Cyberwars [Hardcover]

Jean Guisnel (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0306456362 | ISBN-13: 978-0306456367 | Publication Date: August 21, 1997 | Edition: 1

To some a brand-new forum for the freedom of speech, the Internet is also the most up-to-date way to gather intelligence. Brilliant hackers like Kevin Mitnik—modern-day “pirates”—pose real security threats to government and industry. Cyberwars explores a dangerous new world where international terrorists plot their attacks and are tracked by secret service organizations on-line, drug traffickers do business and launder money, and electronic economic espionage is the order of the day. Examining efforts to police on-line communication and content, Guisnel assesses the implications of pervasive surveillance for the inherently democratic medium of the Internet. As these issues are the focus of ongoing debates in government and the private sector, Cyberwars couldn’t be more timely.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jean Guisnel, a journalist specializing in defense issues, takes a hard look at the controversies surrounding Internet security, striking a balance between the prophets of disaster and those who insist that everything is just fine. What's wonderful about this book is that it's extremely readable, a series of stories told by a journalist rather than a collection of dusty technical treatises. With refreshing clarity in both his outlook and his explanations, Guisnel paints a realistic picture that is neither simplistically good nor automatically bad. The threats, he shows, are real enough: security agencies willing to invade anyone's privacy, law enforcement agencies willing to blink at their legal limitation, corporations that have used cybertechnology to take industrial espionage to new heights, and new breeds of viruses that can be transmitted in once-harmless word-processor documents. But there is good news as well as bad. Battles for constitutional rights in cyberspace are being won and cryptographic improvements are making reasonable security easily accessible. And while attacks may be growing more clever, so are defenses. There may well be cause for concern, but the greatest danger, this book demonstrates, lies in remaining ignorant of the issues.

From Library Journal

In his Information Warfare (LJ 6/1/94), network security expert Winn Schwartau raised serious questions about ensuring security for the expanding global Internet and called for the establishment of a national information policy to protect our online interests. Now, French journalist Guisnel presents an exceptionally readable account of existing information warfare, cyberterrorism, and computer espionage, which continue to escalate in both scale and intensity. Focusing on the issues of information control and communication, Guisnel raises sobering questions about whether this control could be grasped and consolidated by an Orwellian government, corporate hierarchy, or independent cyberwarriors and terrorists. He offers a glimpse of the online world of the near future and provides a blueprint for steps the average citizen can take to safeguard personal privacy and freedom of virtual speech. Like Schwartau's book, this is another important call for action in the arena of information security. Recommended for public libraries.?Joe J. Accardi, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 295 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1 edition (August 21, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306456362
• ISBN-13: 978-0306456367
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,195,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A pseudo-tech book written by someone who hasn't a clue., March 9, 1999

By 

G. Mitchell "photons_electrons" (Woodinville, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cyberwars (Hardcover)

This book is a lightweight in the recent flood of cyberscare publications. It presents some interesting perspectives on US-French competition in the world of industrial espionage but overall it is not very informative. Its principal failing is that it is a book about technology that butchers technical details.

The author's disconnect with technology is demonstrated in his discussion of the Clipper chip. Clipper is now installed in most stand-alone voice encryptors that are sold in the US. At the beginning of each phone call a new session key is shared between the two callers. It is not practical to find this session key by guessing but a separately encrypted version is sent along with the conversation. The session key can be discovered by government agencies through appropriate procedures. The author's discussion of this states that a NSA proposal "...would add a device called the clipper chip to every telephone or computer manufactured in the United States." For most phones that use analog transmission of voice this would clearly make no sense. Apparently the author missed the issue entirely.

In places the book becomes more of a political platform than a balanced discussion. After condemning filtering programs that block access to porn sites he states that "The fun for those who devote themselves to censorship is the daily discovery of new sites that they can condemn and prohibit"

Even commonly known security details are missed. In a discussion of phone phreaking the author states that the publication titled 2600 was named after the frequency that a quarter made when falling into a pay phone. 2600 Hertz is actually the frequency of a supervisory tone that was used to bypass toll equipment.

In an evaluation of the hacker Kevin Mitnick's his technical abilities were rated as #2 in the world. I am personally aquatinted with associates of Mitnick who state that he is a technical wannabe that excels only in dumpster diving and social engineering.

[exerpted from a review for Security Management -- all rights reserved by the author]

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Recommended? Click the 'Back' button., December 14, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Cyberwars (Hardcover)

I can hardly believe this book is recommended by the "Cyberculture Editor". It reads as though it reasearched by watching TV news programs and talk shows. Guisnel has a penchant for bombast and egaggeration: he makes no effort to back up a number of nebulous-yet-sweeping claims about the level of monitoring of the internet by security organizations (or a bunch of other claims, for that matter). Publishing a bunch of quotes don't prove jack.

In one glaringly ignorant sentence he infers that published bomb-recipies are a phenomenon perpetrated solely by right-wing militia groups. Huh. On the subject of internet policing he wanders from: the idea that governments should not, to the idea that the internet is a "self-policing nirvana", to wondering how laws to prevent nazis from having websites could be enforced. If you are a regular study of this topic you will not find anything new here. Despite the intruiging title, this guy has nothing to say.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars D&M book review of CYBERWARS-ESPIONAGE ON The Internet, October 23, 2000

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Cyberwars (Hardcover)

Cyberwars: Espionage on the Internet. By Jean Guisnel; published by Plenum Publishing, 800/221-9369 (phone), 212/647-1898 (fax); 296 pages; $26.95.

In the recent flood of cyberspace publications, this book at best adds a mere trickle to the literature. While the author presents some interesting perspectives on United States­French competition in industrial espionage (in fact, the book is translated into English from French), the faulty technical details present throughout ultimately sink this effort.

The author's disconnect with technology stands out in his discussion of the Clipper chip, which is now installed in most standalone voice encryptors sold in the United States--but in few other applications. The author contends that the National Security Agency proposes to add the chip to every telephone manufactured in the United States. This statement is both illogical and wrong. Analog phones, which can't take chips, continue to be widely manufactured because they are far more affordable than digital phones. Moreover, digital phones are generally hooked to analog lines and don't use encryption. Thus, installing Clipper in all phones makes no sense.

The author even confuses commonly known security details. In a discussion of phone phreaking, for example, he claims that the publication titled 2600 was named after the frequency generated by a quarter as it plunks into the slot in a pay phone. In fact, the publication's title derives from the frequency in hertz of a supervisory tone used to bypass toll equipment.

And in places the book lapses from a balanced discussion into political commentary. For example, after criticizing filtering programs that block access to pornographic and other objectionable Web sites, the author states that "The fun for those who devote themselves to censorship is the daily discovery of new sites that they can condemn and prohibit."

Instead of providing new material, this book is essentially a collection of accounts of computer intrusions previously published in newspapers. Security managers seeking a digest of hacking articles might find some value in this book, but it is not recommended for serious practitioners.

Reviewer: Gordon Mitchell, Ph.D., manages Future Focus, a Seattle-area company that gathers clues from hard disks for commercial clients. He is a member of ASIS. D&M company for scientific research