Customer Reviews

A Network Orange: Logic and Responsibility in the Computer Age

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That some subliterate IT professional, below, found this book "frustrating" is the best possible endorsement! A book for thinking people who understand computers -- and not, it seems, for computer jocks who don't understand how to think.

Finally, a book that provides compelling arguments about the effects of information technology on our society. With all of the recent technology hype,it is a refreshing change to see a book that offers a much more balanced point of view. An absolute must-read.

Computers and networks are only silicon, wires and plastic. What is important, since they are changing our lives is not the technology, but rather, the potential. This book has nothing to do with processors, Moore's Law and bus architecture, yet it has everything to do with what you get when you take those and build machines and connect them into a pervasive network.

It's all about social impact, the undelivered promises of the technology, and debunking conventional thought (assumptions, really) about the value computers and networks bring to society. This is certainly a book for policy makers in business and government, educators and socially-aware technoligists.

After you're read this excellent, thought-provoking book, read "World Without Secrets: Business, Crime and Privacy in the Age of Ubiquitous Computing" by Richard Hunter. That book takes up where this one leaves off.

The authors of this book do not understand the big picture with regard to computer systems and network architecture. Crandall and Levich whine about the alleged "conspiracy of parts" without a clue as to the development of processor and bus structures, and as to the how and why of Moore's law. This book is sufficient to annoy and frustrate any IT professional.