I was severely disappointed in this book. From the title of the book I guessed that this book was about how to protect your computer from being spied upon, e.g. by Internet spy ware etc. This is not the case, the book is basically about how to spy upon other people in your household, how to spy upon their internet use, what email they type, what messages they send with various instant messaging services. These other people can either use the home computer, or use their own laptop or computer on the home network. This book was like reading Marie Claire, and not technical at all. It was about how you could suspect your spouse having an extra-marital affair, or how you could suspect your child of drug abuse etc. An indication of the Marie Claire style of the book is the many examples like "Between their junior and senior year Greg confessed his love and proposed to Camille. She accepted...."

The book explains various ways how you could read someone's emails without him knowing, if you know his password, how to guess his password, how people use the same login for various accounts. To indicate the technical level of this book: chapter three of the book explains what a directory and a file are. The book talks about various software tools like keystroke loggers and sniffers, how to remove programs from the start menu or uninstall list by editing the registry, how to cover your spying. Playing around with the registry editor does not seem to be a good idea to me if you have only as little technical knowledge as the book assumes. Chapter 10 (Advanced Techniques) explains what ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) spoofing is, possibly un-understandable by a non-technical reader.