispensed with the technical foundations, Kernighan discusses how computers connect us and enable rapid communication across distances, and the resulting policy issues such as net neutrality, security and privacy.
  
  Overall, Understanding the Digital World is as accessible an introduction one can get on the topic of computers, how they work, what they can do and their impact on their lives. The language is simple and free from (unnecessary) jargon, the book is structured such that there is a short summary at the end of each chapter and at the end of each major section of the book. This helps to reinforce the concepts covered before Kernighan goes on to build on these concepts in the next section/chapter.
• 
  Vojtěch

  Pro člověka dosud nepolíbeného digitálními technologiemi je to solidní přehledová kniha, která jej velmi erudovaně uvede do světa hardwaru, softwaru a komunikace. Naštěstí je komunikaci věnována největší část publikace, ale přesto se jedná o (alespoň mně) z velké části známé věci. Ano, několik částí je velmi zajímavých (ať už po faktické či úvahové stránce), ale jinak jsem od knihy čekal trochu něco jiného. Takto je to erudovanější příručka pro ty, kteří se chtějí více dozvědět, jak funguje např. RAM, cloud computing, aplikace apod.
• 
  Emmma

  I think that this book set out to introduce the world of computers to an average person that has no idea whether internet is a physical thing or not. And I believe that it achieved marvelously. I hope this book was somewhat of a curriculum for high-school computer basics classes during my studies.
  It is also written in a very digestible language so no previous knowledge of computer world is really required.
• 
  Deepanshu Aggarwal

  A wonderful book to understand the basics of the digital world. It is divided in 3 parts : hardware, software, network/communications. Strongly recommend this for non-techies, before diving in the world of reading tech or working therein.
  
• 
  Eugenio Martínez

  Provides a wide overview to carry a useful and powerful understanding of how devices, networks and technologies work and their implications, good and bad. Reminded me of the YouTube series, "computer science crash course." By PBS.
• 
  Hannah

  Great overview for the uneducated (like me).
• 
  Ishtar Boy Dak

  Good.