Steal this Computer Book 4.0 – What They wonÕt Tell You About the Internet
reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad
Author: Wallace Wang No Starch Press (OÕReilly Press) Link: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/1593271050/ Released: May 2006 $30 USD, $39 CND, £22 GBP, 30Û Euro ISBN: 1593271050 Audience — The book offers non-technical readers an insight into what hackers do, and why. It also addresses other privacy and security issues that even should be of interest to all readers be they computer experts or not. Strengths — The book is an excellent offbeat examination of hacking, in its most generic sense. Author Wallace Wang explains, hacking can mean questioning the status quo, looking for your own truths, and never accepting at face value anything authorities say or do. ItÕs not just your computer or the Internet. ItÕs the forces in the world around you ranging from companies trying to seduce you into buying stuff you donÕt need. In addition, governments and agencies around the world trying to control your belief system and ultimately your behavior. Not quite a Brave New World, butÉ Weakness — The book is written in a rambling fashion, and at times, tongue in cheek fashion that it may not appeal to some readers. Where appropriate the instructions in the book were tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.7 Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies. |
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PublisherÕs Overview — This offbeat, non-technical book examines what hackers do, how they do it, and how readers can protect themselves. Informative, irreverent, and entertaining, the completely revised fourth edition of Steal This Computer Book contains new chapters discussing the hacker mentality, lock picking, exploiting Peer-to-Peer file sharing networks, and how people manipulate search engines and pop-up ads. Includes a CD with hundreds of megabytes of hacking and security-related programs that tie-in to each chapter in the book.
Review Introduction
I am always delighted when I open a book and despite having read the publishers come-on, am surprised by the depth and breadth of its content. Although Steal this Computer Book 4.0 (the punctuation is weird) subtitle, its contents covered all sorts of topics I wondered about. What they donÕt tell you about the Internet, this bookÕs subtitle is a real sleeper. Not only is the book focused on the malevolent aspects of owning and using a computer in the age of connectivity, but its silver lining. Wallace Wang shares the means that you the individual can make your voice be heard in ways that werenÕt imaginable when I was growing up in the days when paper and phone lines were the primary means of reaching beyond the range of your voice.
This book is kind of a collage or potpourri of lots of different topics and themes related to our networked lives. How we communicate and nowadays interact with those around us-our networks social and physical, and those who we donÕt notice who at times maliciously make their presence felt. Although these intrusions in our lives are mostly computer or cell phone related, there are other means getting into our privacy against which to protect ourselves. [No not by being paranoid, just by being realistic.] Perhaps the strongest theme is WallaceÕs paradigm that only you can prevent yourself from becoming a victim, mostly. Alas, the title of the book gives no indication of the richness of ideas contained in this book. For that, you must read the introduction and the full table of contents.
Thomas Duff Duffbert notes:
ÒThe central theme of the book is "hacking", but there are areas where the author strays into areas that I've not traditionally put in that category. Getting free stuff like email accounts and blogs? Censoring information? Hate groups?
But even having said that, there is a guilty pleasure in reading this book. It's similar to reading about the seamy underbelly of your local city... you know it's there, you don't condone it, but you have a hard time averting your eyes when you drive by. And there are some things that I didn't know... like services that will email you requested web pages so as to avoid http logging.Ó
I agree with Duff, but so what. Duffbert Review The book needs a better subtitle! Therefore, I tried to write one for this review; I came up with an essay.
From my perspective, the message of the book is in its introduction.
ÒTruth is nothing but a point of view — This book doesn't pretend to be a comprehensive resource for every possible legal and illegal activity you might run across on the Internet, but the information it contains can help or hurt others. Fundamentally, the information itself is neutral.
Crash your government's computer network and you may be labeled a terrorist. Do the same thing to an enemy's computer network, and your government may proclaim you a hero. (With respect to hacking,) good and evil depend solely on your point of view. So, welcome to the side of computers that the computer industry doesn't want you to know about, a world where slickly printed tutorials and training classes don't exist.
This is the underground of the real computer revolution, where everyone is encouraged to question, explore, and criticize, but most importantly, to learn how to think for himself or herself. And to many governments, corporations, and religions, people who know how to think for themselves can be the most dangerous threats in the world.Ó
The Book Itself
The book offers non-technical readers an insight into what hackers do, and why. Learn how users, mostly Windows users for the time being, can protect themselves. Embedded in these tips are insights on how to avoid scams, being phished, or sharing information that assists in identity theft and related problems. The lesson(s) on vulnerability, in a Zen manner, are not limited to things networked but also to our trash, cash machine transactions and to whom you respond on the phone or when a too good offer reaches you in the mail.
A companion CD comes packed with dual purpose hacking and security-related programs like keyloggers, spyware stoppers and spam filters, alas most for users of Windows. For shame! Few are the tools, although they do exist on the WWW, which are provided to Linux and Macintosh users.
The Books Contents |
BabadÕs Thoughts |
Part 1 - The Early Hackers: The Hacker Mentality; The First Hackers - The Phone Phreakers; Hacking People, Places, and Things |
Interesting material, the chapter took me back to my High School and early College days, but thatÕs another story – a tail of trials and few errors, but I was not a brave soul in those days. |
Part 2 - The PC Pioneers: ASNI Bombs and Viruses; Trojan Horses and Worms; Warez (Software Piracy) |
There is nothing surprising in this chapter, but lots of great details with links and references. You do practice safe on your Macintosh, donÕt you? |
Part 3 - The Internet Hackers: Where The Hackers Are; Stalking A Computer; Cracking Passwords; Digging Into A Computer With Rootkits; Censoring Information; The File Sharing Networks |
This is a fascinating exploration of the less rosy side of the Internet. It also raises questions about censoring information (which begins at home) as well as the controversy over file sharing and excessive copy-write protection including by our friends at Sony Music. |
Part 4 - The Real World Hackers: The Internet Con Artists; Finding People On The Internet; Propaganda As News and Entertainment; Hacktivism - Online Activism; Hate Groups and Terrorists on the Internet |
I admit it. As a child of the 60Õs, this part sucked me in! There are still con artists that pass my filters or find me when I browse – read the chapter. Wallace gives lots of examples of cons worthy of your study. Then thereÕs the Ôselective focusÕ of the evening news. I've always been cynical about what I read or hear, especially after leaning that even my beloved science books could be wrong. I especially enjoyed the section called ÒFear, Future, Fun, and Fakes: The weekly news as a model for the news media.Ó Also, read the section of the effects of individuals reporting events, in blogs, on news availability. For no other reason than the contents of Part 4 (and 5), this book is a good buy. |
Part 5 - The Future - Hacking For Profit: Identity Theft and Spam; Banner Ads, Pop-Up Ads, and Search Engine Spamming; Adware and Spyware |
Yeah, wouldnÕt I like the power to put the folks that create this stuff into an isolation chamber with four video walls — their computers feeding them this stuff 24/7. |
Part 6 - Protecting Your Computer and Yourself: Computing On A Shoestring - Getting Stuff For (Almost) Free; Computer Forensics - The Art Of Deleting and Retrieving Data; Locking Down Your Computer |
Great material, Wallace at his most serious. A must read for all of our macC audience. For those of you who donÕt read consumer reports or the AARP bulletin, this materials provides a timely insight in what you can do to protect you and yours from both malware and Ôhomo-malevolent, the black hats. |
Epilogue; What's On The Steal This Computer Book 4.0 CD |
Hello Wallace — We use Macintosh computers; based on Apples last quarterly sales, as do many more of you – ItÕs about the Intel Mac and using windows on our favorite computer making us a bigger target. |
The Index |
An essential tool when trying to find related topics across the book. |
A number of themes come through the various sections of the book:
Hackers — A hacker is some one who enjoys learning about computers and breaks down software to learn about it. This, as Wallace notes, neither good nor bad, it just is! Cracking is attacking another computer which most of us think is a terrible thing, but we donÕt work for law enforcement agencies.
Computer Safety - The author is teaching us about computer safety, not in enough detail to be comprehensive, but with enough citations that the information is only a click or three away in your browser.
If its Too Good to be True – As Robert Heinlein long ago pointed out – ThereÕs No Free Lunch – so stop buying treasure maps and giving out your social security number to anyone who asks.
Less obviously, and in a scattered manner, it gave me answers to a number of questions I wanted to have answered but was too lazy to search for:
- Where to find passwords where I wanting to illegally duplicate software?
- How do terrorists or hackers or supporters of ÔlostÕ causes find each other?
- How can I benefit from files haring even though IÕm neither into collecting mp3 music audio or downloading movies?
- What will my computing world be like when Apple significantly raises its market share making it a more interesting malware target?
- How effective are biometric controls such as fingerprint, voice prints or retina photo access controls – TheyÕre not as often depicted on Mission Impossible type tales in TV and in movies.
- How corporations use hacker techniques to infect your computer and invade my privacy
No, IÕm not going to provide pages or give you the links, but the book — you learn more about the Internet and computing benefits and risk then you dreamed possible.
A Message to Wallace Wang - Beyond Computers and The Next Edition
Sir, you do not clearly emphasize that our ÔpersonalÕ security is vulnerable outside the networked world, although sections on stalking, phishing and the like address it. The message is there but gets lost in the words of various parts of the book.
In addition, a new chapter, is needed when the book is next updated, that summaries information that would best serve the various genre of readers. It should be aimed at the various stereotypic groups focusing on what they should stay alert for. For example the folks who only email family but ever shop online have a different security needs than those who lives (and finances) are centered about computer record keeping and outreach. Then there are the lonely heartsÉ teenage or otherwise. Adding such a chapter would help to pull the otherwise interesting but scattered threads together, a must in Steal this Computer Book 5.
In addition, I must be a poor searcher of the internet since I could not find a photo of you on the internet. I would have thought, as an author and stand up comic, thereÕs be lots of pix out there — Alas, I failed.
A Gripe or Three
General — The book is written in a rambling fashion, that it may not appeal to some readers. The author, a free spirit, takes us on a walk of many branching paths, more a spider web of ideas then a pert chart or logic diagram. Nevertheless, thatÕs okay, my editor believes I think that way even when try to write logically.
Things Macintosh — Too little linking to the world that Macintosh user will likely face soon. For the casual Macintosh user, the threats that pervade the windows worlds are just be yond the horizon; but the books tone belies that that likely reality.
One Example Benign Neglect — As an aside (Page 308), Macintosh tested and screened shareware can be found on both the MacUpdate and Version Tracker sites. There are also a significant number of Macintosh products that allow you to by pass MS Office, some of which have been reviewed in macC.
In Closing
I found the book fascinating, at times almost addicting. I read it late into the night, taking time out only to check a few links or many, to see where they led. I avoided the obvious pornography and hacker sites – folks who deal in spyware and worse, in part lack of interest and in part just plain avoidance. I did check out hate-group sites (mine may not be yours) and sites related political action - just to see how the world had changed.
If you've used a computer, you need to know about common tricks and traps - and Steal This Computer's latest edition covers them all. As note by the publisher, If youÕve ever logged onto a website, conducted an online transaction, sent or received email, used a networked computer, or even watched the evening news, you may have already been tricked, tracked, hacked, and manipulated. As the saying goes, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you. As Wallace Wang so ably reveals, they probably are. Rating 4.5 macCÕs.
And in the Real World — A Postscript
I agree with Elizabeth Lewis in her Amazon Editorial Review of this book that:
ÒIf ever a book on cyber culture wore a fedora and trench coat and leaned against a lamppost on a foggy street, this is the one. It is an unabashed look at the dark side of the Net--the stuff many other books gloss over. It's hard-edged, wisecracking, and often quite cynical as it pours over the reality of online scams, illegal activities, and simple annoyances.
Wang's stated goal is to open the reader's eyes about what's really there. He shows what's being done, how it's being done, and how to avoid problems or even strike back. He begins with a chapter about the news media, and his message is that no source is to be trusted completely. He examines issues important to Internet users: the cost of getting computerized (with tips on how to find the real bargains), who is using the Internet as a source of hate information, and how your privacy can be invaded and protected.
He shows you the secrets of malicious hackers and others and how some of them attack computer systems without the ethical mindset typical of the original, idealistic hackers. Wang shows you how you can set up your defenses against such an onslaught, discussing how to protect yourself and your kids from online stalkers and how online con games work.
Wang never claims that the Internet is the electronic den of darkness that the pop media make it out to be. But he makes it clear that something this big has its lowlights--it's own "net noir." His messages are Ôknow your enemyÕ and Ôbe careful who you trustÕ, an ideology verified by the examples he provides." Read Elizabeth LewisÕ review.
About Wallace Wang
Mr. Wang is a former contributor to Boardwatch Magazine, where he wrote a monthly column called "Notes From the Underground." As a Renaissance Man, he is also a successful stand-up comic who has appeared on A&E's "Evening at the Improv" and appears regularly at the Riviera Comedy Club in Las Vegas. Wang is the author of the Steal This Computer Book series; Steal This File Sharing Book and a book on multimedia tools called The Book of Nero 6 (No Starch Press). Listen to Mr. Wang talk about his book at:
http://www.lets-talk-computers.com/guests/nostarch/steal4/.
