About the Author

Dan Tynan has been writing and editing stories about technology and its discontents for nearly 20 years. During that time he's been an editor in chief and an executive editor, written for more than 40 publications, and taken home a closet full of awards.

As Executive Editor for PC World, Tynan edited a series of articles on Internet privacy that became a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 1999. (They lost to a Good Housekeeping series on colon cancer featuring Katie Couric.) In 2002, he wrote a feature for Popular Science on the future of airport security, part of a 9/11 anniversary issue that was nominated for Best Single Issue. (Scientific American won that one.)

Tynan earned consecutive Maggies from the Western Publications Association for his CNET.com column, Inside @ccess. He's won several Jesse H. Neal National Business Journalism Awards for investigative journalism and privacy-related articles. He's also shared in awards from the American Society of Business Publication Editors, Computer Press Association, and others he can no longer recall.

Tynan has appeared on CNN, CBS, NPR, and a raft of local TV and radio stations, and has been quoted on technology issues in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. His work has appeared in Cargo, CNET.com,Family Circle, InfoWorld, Men's Fitness, Newsweek, Playboy.com, Wired, and a small flotilla of magazines with "PC" or "Computer" in the title. He currently writes the Gadget Freak column for PC World and TechSmart for Attache magazine.

Yet he remains a humble scribe, working for relative peanuts and the fleeting adoration of the book-buying public.

Everything else about him is private.