DON’T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK Today’s technology Tomorrow’s trap Gutsy and resourceful, Kenna Ward is a “lifeguard for the brain,” an envoy for Virtu-Tech, the preeminent virtual reality provider whose implants allow consumers to experience exhilarating imagined adventures—all while remaining perfectly safe. Most of the time, that is. In the rare instance when a participant mistakes an overwhelming situation as real, it’s up to Ward to enter their scenario and pull them back to reality. But when Ward’s partner goes rogue and the system begins responding in odd and dangerous ways, she delves deeper, uncovering a sinister conspiracy to dominate not only the virtual reality world, but the real one as well. Ward must stop this psychological sabotage before there are no more independent minds left to control.

Taking a multidisciplinary approach that they identify as a "cyber-realist research agenda," the contributors to this volume examine the prospects for electronic democracy in terms of its form and practice--while avoiding the pitfall of treating the benefits of electronic democracy as being self-evident. The debates question what electronic democracy needs to accomplish in order to revitalize democracy and what the current state of electronic democracy can teach us about the challenges and opportunities for implementing democratic technology initiatives.

People use online social forums for all sorts of reasons, including political conversations, regardless of the site's main purpose. But what leads some of these people to take their online political activity into the offline world of activism? In Expect Us, Jessica L. Beyer looks at political consciousness and action in four communities, each born out of chaotic online social spaces that millions of individuals enter, spend time in, and exit moment by moment: Anonymous (4chan), IGN, World of Warcraft, and The Pirate Bay. None of these sites began as places for political organization per se, but visitors to each have used them as places for political engagement to one degree or another. Beyer explains the puzzling emergence of political engagement in these disparate social spaces and offers reasons for their varied capacity to generate political activism. Her comparative ethnography of these four online communities demonstrates that the technological organization of space itself has a strong role in determining the possibility of political mobilization. Overall, she shows that political mobilization rises when a site provides high levels of anonymity, low levels of formal regulation, and minimal access to small-group interaction. Furthermore, her findings reveal that young people are more politically involved than much of the civic engagement literature suggests. Expect Us offers surprising and compelling insights for anyone interested in understanding which factors and online environments lead to the greatest amount of impact offline.

“A fantastic book, one of the very finest accounts of wartime spookery” (The Wall Street Journal)—a spellbinding adventure story of four secret OSS agents who would all later lead the CIA and their daring espionage and sabotage in wartime Europe from the author of the bestselling Wild Bill Donavan. They are the most famous and controversial directors the CIA has ever had—Allen Dulles, Richard Helms, William Colby, and William Casey. Before each of these four men became their country’s top spymaster, they fought in World War II as secret warriors for Wild Bill Donovan’s Office of Strategic Services. Allen Dulles ran the OSS’s most successful spy operation against the Axis. Bill Casey organized dangerous missions to penetrate Nazi Germany. Bill Colby led OSS commando raids behind the lines in occupied France and Norway. Richard Helms mounted risky intelligence programs against the Russians in the ruins of Berlin. Later, they were the most controversial directors the CIA has ever had. Dulles launched the calamitous operation at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs. Helms was convicted of lying to Congress over the CIA’s role in the ousting of President Salvador Allende in Chile. Colby would become a pariah for releasing a report on CIA misdeeds during the 1950s, sixties and early seventies. Casey would nearly bring down the CIA—and Ronald Reagan’s presidency—from a scheme that secretly supplied Nicaragua’s contras with money raked off from the sale of arms to Iran for American hostages in Beirut. Mining thousands of once-secret World War II documents and interviewing scores, Waller has written a worthy successor to Wild Bill Donovan. “Entertaining and richly detailed” (The Washington Post), Disciples is the story of these four dynamic agents and their daring espionage and sabotage in wartime Europe.

Now in its second edition, Cybercrime: Key Issues and Debates provides a valuable overview of this fast-paced and growing area of law. As technology develops and internet-enabled devices become ever more prevalent, new opportunities exist for that technology to be exploited by criminals. One result of this is that cybercrime is increasingly recognised as a distinct branch of criminal law. The book offers readers a thematic and critical overview of cybercrime, introducing the key principles and clearly showing the connections between topics as well as highlighting areas subject to debate. Written with an emphasis on the law in the UK but considering in detail the Council of Europe’s important Convention on Cybercrime, this text also covers the jurisdictional aspects of cybercrime in international law. Themes discussed include crimes against computers, property, offensive content, and offences against the person, and, new to this edition, cybercrime investigation. Clear, concise and critical, this book is designed for students studying cybercrime for the first time, enabling them to get to grips with an area of rapid change.

E-commerce in business administration refers to online buying and selling, encompassing digital marketing, transactions, supply chain management, and enhancing customer experiences in the digital realm

As the metaverse rapidly evolves, a comprehensive examination of the emerging threats and challenges is imperative. In the groundbreaking exploration within Forecasting Cyber Crimes in the Age of the Metaverse, the intersection of technology, crime, and law enforcement is investigated, and it provides valuable insights into the potential risks and strategies for combating cybercrimes in the metaverse. Drawing upon research and scientific methodologies, this book employs a forward-thinking approach to anticipate the types of crimes that may arise in the metaverse. It addresses various aspects of cybercrime, including crimes against children, financial fraud, ransomware attacks, and attacks on critical infrastructure. The analysis extends to the protection of intellectual property rights and the criminal methods employed against metaverse assets. By forecasting the future of cybercrimes and cyber warfare in the metaverse, this book equips law enforcement agencies, policymakers, and companies with essential knowledge to develop effective strategies and countermeasures. It explores the potential impact of cybercrime on police capabilities and provides valuable insights into the planning and preparedness required to mitigate these threats.