Steal This Computer Book 3

Peter Wayner writes: "If you're looking for a quick way to test the difference between reading text online and reading it in a book, turn to Steal This Computer Book 3 by Wallace Wang, the third edition of a popular series that promises to tell you 'what they won't tell you about the Internet.' All of the information in the book can be gathered from Google for free, but the crisp writing, clean presentation and printed format make the book a good deal. It's possible to curl up in a chair out of WiFi range and cruise the best parts of the Internet without leaving a trail of cookies." Read on below for the rest of Peter's review -- it's free! Steal This Computer Book 3 author Wallace Wang pages 358 publisher No Starch Press rating 9 reviewer Peter Wayner ISBN 1593270003 summary An irreverant

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.

Comments

A true statement

[DigitalNinja7]

"All of the information in the book can be gathered from Google for free" I think that line just about covers all non-fiction (and some fictional) books out there. Google is king, in my mind.

Re:A true statement

[Anonymous Coward]

If such books and magazines are in a computer archive somewhere they're diked off from the internet (a growing phenomenom as more and more people realize that not only is their information valuable, their information is the only thing of value they have to exchange)

I realize this is a little off topic, but I'd like to point out that people who try to make their information private and proprietary and earn money from it are ultimately going to "lose" to those who make it freely available and easily found.

Here's an example: In the old days, mathematicians would come up with clever ways of solving problems, and they wouldn't tell anyone how they did it. They'd go around giving little demonstrations, kinda be like circus acts for the intellectuals. But eventually some of these mathematicians started publishing their techniques, and lo-and-behold, those were the ones who were ultimately given credit. The community realized that the sharing and distribution of knowledge was important if they were to prosper, and the ones who shared were writ into the history books while those who didn't faded into obscurity.

In the long run I suspect the same thing will happen with all information. Freely available information just too valuable to mankind as a whole. Locking up information and charging for access is doomed to failure, and those who publish in closed forums will eventually see credit for thier ideas and accomplishments given to those who publish into the public domain. And as long as there are those who see immortality and recognition as more rewarding than temporary financial gain, the latter group will never become extinct.

The Hoffman book only cost a buck, ok?

[kfg]

It wasn't, like, any big deal to lay down a buck, maybe at that cool head shop you liked to support anyway. Made my buck back the first day using its dumpster diving tips. All in all it was a good investment.

Besides, you've got it inside out. The joke was on the proles in the traditional capitalist business mode. They actually bought the rights to, printed and distributed a book that admonished you to steal it, right on the cover ( and even explained that the "artist" would get his cut even if you did. That was part of the subversion. It has modern repurcussions. Download an ebook off Kazaa, go to the Federal pen for 20 years and get a quarter million dollar fine while screwing the artist. STEAL a book and it's only petty larceny. Probation at most if it's your first offense; and the artist gets payed for it! Support your favorite "content producer" and stick it to the man at the same time. Steal books and CDs. Do It! Abbie and Jerry live, man! Free Attica!)

Oh, sorry, I got sidetracked. Flashback. That brown acid was apparently some bad shit.

Anyway, I treasured Steal This Book and I'm not all ashamed that I payed for it, nor was I in any way a "prole" for having done so. I wish I still had my copy. I would, except ( are you ready for it?). . .

Someone stole it. Really.

KFG

Re:Memo to the RIAA

[b!arg]

I vaguely remember a concept in economics (or I could just be making it up, that class was a long time ago) that said something to the effect that the "fair price" for a given item is something like the retail price minus the the value of the stolen amount. Essentially, how much revenue has that product brought in and then divide that by the number of copies that have been bought and stolen.

Sure Sony has sold 10,000,000 copies of Britney's latest album at $20/CD (for easy math), but there are 5,00,000 more copies that have been burned for friends, downloaded from Kazaa and shoplifted from CD stores. $200,000,000 in revenue divded by 15,000,000 copies. The "fair price" would be $13 and change. Perhaps this theory is completely baseless and wrong, but I like it. :)

Steal This.......

[Dredd2Kad]

....I wouldn't even take this crap again if it were handed to me. I bought his first "Steal This" book because it was marked down to $2. I thought it might e an interesting read. Well, I soon found out it wasn't

I couldn't even give that chunk of dung away to the used book store for free.

The book was full of information like this..and this is almost a direct quote:

"If you want to hack a box, get an admin password with root access" And that was it on that subject.

The book also advocated the use of mail-bomb tools and the like to get even with people that spammed you or sent you porn from if you happened to be on an AOL network.

It was complete crap.....