[107452] in Cypherpunks
SIMSON SAYS: BOOKS
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Thu Jan 14 13:12:25 1999
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 12:10:49 -0500
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Reply-To: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
Simpson surrenders to Dorothy...
Cheers,
Robert Hettinga
--- begin forwarded text
From: "Simson L. Garfinkel" <simsong@vineyard.net>
To: "simson-says" <simson-says@vineyard.net>
Subject: SIMSON SAYS: BOOKS
Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 10:02:20 -0500
Sender: owner-simson-says@vineyard.net
Reply-To: simsong@acm.org
PLUGGED IN
Looking back at cyberspace
A number of recent books shed different light on the birth of the Interne=
t
By Simson L. Garfinkel, 01/14/99
History books about the birth of cyberspace and the gestation of the
Internet have proved quite popular lately. Computers are rapidly changing
the world around us, and with the coming of the next century there is alm=
ost
as much impulse to turn and look back as there is to look forward.
But late last year a different kind of history was published by Basic Boo=
ks.
Called ''Extra Life: Coming of Age in Cyberspace,'' this book is a
startlingly personal and moving account of what it was like in the late
1970s and 1980s to grow up with the new technology.
In this short book, David Bennahum packs in details of his early experien=
ces
with computer games (hence the title), software piracy, and drugs. He
explains why kids like himself, who saw themselves as outsiders, found
solace among their machines and eventually friendship in the extended
computer family. Bennahum, who now writes for Wired magazine, does much t=
o
shatter the Generation-X myth that portrayed him and those his age as
troubled teens and and slacker young adults.
Bennahum spent years working on ''Extra Life,'' and it has taken a lot of
twists and turns. For several years now Bennahum has been sharing this
journey with nearly 5,000 readers through his free Internet mailing list,
MEME. He's also created the Community Memory mailing list, for discussion=
s
on the history of cyberspace.
Information on both of these mailing lists, their archives, and details o=
n
how to join them, are available on Bennahum's Web site (www.memex.org).
There you will also find something quite rare: the full text of Bennahum'=
s
interviews with such luminaries as Nicholas Negroponte, James Gosling,
Richard Stallman, and Jon Postel.
A very different history of the last two decades of cyberspace can be fou=
nd
in Dorothy E. Denning's ''Information Warfare and Security,'' published l=
ast
month by Addison Wesley. Denning, a professor at Georgetown University, h=
as
long been a leader in computer security, but she made a name for herself =
in
the lay press in the 1980s when she tracked down, interviewed, and wrote
very sympathetic scholarly articles about young computer attackers. A sho=
rt
time later Denning hooked up with the FBI, where she learned a good deal
about the darker side of computer espionage and information warfare.
In recent years, Denning is probably best known as the leading academic t=
o
favor regulation of encryption technology. For this reason, many people h=
ad
feared that a book by Denning on ''information warfare'' would be a long
polemic in favor of increased government controls over technology and the
need to sacrifice civil liberties to national defense.
Thankfully, ''Information Warfare and Security'' is nothing of the sort.
Instead, it's a balanced presentation of computer security issues, from
computer viruses and insider threats to the possibility of disruption or
manipulation of the stock market. But unlike other authors, who mostly tr=
y
to scare the reader into taking the threat seriously, Denning instead loo=
ks
at many of the claims made by information warfare enthusiasts to see if t=
hey
actually hold up.
For example, on Jan. 10, 1992, ABC's ''Nightline'' aired a story about a
hostile computer virus that the Central Intelligence Agency had introduce=
d
into Iraq shortly before the start of the Gulf War, after US News & World
Report had run a story on the same subject. Allegedly the virus had been
sent to Iraq in an infected printer. Although a lot of computer scientist=
s
disbelieved the story, it was nevertheless reported as fact by many
publications.
But in the first chapter of her book, Denning shows convincingly how this
story originated in an April 1, 1991, column that John Gantz had written =
for
InfoWorld, a computer trade newspaper. Apparently the story had first bee=
n
translated into Japanese, where the significance of the April 1 date was =
not
appreciated, and then retranslated into English by a foreign corresponden=
t.
For a more in-depth look at the criminal mind, I'd recommend Donn B.
Parker's ''Fighting Computer Crime,'' published by Wiley. Parker has spen=
t
more than 30 years tracking down computer criminals and solving high-tech
crimes; this book is actually a revised edition of a book published with =
the
same title in 1983.
Because of his age and experience, Parker is one of the few experts who
writes authoritatively about crimes involving mainframes and banks. The b=
ook
also has a good amount of common-sense advice - for example, why you migh=
t
want to write down your computer passwords, despite warnings not to do so=
,
and how to keep these written passwords from being compromised.
Besides simply surveying the landscape, ''Fighting Computer Crime'' also
presents a new framework for information security. While some
security-minded managers might find this the most relevant part of the bo=
ok,
because it gives concrete policies that an organization can implement, I
found it a bit drawn out.
A book with considerably more technical leanings is Eric Greenberg's
''Network Application Frameworks: Design and Architecture.'' This book, a=
lso
published by Addison Wesley, gives a good overview of the Internet's
plumbing. If you ever wondered what bytes make up a TCP/IP header but did=
n't
have time to read the Internet RFCs, this is the book for you. If you don=
't
have any idea what my previous sentence means, then there are probably
better books for you to consider.
Bennahum's book is priced at a reasonable $23 list, and is available at 3=
0
percent off at many stores. Both the Denning and Parker books are $34.95,
and you'll be hard-pressed to find them discounted. Meanwhile, ''Network
Application Frameworks'' is $49.95.
Since authors like Greenberg or Denning typically only see a few dollars =
for
each book sold, I wonder how much longer these high-priced, paper-based
intellectual property delivery systems are going to be a part of our worl=
d.
Technology writer Simson L. Garfinkel can be reached at
plugged-in@simson.net.
This story ran on page C04 of the Boston Globe on 01/14/99.
=A9 Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.
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This message (C) Simson L. Garfinkel. .
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--- end forwarded text
-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
