Welcome to the second CodeX Book Club cyber-meeting.  Click here for Chapter 1.

SHARON NELSON

★★★★★  Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World.
By Bruce Schneier.

Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company.
Available in hard cover, Kindle, and audio book. Publisher’s Price: $27.90.
Barnes & Noble: Hard cover: $17.91. Paperback: $12.79. Also available at Amazon and other bookstores.

Videos from the author:
YouTube: “Bruce Schneier presents Data and Goliath.“Stanford Center for Internet & Society: “NSA Surveillance and What To Do About It.”

I bought this book in hard copy. Glad I did because this is definitely a book to highlight and annotate. No matter how much you know about Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency, you’ll know a lot more when you finish this book. There is an entire shadow world in which governments and corporations seek to harvest all our data and destroy any remaining scintilla of privacy. It is an incisive, compellingly written view of the post-Orwellian world—you’ll be shocked at what is technically possible—much of that information never made it into news reports.

After you are thoroughly rattled by everything that Bruce Schneier writes—and remember that he is often cited as a cybersecurity guru among cybersecurity gurus—he also offers practical tips for protecting your vanishing privacy.

There is a small army of privacy advocates growing in fury and resisting surveillance by businesses and governments—you may want to enlist after reading this book!

Attorney Sharon Nelson is president of Sensei Enterprises, which offers digital forensics, information technology and information security. Blog: Ride The Lightning (digital forensics and security). She is based in Fairfax, Va. Email: snelson@senseient.com.

MONICA BAY

★★★★  Work Rules! Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead. By Laszlo Bock, senior vice president, people operations, at Google.

Publisher: Hachette Book Group. Hard cover, April 7, 2015. Price $30. Amazon: Hard cover: $17.85 (Prime); Kindle: $16.99.
Barnes & Noble: Hard cover $17.85. Audio: $22.90.

As a new fellow at CodeX, I’ve been devouring every book I can find about Silicon Valley technology companies and their cultures; startups; venture capital; tech innovation and leaders; diversity, etc. There are many books about Google, some better than others. (A very good book to start with is How Google Works, by Eric Schmidt & Jonathan Rosenberg.)

One thing I know for sure: I’m a Baby Boomer and I wouldn’t last five minutes as an employee at Google. But I’m mesmerized by its success and see Google as a role model in many arenas. Bock’s book is framed from the perspective of a human resources leader (oopps! I mean “people operations)  and he does an excellent job explaining and evangelizing Google’s changing culture. He covers, in great detail, just about every HR issue—from hiring to firing to rising within the company, and everything in between. He discusses how and why various policies were developed—and sometimes changed—and is candid about the challenges Google confronts as it has matured from a small startup into a massive organization. Some of the policies made me cringe, and others almost brought tears to my eyes (such as the policies helping employees whose spouses die.)

The book is a must-read for anyone in HR, but as a reader with a more general interest, I found it a bit too repetitive and sometimes preachy. But—especially in a duet with How Google Works—Bock provides a strong picture of what makes Google tick and thrive.