20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Don't bother with this!, November 15, 2003
This review is from: Stray Voltage: War in the Information Age (Hardcover)
You call tell Hall was a military intelligence general; this book reads like a PowerPoint briefing! He displays only a rudimentary understanding of computers and cyberspace, although the discussion is clearly fleshed out by outside reading. However, we're unable to follow his research because Hall fails to include a bibliography, although he does provide a short list of references in the endnotes.
This book was used as a textbook in a course I took in 2004 on intelligence and computers, and the nicest thing any student said about it was that is was short. The instructor asked us if he should use the book in the following term; everybody answered, "NO!"
To be fair, Hall's expertise does show when he is discussing military and intelligence subjects, but he falters when trying to link these topics to computers. A better, but older, text would be James Adams' "The Next World War: Computers Are the Weapons and the Front Line Is Everywhere." (One passage from Adams' work stated it would be captains and lieutenants who would be the ones understand computer warfare, and that generals wouldn't get it. "Stray Voltage" strongly supports Adams' argument.)
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7 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Exceptional Contribution, June 22, 2003
This review is from: Stray Voltage: War in the Information Age (Hardcover)
Stray Voltage provides rare insights into Information Age warfare and its practical prosecution in the physical, cyber, and cerebral domains . . . at a granularity I don't believe any author has achieved to date.
Hall presents Information Age warfare as a form of intellectual combat where the brightest, most cerebrally agile competitor moves to shape the environment, thinking, and practical outcome of his opponent--much like other futurists and military thinkers. But he goes much further. Hall's future battlefield is more than a geographically constrained force, state, or region; it's the here-and-now, day-to-day technical infrastructure delivering knowledge and knowledge advantage. Our opponents are not the seemingly predictable military forces of recent conflicts, but are thinking, adaptive threats maneuvering within the infrastructure, promising to become whatever our security posture is not. His view of the future soldier also defies convention. The future soldier is not simply the high tech-hybrid we see on posters, but a profoundly educated, well-trained cyber-warrior armed with knowledge engines, mining tools, protected infrastructures, and an unequalled capacity to sense, adapt, and act. . . as an individual, and in aggregate.
Exceptional. I gained something new in every chapter.
Stray Voltage deserves a careful read by any seeking to understand and apply Information Age principles in operations, security, and training. Advanced Warfighting and Homeland Defense practitioners probably should read it again within the first year, and annually thereafter. Too bad we can't encrypt the contents. I'm confident our opponents will read it as well.
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3 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Merging brainpower with technology, June 12, 2003
This review is from: Stray Voltage: War in the Information Age (Hardcover)
Enemies of the U.S. who lack military might and money will use the strategies and tools of asymmetric warfare to win future conflicts: that's the contention of Wayne Michael Hall, a retired general with thirty years of intelligence experience. From potential conflicts prepared for with cyberspace to information superiority and deception, Stray Voltage advises a public and a governmental focus on merging brainpower with technology to meet and master this new threat.
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