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Steal This Computer Book 3
The book is a travelog of many of the most interesting or inflammatory corners of the Internet. There are chapters on hacktivism, hate crime, con games, spam, phone phreaking and dozens of other topics. If someone's spent time flaming about it, banning it, subpoenaing it, or demonizing it, there's probably a section on it here. All of the sections come with screen shots and URLs for further digging.
I found reading the book to be an odd pleasure. There was no way to click on the sites or try any of the software without heading for a computer, but that didn't seem to matter. If anything, it was nice to skip over the links and put off heading down alternate paths until later. The more I experience books like this, the more I begin to wonder if there's much in the hyper-fragmented, postmodern view of a narrative built out of multiply forking paths. This book offers one fairly simple arc that carries us through the most talked about corners of the web and it does it fairly gracefully. That's a pleasure unto itself.
The book comes with a rebellious gloss and semiotic history. The title was stolen from Steal This Book a collection of anarchist schemes written by Abbie Hoffman in the 1960s. Despite the title, that book became a bestseller -- offering a glimpse of the longterm prospects for Hoffman's revolution. All of the prole sheep dutifully bought a book filled with bombmaking techniques that promises to show you where "exactly to place the dynamite that will destroy the walls."
Hoffman's book showed that people will buy something they value even when they're told to steal it. The prole sheep intuitively understand that books cost money to create. But maybe that was a different era, before the web existed. This website offers the text even though there are four editions for sale at Amazon. I wonder who holds the rights?
Wang's book is nowhere near as radical or as dangerous. Hoffman wrote sentences like "The purpose of part two is not to fuck the system, but destroy it." Wang generally avoids such antagonistic language and speaks generally about anti-social behavior in the third person: "When hackers use social engineering, they often masquerade as a consultant or temporary worker..."
Much of the book, in fact, is filled with techniques that are presented as tools for protecting your privacy and your personal information. The back cover asks, "Is your computer safe from computer viruses and malicious hackers?" It's only partially aimed at helping people do asocial things on the Net. Helping people protect themselves from the evil hordes is a large part of it. Given that identity theft is a booming business, this edition is practically an anti-crime book.
What does this mean for the this Internet revolution? Will the current file trading yippies overthrow the copyright system? Will file sharing actually become the norm? Or will all of the Napsterites follow the paths of Hoffman's proteges and grow up, have kids, move to the burbs, and start paying for their content? Well, they might if the content is as comfortable as this book in the hands while sitting in a La-Z-Boy recliner. No popup windows. No flash graphics. No registration required. Just pure content. Hmmm.
Peter Wayner is the author of books like Policing Online Games, Translucent Databases and Java RAMBO Manifesto. Please don't steal them. You can purchase Steal This Computer Book 3 from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The Internet has ruined me forever. Ever since I got my ethernet connection in my dorm room, I haven't been able to read anything printed. I think it has something to do with needing higher throughput than anything printed can provide. That, and the fact that a goldfish has a longer attention span than I do.
meh...id rather download the .pdf version from kazaa
With a title like this, no wonder my local bookstore doesn't carry it.
We really don't need a dead-tree edition of the goatse guy, now, do we?
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Wallace Wang wrote Visual Basic 6 For Dummies.
Wait.. did I just say that? On Slashdot?
Oh dear..
1. Instant on, instant off
2. It don't break when you drop it
3. You can take it to the beach
4. You can hide it inside another book to look smart
5. You can hide it inside a porno mag to look cool
6. You can paper the cover
7. You can leave it on a bus seat
8. It never runs out of batteries
9. A rack of them look impressive up against the wall
But, on the other hand:
1. You never get them back when you lend them out
2. If you do, you wish you hadn't
3. You can't search them, so you have to flip back and forwards
4. You can't run them through the Jargonizer to see what the author would have sounded like in Hillbilly
5. You can't print them and give them to someone, saying "hey, look at this cool web page"
6. You can't hyper link to them.
7. You can't cut and paste the good bits to make you look smart on slashdot (like that was difficult!)
But then again,
10. No girl ever fell for you because you were browsing a cool web page
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Don't you mean "we will work on implementing it as soon as we get your name and address from your ISP so we can thank you in person"?
meh...id rather download the .pdf version from kazaa
That would be *copyright infringment* not stealing.
Sheesh, haven't you learned anything on Slashdot?
I sold off my computer last year because I couldn't keep up with all the clicking and damned hyperlinks all over the web. Annoying things they are. Baah.
Instead, I've taken to calling people I know, when I need anything off the interweb. The printouts usually arrive in the mail in a day or two. True, the timelag is high, but my friends're getting better at it everyday.
For a beer or two, these guys usually refresh
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
He said primarily non-fiction. ;)
I'm not drunk, I just have a speech impediment. And a stomach virus. And an inner ear infection.
A friend of mine actually tried to shoplift this book out of Barnes and Noble. The cops got involved, and anyway, things turned out nasty. I think the writers should pay more attention to their titles and avoid misadvertisement that could potentially get the casual browser in trouble.
"This is like saying you were shocked when the end credits rolled after watching The Neverending Story."
Must... resist.. Simpsons... reference...oh to heck with it.
Hutz: Mr. Simpson, this is the most blatant case of fraudulent advertising since my suit against the film, "The Never-Ending Story".
Right!
/. said "If it doesn't exist on Google, then it doesn't exist." And someone even translated that phrase into Latin and made it their sig. If that isn't proof, I don't know what is.
Someone around
Adidas To Bring Back Sneakernet
Voila.
/., the correct spelling is 'walla' or 'wallah'.
Don't you mean 'walla'? Perhaps you forgot how to spell that word properly. On
Enigma
Ah, but could it REALLY be a movie about pirates if it wasn't rated "Arrr"?
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Groucho Marx