BKNTSPNG.RVW   20001120

"Netspionage: The Global Threat to Information", William Boni/Gerald
L. Kovacich, 2000, 0-7506-7257-9
%A   William Boni
%A   Gerald L. Kovacich www.shockwavewriters.com
%C   225 Wildwood Street, Woburn, MA  01801
%D   2000
%G   0-7506-7257-9
%I   Butterworth-Heinemann/CRC Press/Digital Press
%O   800-366-BOOK fax 617-933-6333 800-446-6520 liz.mccarthy@repp.com
%P   260 p.
%T   "Netspionage: The Global Threat to Information"

In the preface, the authors state that this book is different from all
the others because it points out that the Internet can make it easy
and cheap to steal information.  While this fact may be new to Boni
and Kovacich, it shouldn't come as a big surprise to many other
people.  The preface also states that this text will teach you how to
filch data from other people, and then closes by hoping that the work
will ensure the security of Internet use.  (We are also told that the
book is based on seminars that the authors give, which probably
explains a large number of illustrations that don't explain anything.)

Part one seems to want to be a kind of historical perspective on the
factors creating the current situation.  Chapter one lets us in on the
fact that lots of people are fighting with and spying on each other. 
Computers and high technology have been invented and are being used,
according to chapter two.  The analysis of the Internet's potential
for criminal misuse, in chapter three, is slightly less simplistic,
but fails to provide anything like a full picture.  Chapter four is a
rather mixed bag, stating that information is important, that there is
a "new world order," and that e-business exists.  A lot of space is
devoted to definitions of espionage, and how it used to be done, in
chapter five, but the book does finally start to mention some random
points on data security at this point.

Part two is probably supposed to be the "how to" section of the book. 
Chapter six dives back into the dictionaries but fails to give a solid
definition of "competitive intelligence."  The only actual examples of
information gathering in chapter seven involve the use of phone books
and trash, not the net.  A few actual espionage tools, a number of
useful tools that a spy might conceivably also want to use, and a lot
of insistence that netspionage is possible makes up chapter eight. 
Chapter nine briefly describes some alleged and some prosecuted cases
of espionage, but details are almost non-existent.

Part three talks about protection against espionage.  Chapter ten
presents a very basic outline for starting discussion of data security
issues.  Chapter eleven goes slightly further in assessing risks and
threats.  The suggestion to undertake retaliation and vigilante
action, tentatively though it is made in chapter twelve, is a really
stupid idea.

Not content with the usual short bit of blueskying, part four looks to
the imaginary future.  Chapters thirteen through seventeen take
fanciful looks at the future of technology, business, espionage,
government, and everything.

This is yet another shrill voice crying in the marketplace and telling
us what we already knew.  It lacks detail, analysis, reality, and even
an identifiable central theme.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 2000   BKNTSPNG.RVW   20001120