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Black Hat
Biggs is a technical journalist with more than seven years of real-world IT experience (programming and management), and he handles complex topics on the page in a fun, easy to understand manner. The book begins with the tale of a hapless spam victim in Germany, and moves on to introduce us to Alan Ralsky, the "spam king of Detroit."
Ralsky describes himself as an honorable marketing professional, but a Detroit Free Press article in November of 2002 pointed out that his computers vomit out more than 650,000 emails each hour. While his label of spammer or marketer may be debatable, there's no question about his efficiency. From the interview with Ralsky, Biggs moves into telling the story of his own struggle with spam. The discussion then turns to various relevant legal and social issues, and this shift is a hallmark of the book's positive qualities.
Black Hat effortlessly moves from straightforward factual reporting to first-person narratives to social and political commentary. The factual sections are just-the-facts-ma'am-reporting that would seem at home in any newspaper or technical journal. The first-person narrative sections are funny and reassuring. For leery technophobes like me, it's nice to know the experts struggle with many of the same computer bugaboos that plague me. The political and social commentary sections succinctly explain legal and cultural influences that shape the world of the internet today.
A good example of the political commentary is the chapter entitled "Upload or Perish: Pirates." As an aspiring author myself, I've always found myself believing that "sharing" intellectual property was inherently wrong. So I chose not to use Napster or Kazaa or the other options and totally agreed with efforts to prosecute active Napster users. But in this chapter, Biggs points out the misguided attempts of the industry by targeting the wrong people in their fight against sharing and piracy. In Eastern Europe and China, there are CD-pressing factories spewing out thousands of copies, complete with jewel case, printed insert, and full-color printing that are almost impossible to distinguish from the real product.
Biggs writes: "BMG Music representative Rob Anderson told me that many of the pirates have better CD and DVD reproducing equipment than even the large, official distributors." The discussion of industry actions targeting the wrong people continues with "Record companies can sue as many 12-year-olds as they want...but the equation will always be the same: piracy cannot be stopped." Detailed explanations of key landmark piracy lawsuits follow and the chapter ends with Biggs providing some suggestions for how the industry can help themselves in more effective ways, rather than attacking kids with home computers and a Jones for Metallica. Quite simply, he states the industry should use the technology to effectively deliver their product, at a reasonable cost, to the consumer. If listeners are going to share files, then the industry should harness the technology instead of stomping their feet and demanding that teenagers continue to trek down to the local mall and spend twenty dollars on a CD that may only have one or two good songs.
Personally, I'm still not sure that I believe in file sharing. Just because something isn't tangible (it's music or it's words or it's code) doesn't mean someone didn't work hard for it and invest in it. But Biggs' illuminating discussion certainly made me see how the industry has mismanaged their very lifeblood. I may not be file sharing anytime soon, but I won't be part of the angry mob hunting down file sharers any longer.
In Black Hat, Biggs manages to clearly explain certain technical aspects of spam, viruses, and other internet parasites. For instance, we've all seen that pile of gibberish at beginning of spam e-mails and Biggs explicates that mess in a way that anyone can understand. Like those rare moments in high-school English class when the teacher explains a poem that you always thought was unintelligible garbage, and the light goes on, and suddenly that long-haired Brit makes sense -- after reading Black Hat, I now understand much of what was to me only gibberish before.
In the chapter entitled "Shockwave: Worms and Viruses," Biggs dissects a simple, working worm. The worm was written by 16-year-old in Austria named Second Part to Hell with a taste for programming to White Zombie. Biggs interviews the worm writer and delves into the world of programmers he likens to sword makers, steeped in art and tradition. They do not include any dangerous payloads in their worms, but the possibility that someone could use the worm for malevolence isn't their concern, any more than the sword maker worries about how the weapon is being used. The dissection of Second Part to Hell's worm begins by actually showing the PHP web-programming code. Biggs then walks through each section, explaining how the worm selects which files to infect, creates a copy of itself, and processes its code to spread, and finally appends itself to the top of each file so it can seek out new victims.
The book goes on to discuss Nigerian 419 scammers, malicious virus writers, hacking legends like Lord Digital, spyware, and ultimately what a user can do to protect their computer and data. Entertaining and educational, Black Hat was a valuable read to a non-technical person like me. Best of all, John Biggs' suggestions for protecting my computer against the frightening aspects of the internet have made my cyber activities more comfortable and secure.
You can purchase Black Hat: Misfits, Criminals, and Scammers in the Internet Age from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Those assassination threats are real. Be sure to do as you are told.
When I get an unexpected e-mail, I'm sure it's from some identity theft villain full of virtual lock picks just dying to snatch all my private information.
Because going through life in perpetual fear is always the best way to deal with it.
If you are afraid of something, learn about it. If it doesn't make the fear go away, at least you can learn how to minimize the threat.
I am just curious cause I've been looking for something like this to explain to my parents, both of whom are self-described computer-stupid, and are in need of such knowledge due to some past issues. They're the type of people who might use the acronym CPU and mean a hard drive, if you know what I mean, when describing computer problems. Is this something I could give to them and they'd understand, or is this something I give to someone who's already has a technical understanding of computers?
"What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
If you are afraid of something, learn about it.
Um, that's probably the reason the reviewer bought the book.
Okay, you've admitted that you're not technically competent, but now you're claiming that the book is providing you with "more than enough information about how to protect my vulnerable computer"??? How do YOU know? Just because you're paranoid (which is good in this case) doesn't make you competent enough to judge the merits of this text. On the other hand, it just might be a good one.
Just another day in Paradise
No shame in the For Dummies series brother or sister. A few grace my shelves also. I find them useful when you dont need to sift through tons of BS to get to what you want.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
It's good to post it because we all know someone who could use a book like this.
My mother-in-law, brother-in-law and wife who like to download libraries of "little smilies" from banner ads, chocked full of spyware, who don't understand attachments and their danger are prime examples.
I can explain it till I'm blue in the face, but all I get is a blank stare. A professional writer, with a sense of humour, might be able to get through to them.
Uh... so?
Should we just sugarcoat everything?
"Oh no, sir, if you choose our information superhighway services you don't run into red, gaping, dilated anuses or any other similar pictures that would scar and twist your and your childrens' fragile little minds forever. No, we don't have identity theft even if you splash you credit card number around the net. We promise you won't receive 200 penis enlargement spams per day, numerous 419 scams on a daily basis or viruses and porn dialers to spice up your internet experience. Bestiality, child porn, liberal ideas, fisting, chix-with-dix? What are you talking about, sir? Oh no, sir. We are here to simply provide you and your family with good, clean, christian family entertainment on the information superhighway".
The owls are not what they seem
What I lack in fighting skills, I more than make up for in fear of walking down the street.
What I lack in investment banking skills, I more than make up for in fear of opening a savings account.
What I lack in driving skills, I more than make up for in apprehension about driving on the road.
This has got to be an all time low for Slashdot.... this guy basically started out by stating that he wasn't qualified to write the following review, but he did it anyway.... lovely. Does this mean if I review the next release of an Apple OS I can qualify it by saying I know almost nothing about Apple systems and Slashdot's editors will post it?
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Personally, I'm still not sure that I believe in file sharing. Just because something isn't tangible (it's music or it's words or it's code) doesn't mean someone didn't work hard for it and invest in it.
I believe the growth of intangibles in our society will require a cultural/corporate paradigm shift. As much as we'd like to believe otherwise, the amount of effort we exert is not the only factor which determines our effort's worth. Supply and Demand.
The proliferation of books and music has traditionally be limited by access and the physical space they take up amongst your personal belongings (unless you go to your Library - Does anyone know if there have been similar historical issues with brick and mortar libraries?). The internet has become a digital library with no return date but, current laws make this illegal.
Here's an idea... How about instead of creating wrapper technologies which block sharing songs, books, and code, all are freely available but wraped in technologies which allow for easy donation to the effort's creator? An encoder which integrates certificates and paypal. I got nothing against middle (wo)men... they can maintain the servers. I can't imagine that this doesn't exist somewhere already...
Michalangelo Progr
Perhaps this is a touch offtopic, but I think this is a very misunderstood attack strategy on the part of the RIAA and there are quite a few people who seem not to understand it. Not understanding things technical is the point of this thread. =) If I've misrepresented something, someone ought to tell me.
The point of "attacking uploaders" is that people in a P2P network are essentially selfish. So long as they can get their own content, most parties in the network derive no benefit from uploading to others. People are much more likely to "stop uploading" than they are to "stop downloading" because of this. Instead of attacking people where it matters (Stop getting things for free!), the RIAA strategy works by cutting off the supply (Stop this annoying service that eats up your bandwith and doesn't provide you any benefit).
The problem, of course, is that if *everyone* stops sharing, the P2P network ceases to exist, and if a large enough majority stops sharing, the network becomes bogged down by bandwith issues (because the only way to operate a truly efficient network is to have truly distributed bandwith).
Essentially, the "Stop Uploading" attack has little to do with the fact that the RIAA places some sort of greater moral or legal weight on actually copying a file for someone else. Instead, it's a clever, underhanded way of attacking a P2P network designed to fly under the radar of most pseudo-techies operating nodes.
If you're interested in that stuff, I guess it might be worth checking out.