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This
page
draws on the growing although generally superficial literature about
'cyber-crime' and the 'hackers from hell', much of it fed by the need to
sell particular technology products or newspapers.
From the range of material we have singled out a few of the more
provocative or useful items:
primers
The Hundredth Window: Protecting
Your Privacy and Security in the Age of the Internet (New York,
Free Press 00) by Charles Jennings & Lori Fena is a crisp overview
of dangers and what you can do about them. The authors were
among the founders of industry group TRUSTe;
Fena is currently president of the Electronic Frontiers Foundation (EFF).
Secrets & Lies: Digital
Security In A Networked World (New York, Wiley 00) by Bruce
Schneier is an engaging, clearly-written introduction to security
mechanisms, policies and risk assessment. It's strongly recommended.
Schneier is a leader thinker about network security; his Applied
Cryptography: Protocols, Algorithms and Source Code in C (New
York, Wiley 95) is a detailed primer.
Trust & Risk In Internet
Commerce (Cambridge, MIT Press 00) by L Jean Camp is a useful
study of perceptions of risk online, regulatory frameworks and
technologies such as encryption. Like Schneier's Secrets it's
an essential read. We recommend reading in conjunction with
Joseph Reagle's thesis, identified on the preceding page
of this guide.
Risky Business - Protect Your Business From Being Stalked,
Conned or Blackmailed on the Web (New York, Wiley 98) is a
plain-English overview by Daniel Janal of Upside
magazine.
We are impressed by Hacking Exposed (New York,
McGraw-Hill 99) from Stuart McClure, Joel Scrambray & George Kurtz
and by Dieter Gollmann's Computer Security (New York, Wiley
99).
the digital apocalypse
Cyberwars: Espionage on the
Internet (Cambridge, Perseus 99) by Jean Guisnel is another
call-to-arms by a science journalist with links to the French
intelligence community.
All very exciting, but you might get more
value from the Web Security Handbook (New York, Wiley 97) by Avi
Rubin, Dan Geer & Marcus Ranum. Ranum's site
is of value. Netspionage: The Global Threats To Information
(London, Butterworth 00) by William Boni & Gerald Kovacich is a
slightly less breathless version of Guisnel.
Peter
Grabosky & Russell Smith's Crime in the Digital
Age: Controlling Telecommunications & Cyberspace
Illegalities (New Brunswick, Transaction 98)
considers theft of services, information piracy,
extortion, electronic money laundering, fraud and other
crimes. There's a more succinct statement in Peter Grabosky's
paper
on Computer Crime: A Criminological Overview.
memoirs & exposes
The Cuckoo's Egg (New York,
Doubleday 93) by Clifford Stoll (author of
Silicon
Snake Oil), a tale of digital derring-do in which Berkeley
astronomer - with a little help from spooks and the police - tracked
down a cyber criminal.
Tangled Web: Tales of Digital Crime From The
Shadows of Cyberspace (Indianapolis, QUE 00) by Richard Power is a
mix of journalitic anecdotes, hard facts and common sense. In contrast
Paul Taylor's Hackers: Crime in the Digital Sublime (London,
Routledge 99) is a rigorous study drawing on interviews
with hackers, security personnel and others.
The Fugitive Game and The Watchman by Jonathan
Littman (both published by Little Brown) are a journalist's account of
Kevin Mitnick and other hackers. Mike Godwin's Cyber Rights:
Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age (New York, Times 98) is
a useful corrective to much of the contemporary media hysteria.
Katherine Tarbox's Katie.com: My
Story (New York, Dutton 00) is a recent contender for 'digital
stranger danger' stardom. The unhappy Ms Tarbox was lured into
unpleasantness by a creep she met on the internet. We're less
impressed by the potential of the web for digital molestation -
virtual or otherwise - and more by an environment that didn't care for
the child.
Julian Dibbell's account of misbehaviour by MUD and MOO
players My Tiny Life: Crime & Passion In A Virtual World
(London, 4th Edition 99) is engagingly written but frankly silly: turn
off the PC, go outside, breathe the fresh air and get a life (of the
non-virtual kind).
Indra Sinha's vapid memoir The Cybergypsies:
A True Tale of Lust, War & Betrayal on the Electronic Frontier
(New York, Viking 99) is forgettable, as is Suelette Dreyfus' Underground:
Tales of Hacking, Madness & Obsession on the Electronic Frontier (London,
Mandarin 97).
At Large: The Strange Case of the World's Biggest
Internet Invasion (New York, Touchstone 98) by David Freedman
& Charles Mann and Cyberpunk: Outlaws & Hackers on the
Computer Frontier (New York, Touchstone 95) by Katie Hafner &
John Markoff are other accounts - suitably breathless, resolutely
anecdotal - of hacking/cracking.
privacy
Our Privacy guide
includes detailed references for studying online personal
and commercial data protection. Simson Garfinkel's Database Nation: The Death of Privacy in
the 21st Century (Sebastopol, O'Reilly 00) is somewhat overblown but worth
reading.
Warnings of the 'death of privacy'
come in Reg Whitaker's overheated The End of Privacy: How Total
Surveillance Is Becoming A Reality (New York, New Press 99) and Jeffrey
Rosen's The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America
(New York, Random 00).
A view from the academy is provided by public-key wizard Whitfield
Diffie and Susan Landau in Privacy on the Line: The Politics of
Wiretapping and Encryption (Cambridge, MIT Press 99); much better
value.
It's more perceptive than Crypto (New York, Penguin
01) a brief history by Steve Levy built - alas - on the
usual dichotomy of the techno-savvy little guy versus the
big bad forces of darkness. "On one side of the battle were
relative nobodies: computer hackers, academics and wonky
civil libertarians. On the other were some of the most
powerful people in the world: spies, generals and even
presidents. Guess who won?"
Bruce Sterling's The Hacker
Crackdown: Law & Disorder on the Electronic Frontier (New York,
Bantam 93) is provocative and more insightful than Rosen or Whitaker.
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