Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway [Paperback]

Clifford Stoll (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 1, 1996

In Silicon Snake Oil, Clifford Stoll, the best-selling author of The Cuckoo's Egg and one of the pioneers of the Internet, turns his attention to the much-heralded information highway, revealing that it is not all it's cracked up to be.  Yes, the Internet provides access to plenty of services, but useful information is virtually impossible to find and difficult to access. Is being on-line truly useful? "Few aspects of daily life require computers...They're irrelevant to cooking, driving, visiting, negotiating, eating, hiking, dancing, speaking, and gossiping. You don't need a computer to...recite a poem or say a prayer." Computers can't, Stoll claims, provide a richer or better life.

A cautionary tale about today's media darling, Silicon Snake Oil has sparked intense debate across the country about the merits--and foibles--of what's been touted as the entranceway to our future.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Computer expert Stoll presents a backlash account of the Internet, questioning whether its potential influence is as far-reaching and positive as supporters claim.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Stoll, a Berkeley astronomer who chronicled how he broke a computer spy ring in The Cuckoo's Egg (LJ 9/15/89) and who has been netsurfing for 15 years, does an apparent about-face here, warning that the technophiles are trying to sell us a bill of goods on the promise of the Internet?one on which it can't deliver and that, ultimately, both ignores the cost of forsaking human interaction and actual financial costs. His is a lone voice countering the mass of media hype that has been touting the national information superhighway and the rush of individuals and businesses to get connected. In chapters dealing with everything from education to E-mail (Stoll reports he lost less mail via the U.S. Postal Service) to the "virtual" library, he details the limitations of the networks. Though he is occasionally not quite up to the minute on some library implementations, his message nevertheless should be read as a caution to every librarian rushing down the information highway. [For an interview with Stoll and an excerpt from his book, see p. 100.]?Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal.
-?Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Anchor; 1st Anchor Books Ed edition (March 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385419945
• ISBN-13: 978-0385419949
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #400,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

57 of 70 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Dated Beyond Belief July 24, 2005

By Douglas Moran

Format:Paperback

Clifford Stoll wrote the highly-entertaining and engaging "Cuckoo's Egg," about his successful efforts to track down the person (or persons) who have hacked in to his computer network.

Unfortunately this book, which can be termed a cautionary tale about the internet and the world wide web (called back then the "information highway" or "information superhighway") has become outpaced by subsequent events to an almost absurd degree. While Stoll's writing is still engaging, and his contrarian views interesting, so many things he discusses are (in his own words about the Internet) "stale, incomplete, misleading...or simply wrong." The most prominent example is his assertion that " The Internet is a poor place for commerce." There are other assertions in the book that are equally dated. (Stoll, it might be noted, after calling the possibility of e-commerce "baloney," now sells Klein bottles on the Web. So much for his predictive abilities.)

While it is certainly no crime to have gotten predictions about the growth and use of the Web wrong--after all, almost everyone did--this book, with its almost-Luddite overtones regarding the internet, is really not worth the time except as a nostalgia item.

25 of 30 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Dissapointing December 27, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

As an Internet junkie, let me say that I'm glad I read this book, and I encourage all computer and net-obsessed people to read this book.

He does bring up some very good arguements -- like his theory that networked systems are ruining public libraries -- but many of them are unsubstantiated and full of holes. He has complaints about everything computer-related, from how slow they are to how they look to the lack of noises they make. (He complains that his computer, unlike his trusty typewriter, doesn't make noises when he types some characters or advances to a new line... but I couldn't help thinking that if the computer *did* make these noises, he'd just complain about how loud it was.)

The most irritating thing about this book is that he paints himself (perhaps unknowingly) as a hypocrite. For example, he writes how the usenet is basically a waste of time and how you hardly ever find anything useful there, yet he keeps bringing up things he learned while reading the usenet and talking about how much time he spent there. He seems to love the Postal Service, yet when he wants to see newly discovered pictures of Saturn, he logs in online to get them, then complains about how he has to wait, rather than perhaps mailing away for them, as a snail-mail supporter would do. And I found it especially disturbing that for a man who uses computers every day for his job and pleasure, who owns five different machines, and who has obviously been a computer user since before many of us knew what computer were, he offers exactly ZERO suggestions on how to improve them. I realized this about 100 pages in and wanted to stop reading the book right then and there, but the only thing that kept me reading was my interest in seeing if he ever presented any suggestions for improvement. (He didn't.)

Since this was written about 5 years ago, I would be interested to hear if any of his feelings have changed. Most of his arguements center around gopher, FTP, usenet, BBS systems, etc., and most Internet users never use these. He only mentions Mosaic offhand a few times, but what it has evolved into (IE/Netscape and the WWW) is the most important part of the Internet today. My guess is he would find problems with it as well, and he would have similarly-flawed arguements to back them up.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars A Blast From Internet Past April 6, 2000

By A College Student

Format:Paperback

Clifford Stoll's Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway, raises some legitimate concerns about the Internet for 1995-and I stress for 1995. Most of his warnings about the Internet were rather outdated, and seemed foolish in today's computer age. With computer technology advancing so quickly, books about the Internet can become dated quite quickly, and that is exactly what I found in this case. Stoll discusses some of the major concerns that people had in the mid-90s about the emerging Internet phenomenon, including issues centering around efficiency and security. Perhaps these arguments were realistic for computer users about five years ago, but developing technologies quickly remedied these, and made the Internet a much more efficient resource for business, communication, entertainment--you name it. I hate to criticize a book merely for the fact that it is far outdated, but I just can't give a great review to a book full of statements and suggestions that no longer hold any weight!