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Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway Paperback – March 1, 1996

by Clifford Stoll (Author)
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 58 ratings
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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.
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  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    March 1, 1996
  4. Dimensions
    5.19 x 0.58 x 8 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0385419945
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0385419949
  7. See all details
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4 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Robert Johnson
    5.0 out of 5 stars Differing opinions matter
    Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    I'm not too heavy of a reader, I'll admit.

    I found out about Clifford Stoll by reading his piece in Newsweek about the future of the internet. It's great to hear differing opinions, even if they may be horribly wrong. I applaud his ability to go against the hivemind and speak his own mind. The book is no Stephen King novel, but I personally thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Howard
    5.0 out of 5 stars Obviously Preposterously Outdated, but Many Insights Still Right True
    Reviewed in the United States on October 10, 2024
    It is easy to dunk on this book. 30 years later we can see Stoll was profoundly wrong on many predictions. He dismissed ecommerce as hopeless, said you can never replace newspapers, said it was too hard to digitize book. OK, ok, we know how all that turned out. But he still was often completely right about the challenges and downsides to these new technologies. Our society struggles everyday with the fallout of these advances. Education and employment are permanent "screen time". Community businesses have been buried. Social interactions are isolating and monetized. Information, both real and fake, is infinite and we often cannot handle it.
    In our often blind gallop toward the next shiny thing, it is sometimes good to stop and listen to a informed contrarian and consider what they say.
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  • Nadyne Richmond
    3.0 out of 5 stars dated, still thought-provoking, but ultimately unsatisfying
    Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2007
    Verified Purchase
    I feel a little bit guilty in writing a review for a book about computing that is now several years old. As other reviewers have noted, there's a lot about this book that is horrendously dated: e-commerce is well-established, network access speeds have long since shattered 9600 baud, Usenet is (for all intents and purposes) dead.

    But move beyond that for a minute. Ignore anything he says about download speeds (although you should consider that, according to the Pew Internet Project, only 42% of Americans have high-speed Internet access at home, so broadband isn't as ubiquituous as some would like us to believe). Smile when he questions the concept of e-commerce. Every time he references Usenet or newsgroups, mentally substitute blogs and web forums; do the same substition with MUDs and World of Warcraft.

    Even now, 12 years after the fact, the questions that he raises are still important and relevant. While I can find fantastic recipes for bread online, it doesn't actually tell me anything about that instant when you know you've kneaded the bread long enough. Getting driving directions online is great, until you realise that construction or an accident is blocking your intended route and you can't figure out how to get around it because you don't have an actual paper map. Kids learning how to use computers is great, but when they can't do basic arithmetic or write a five-paragraph essay, how can we justify spending millions every year on computers in the classroom?

    For all that I think that the questions that he raised need meaningful answers, I found the book unsatisfying. Stoll is obviously a computer geek himself, and was a heavy computer and Internet user at the time that he wrote the book, so it is frustrating that he offers up so much criticism without tempering it with some statements about what he does find useful online. The book reads like a conversation, which is somewhat annoying because it wanders all over the place and gets a bit repetitive. It could have been tightened up into a highly-compelling work.
    14 people found this helpful
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  • bob davis
    4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    first book was better
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  • Loony Tune Village!!
    5.0 out of 5 stars Quick delivery!!!!!!
    Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Cliff stoll is s vrty intelligent man. I eould dtufy under him anytime
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  • Michael Burns-Kaurin
    2.0 out of 5 stars Did not age well
    Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2022
    Computer nerd discovered life exists outside computers, rushes to tell the world. Seriously wrong predictions about the potential of the Internet. LOL I'm reviewing this on Amazon, which he certainly did not predict.
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  • DB
    5.0 out of 5 stars Bought it when it came out and I read it every 2 years
    Reviewed in the United States on December 1, 2022
    Very well written book, and while a few decades old, it still holds many important lessons.
    One person found this helpful
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  • ink & penner
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Sane Perspective on Computers & the Internet
    Reviewed in the United States on June 15, 2010
    Clifford Stoll (California writer and astronomer who says he uses computers all the time) provides us with the ultimate, no-holds-barred written word on what we too more than once might have said/thought about computers and the "Information SuperHighway."

    He covers it all, from sign-on to socializing from manuals to media, keyboards to CompuServe. CompuServe?

    Clearly, he's not a fan of (or participant in) all the Internet rage, and he`s not at all passioned by his own computer and screen. Openly, he admits it, offering: "Which is the tool: the computer or the user?"

    It's a very easy, quick read, written in a home-spun, casual (and at times witty) style. Indeed totally opinion, it`s but true fresh-air comfort for all of us who wrestle with new software, slow speeds, crashes, security, viruses, spam, and never-ending system updates. Though we might be quite happy not to have to "get online" for hours at a time, day-after-day, the author helps us believe we can still be technologically "with it." (!) Here's Stoll's (unintentional) blueprint for a balance between the current global tech-frenzy and the calm, reasonable usage of computers.

    "Silicon Snake Oil" is one enjoyable read...yet do note: it was written in 1995. (!)

    ~But the author, at the time, was so savvy on the subject, it could have well been written yesterday. Stoll was/is a true Internet prophet, and how could so many things computer be just as true today as they were then!?

    "One of the joys of computers," Stoll reminds us, "is how they're great at wasting time that might otherwise be difficult to waste." Now, how many times have we said this to ourselves? Ok, Mr. Cliff Stoll...where's the updated Edition?!
    3 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • J. Brand
    4.0 out of 5 stars Out of date but still surprisingly relevant
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 3, 2012
    Verified Purchase
    Silicon Sake Oil is a book that should be so out of date that it is almost useless, and yet it is not. Seventeen years is such a long time in IT that any book of that age should be, if not completely wrong by now, so obsolete in its detail that it has no relevance to current IT.

    So why is this book different? Well it's easier to consider how Clifford Stoll has been shown to be wrong. There are lots of technical details here that are obsolete or completely wrong. Criticising school use of computer networks because modem dial up charges are prohibitive is so out of date as to be not just wrong but meaningless and his suggestion that the internet would not be able to handle financial transactions is probably one of his more famously wrong predictions. Predictions like that are all to prone to rapidly become embarrassing though it is interesting that while he was totally wrong about the money side of the internet we still have exactly the same bandwidth and access problems that we had when we were all using 14k modems, it' just that the files have got bigger.

    But to focus on the technology the book discusses is to miss what is probably a far more important point and that is the social effects of computers and while the technology problems may change or even be resolved the social effects haven't changed that much. Who cares you can send email to the other side of the planet when people don't talk to someone on the other side of the fence? Does it really matter that google can answer our questions if your library can't afford books? I want my library to buy books and magazines not a new router! What has more educational value Wikipedia going on about the rainforest or a school trip to the woods at the end of the road?

    If you can generalise past the technical details of mid nineties technology to the effect that technology has in general then this is book which still has a lot to say. It may have historic interest value but it still has contemporary value.
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