BKBOTISH.RVW 960314 "Bandits on the Information Superhighway", Daniel J. Barrett, 1996, 1-56592- 156-9, U$17.95/C$26.95 %A Daniel J. Barrett dbarrett@ora.com %C 103 Morris Street, Suite A, Sebastopol, CA 95472 %D 1996 %G 1-56592-156-9 %I O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. %O U$17.95/C$26.95 800-998-9938 707-829-0515 fax: 707-829-0104 nuts@ora.com %P 246 %S What You Need to Know %T "Bandits on the Information Superhighway" I would recommend this book to Internet newcomers. Having started the review on a positive note, let me go on to say that, when I first read it, I was very disappointed. My dissatisfaction stemmed more from expectations created by the title than from any fault of the book. Dan Barrett responded to my initial review in significant, and useful, detail, and this review has been completely rewritten in light of what he said. Barrett discusses a variety of frauds, ripoffs and problems perpetrated on the net, concentrating on the most common. (There is, for example, little discussion of interception of information from valid commercial transactions.) There is also material on more personal violations, such as invasion of privacy, spamming, danger to children, and the difficulty of identifying just plain, nasty people. Barrett starts out by stating that the presentation of the net in the popular media as a pit of pornographic, hacking pedophiles is incorrect. He then goes on to present what he sees as more frequent troubles. While his assessment matches my own experience, the almost unrelieved litany of woeful tales tends to reinforce an equally negative view. While prophylactic pointers are dispersed throughout the book, they tend to rely on individual judgement. (As in: good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.) Hard and fast "do this, log that" rules are left for the second last chapter of the book; on what to do after you have been hurt. Taken as a whole, the protective advice tends to be merely common sense or the received wisdom. (There is, for example, the repeated advice to check businesses out with the Better Business Bureau. Defrauded consumers may be startled to find how limited that help can be.) A significant amount of the material in the book does not deal with banditry as much as unpleasantness. Pranks, hoaxes, urban legends, trolls, flames, spamming and net romance cybersleazes are not illegal, though they can be very hurtful. Barrett's aim, therefore, is not to discuss the more sensational aspects that the title might suggest, but the more common, day to day, problems which users see all the time. Still you have to have been online for a time to see them, and the objective here is to alert new users to those predicaments before they have to learn about them through (often painful) experience. The doubling of the Internet user population in size each year means that, at any given time, half of the total number have been online for less than a year. In addition, the increasing number of "low volume" users means that many people can be on the net for several years before amassing any significant net experience. For newcomers to the net, this book at the very least provides information on the most common net problems. Those with more experience are unlikely to find anything new since the material tends to be cultural, rather than technical, in nature. However, seasoned Internauts can welcome the book since educated newcomers are less likely to get into trouble and to cause it. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1996 BKBOTISH.RVW 960314 ============== _________________________ Vancouver ROBERTS@decus.ca | | |\^/| | | swiped Institute for Rob_Slade@mindlink.bc.ca| | _|\| |/|_ | | from Research into rslade@vcn.bc.ca | | > < | | Alan User rslade@vanisl.decus.ca | | >_./|\._< | | Tai Security Canada V7K 2G6 |____|_______^_______|____|