Cyberwars

By Jean Guisnel

Book Overview

To some a brand-new forum for the freedom of speech, the Internet is also the most up-to-date way to gather intelligence. Brilliant hackers like Kevin Mitnik--modern-day "pirates"--pose real security threats to government and industry. Cyberwars explores a dangerous new world where international terrorists plot their attacks and are tracked by secret service organizations on-line, drug traffickers do business and launder money, and electronic economic espionage is the order of the day. Examining efforts to police on-line communication and content, Guisnel assesses the implications of pervasive surveillance for the inherently democratic medium of the Internet. As these issues are the focus of ongoing debates in government and the private sector, Cyberwars couldn't be more timely.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738202606
• ISBN13: 9780738202600
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.5" x 5.4"

Customer Reviews

D & M book review of CYBERWARS-ESPIONAGE ON The Internet

Cyberwars: Espionage on the Internet. By Jean Guisnel; published by Plenum Publishing, 800/221-9369 (phone), 212/647-1898 (fax); 296 pages; $26.95. In the recent flood of cyberspace publications, this book at best adds a mere trickle to the literature. While the author presents some interesting perspectives on United States­French competition in industrial espionage (in fact, the book is translated into English from French), the faulty technical details present throughout ultimately sink this effort. The author's disconnect with technology stands out in his discussion of the Clipper chip, which is now installed in most standalone voice encryptors sold in the United States--but in few other applications. The author contends that the National Security Agency proposes to add the chip to every telephone manufactured in the United States. This statement is both illogical and wrong. Analog phones, which can't take chips, continue to be widely manufactured because they are far more affordable than digital phones. Moreover, digital phones are generally hooked to analog lines and don't use encryption. Thus, installing Clipper in all phones makes no sense. The author even confuses commonly known security details. In a discussion of phone phreaking, for example, he claims that the publication titled 2600 was named after the frequency generated by a quarter as it plunks into the slot in a pay phone. In fact, the publication's title derives from the frequency in hertz of a supervisory tone used to bypass toll equipment. And in places the book lapses from a balanced discussion into political commentary. For example, after criticizing filtering programs that block access to pornographic and other objectionable Web sites, the author states that "The fun for those who devote themselves to censorship is the daily discovery of new sites that they can condemn and prohibit." Instead of providing new material, this book is essentially a collection of accounts of computer intrusions previously published in newspapers. Security managers seeking a digest of hacking articles might find some value in this book, but it is not recommended for serious practitioners. Reviewer: Gordon Mitchell, Ph.D., manages Future Focus, a Seattle-area company that gathers clues from hard disks for commercial clients. He is a member of ASIS. D & M company for scientific research