Customer Reviews

Patrolling Cyberspace: Lessons Learned from a Lifetime in Data Security

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This book does a good job of describing the evolution of cyber-crime incidents to laymen. a few details are missing, perhaps because the author didn't feel they were necessary or (more likely) as a result of his law enforcement background didn't want to "tip the method". Either way, the book stands well without these details.

Another "shortcoming", perhaps also due to the author's background, is the book reads like a well written police report. It is certainly cogent and in spots even compelling. This is not a book you are likely to enjoy because of the way it's written. However, if you want a clear and not terribly technical explanation of hacking, how it started and how it evolved, then this is a great presentation and a unique point of view.

As the title of this book suggests; it is a man passing on the things he learned in his career in data security.

Howard Schmidt was in law enforcement in the early days of the Net and was involved in many of the famous incidents of the past.

He talks about the famous Morris worm, the cuckoos egg, and groups like the legion of doom.

What was interesting was that I recognized some of the names and incidents mentioned. I have even talked to some of the people and was involved in some of the incidents on a periphery level.

In some cases I found detailed information lacking. For example, the analysis of the Morris worm but this book was not designed for an analysis of malware or hacking.

This book is more about telling how things started and what they have become. Simple hacking just because it was a challenge has turned into professional crime and espionage.

Mr. Schmidt also tries to dispell the myths of hacking. For example, many people today still imagine hacking as being done by teenagers just having fun versus the growing criminal aspects of the Net.

A common theme is the need for laws to define the criminal aspects of computers and how it took time to get some serious laws to aid in the prosecution of people how commit crimes. He talks about the early days where it was trial and error. Some rather bad errors such as the incident of Steve Jackson's game company where the company was put out of business when they took all computers because of the actions of one employee.

Overall, it was an interesting read. An easy read as I think he is aiming this book at non technical people as an education tool for the type of crimes that go on the Net these days.