Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Review of Anyone You Want Me to Be : A True Story of Sex and Death on the Internet

lens avatar reviewed on + 15 more book reviews


The author tried to paint the internet as a lawless place teeming with criminals at every turn, as if people like John Robinson were the rule rather than the exception. Robinson scoured fetish-related chat rooms, offering jobs and a master/slave relationship. A simple search of the same internet would've revealed Robinson to be a career criminal.

The unintentional comical highlight for me was a wildly inaccurate description of computer forensics: "It's a trade secret.", says the court expert when asked how erased files can be recovered.

I did like how slowly the story moved in the beginning and the reasonable depth of info on victims of this heinous man.

What I took away from this book was how an evil man with an ability to smooth-talk the ladies had his playground enlarged by the internet. He then used laws designed to protect criminals to facilitate killing scores of women before he was captured.