0936653744.rev 990119
"Cyber Crime, How to Protect Yourself from Computer Criminals",
Laura E. Quarantiello, 0-936653-74-4, U$16.95
%A Laura E. Quarantiello
%C P.O. Box 493, Lake Geneva, WI 53147
%D 1996
%E n/a
%G 0-936653-74-4
%I Tiare Publications/Limelight Books
%O U$16.95
%P 141 p.
%T "Cyber Crime, How to Protect Yourself from Computer Criminals"
Part One:
Chapter One - 'Terrorism On Line: Inside Comptuer Crime': Chapter one
opens with defining computer crime, and does a decent (and fair) job of
defining why hackers hack. "In the end, it all comes down to one of those
six reasons."
Chapter Two - 'Computer Criminals and their Crimes: Digital Outlaws':
Starting out with 'phreaking', the author gives a brief history of hackers
and the phone systems. Unfortunately, a serious lack of research shines
through in this chapter, where a list of "phreaker boxes" is quoted. It
has been well established that a majority of these boxes never worked, and
were litle more than wishful thinking by hackers with little knowledge of
the phone system. The rest of the chapter delves into different aspects of
hacking and how hackers evolved.
Chapter Three - 'Cyber-Sneezes: Viruses': As with most computer security
books, this is the token chapter on computer Viruses.
Chapter Four - 'The Darkest Side to Computer Crime: Threats to Your
Personal Safety and Property': Chapter four begins by giving contrast
between crime and virtual crime. One admirable feature is the
clarification that not all online pedestrians will be mugged by
cybercriminals. Unfortunately, a good portion of the chapter deals with
'stalking', pornography, and child pornography, which seems out of place
in contrast with other sections.
Part Two:
Chapter Five - 'Cyber Security: Foiling Computer Criminals and Staying
Safe': This chapter suffers the problem of trying to squeeze too much
information into a small place. Writing about how to secure your systems
should take books. Starting out with the idea of 'weak links', they
abruptly end after two and move into other non-numbered categories. While
a decent effort, it brings its failure upon itself by trying.
Chapter Six - 'Cyber-Cops: Walking the Digital Beat': Much to the dismay
of law enforcement, this chapter paints a relatively accurate picture of
the state of comptuer crime and law enforcement's ability to deal with it.
(Considering when the book was written). Toward the end of the section,
contact info for CERT and the advice to call the FBI is given. The exact
organizations the author found lacking.
Overview: For a 100 page, 1 hour read, this book does a better than
average job of portraying computer crime. Despite the handful of errors,
the author gives a fair overview of computer crime, hackers, and law
enforcement.
review: jericho@dimensional.com
-o-
Subscribe: mail majordomo@repsec.com with "subscribe isn".
Today's ISN Sponsor: Internet Security Institute [www.isi-sec.com]
Received on Thu Mar 11 17:06:25 1999