BKDTHPRM.RVW   950228
 
"Death in a Promised Land", Robert Andrews, 1993, 0-671-86649-4, U$5.99/C$7.50
%A   Robert Andrews
%C   200 Old Tappan Road, Old Tappan, NJ 07675
%D   1993
%G   0-671-86649-4
%I   Pocket STAR Books/Paramount Publishing
%O   U$5.99/C$7.50
%P   336
%T   "Death in a Promised Land"
 
I was really enjoying this one.  Smarter than the average thriller, well put
together, good mix of fact and fiction, and a nice conspiracy without getting
*too* violent.  Right up until page 263, when they bring in the CIA's top
hacker to crack into the computer of a security company.
 
They got a bunch of brand names right.  But the guy has himself a 686.  (Only
100 MHz, too.)  Security and cracking systems fight it out on graphical screens
with crosshair pointers and concentric circles.  (You can tell the author
thought he'd make a movie sale.)  The security company is tied to Tymnet,
rather than the phone company, because of noise immunity.  (What about multiple
access?)  The security company has never read CERT advisories:  it still has a
"welcome" message on initial contact.  It only requires a password, no account
name.  (The computer is, by the way, a UNIX system.)  A network attack is met
with a barrage of "over fifty megabytes of random binary input".  Fortunately,
our stalwart heroes manage to shunt "most of the garbage off to the optical
storage boxes".  (All of this, by the way, happens within a few seconds.) 
Without a password, the "nerd" still manages to insert a trojanized login
program into the system.  Then, of course, they insert a virus (which doesn't
reproduce), and a trapdoor.
 
None of which is really important, since the computer, and most of the office,
is blown to smithereens, two chapters later.
 
Oh, yes.  And nobody *ever* backed the system up.
 
copyright Robert M. Slade, 1995   BKDTHPRM.RVW   950228

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Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" 0-387-94311-0/3-540-94311-0