Praise
“If you want to understand the future before it happens, you’ll love this book. If you want to change the future before it happens to you, this book is required reading.”
— Reed Hundt, Former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission
“The political world promises change and the digital world delivers it. And when that change potentially affects our privacy and freedom, we should all pay attention. This is a fascinating, provocative and thoroughly readable look into an uncertain future.”
—The Honorable Tom Ridge, First Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Former Governor of Pennsylvania
“Blown to Bits” will blow you away. In highly accessible and always fun prose, it explores all the nooks and crannies of the digital universe, exploring not only how this exploding space works but also what it means.
— Debora Spar, President of Barnard College, author of Ruling the Waves and The Baby Business
This is a wonderful book – probably the best since Hal Varian and Carl Schultz wrote Digital Rules. The authors are engineers, not economists. The result is a long, friendly talk with the genie, out of the lamp, and willing to help you avoid making the traditional mistake with that all-important third wish.
— David Warsh, Author of Knowledge and the Wealth of Nations
Blown to Bits manages the doubly remarkable feat of being crystal clear about how the Internet works and how that shapes the social issues it engenders. You can practically feel the hot air going out of some of today’s most urgent and passionate debates.
— David Weinberger, Co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto and author of Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder.
Most writing about the digital world comes from techies writing about technical matter for other techies or from pundits whose turn of phrase greatly exceeds their technical knowledge.  In Blown to Bits, experts in computer science address authoritatively the practical issues in which we all have keen interest.
— Howard Gardner, Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education, author of Multiple Intelligences and Changing Minds
Blown to Bits is a timely, important, and very readable take on how information is produced and consumed today, and more important, on the approaching sea change in the way that we as a society deal with the consequences.
—Craig Silverstein, Director of Technology, Google, Inc.
There is no simpler or clearer statement of the radical change that digital technologies will bring, nor any book that better prepares one for thinking about the next steps. Rich in examples and beautifully accessible in its writing, it should be required reading everywhere.
— Larry Lessig, Professor of Law, Stanford University, Author of Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace
To many of us, computers and the Internet are magic. We make stuff, send stuff, receive stuff, and buy stuff. It’s all pointing, clicking, copying and pasting. But it’s all mysterious. This book explains in clear and comprehensive terms how all this gear on my desk works and why we should pay close attention to these revolutionary changes in our lives. It’s a brilliant and necessary work for consumers, citizens, and students of all ages.
— Siva Vaidhyanathan, cultural historian and media scholar, University of Virginia, author of Copyrights and Copywrongs and The Anarchist in the Library
The world has turned into the proverbial elephant and we the blind men. The old and the young among us risk being controlled by, rather than in control of, events and technologies. Blown to Bits: Peril and Promise of the Digital Explosion is a remarkable and essential Rosetta Stone for beginning to figure out how all of the pieces of the new world we have just begun to enter – law, technology, culture, information – are going to fit together. Will life explode with new possibilities, or contract under pressure of new horrors? The precipice is both exhilarating and frightening. Hal Abelson, Ken Ledeen, and Harry Lewis, together, have ably managed to describe the elephant. Readers of this compact book describing the beginning stages of a vast human adventure will be one jump ahead, for they will have a framework on which to hang new pieces that will continue to appear with remarkable speed. To say that this is a “must read” sounds trite, but, this time, it’s absolutely true.
— Harvey Silverglate, Criminal defense and civil liberties lawyer and writer
Regardless of your experience with computers, Blown to Bits, provides a uniquely entertaining and informative perspective from the computing industries greatest minds.
A fascinating, insightful and entertaining book that helps you understand computers and their impact on the world in a whole new way.
This a rare book that explains the impact of the digital explosion in a way that everyone can understand and, at the same time, challenges experts to think in new ways.
— Anne Margulies, Assistant Secretary for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
“Bits” is fun and fundamental. What a pleasure to see real teachers offering such excellent framework for students in a digital age to explore and understand their digital environment, code and law, starting with the insight of Caude Shannon. I look forward to you teaching in an open online school.
— Professor Charles Nesson, Harvard Law School, Founder, Berkman Center for Internet and Society
This book gives an overview of the kinds of issues confronting society as we become increasingly dependent on the Internet and the World Wide Web. Every informed citizen should read this book and then form their own opinion on these and related issues.¬† And after reading this book you will rethink how (and even whether) you use the Web to form your opinions….
— James S. Miller, Senior Director for Technology Policy and Strategy, Microsoft Corporation