Future Crimes

Every new gadget that makes life easier also gives someone a new way to attack us. Marc Goodman, who has worked as a street police officer, an adviser to Interpol and a futurist at the FBI, builds this book around that uncomfortable idea. His argument is that the same technologies we welcome into our homes, workplaces and bodies can be turned against us, and that criminals, corporations and even governments are already doing it.

Goodman draws on a career in law enforcement and counterterrorism to guide readers through the hidden corners of the internet, where illicit trades and digital threats thrive. From there he looks ahead to what is coming next. Implantable medical devices, drones and 3-D printers are among the advances he examines, and each of them can be hacked, with potentially disastrous results. The more connected our world becomes, he warns, the more exposed all of us are.

The tone is urgent but not hopeless. Goodman presents the book as a call to action, aimed at helping ordinary people reclaim control over their own devices and put technology's enormous power to work for the good of humanity, before the window to act closes.