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5 comments about The Software Conspiracy: Why Companies Put Out Faulty Software, How They Can Hurt You and What You Can Do About It.

1. This book is factually inaccurate and full of the authors own paranoia. I don't understand how anyone could give this book anything more than 3* - and that would be generous.

   * Save your money *

   My £0.02p worth: The book starts on the issue of bugs and makes some valid points, but after a few chapters Minasi disappears up his own backside ranting and raving about licensing and the law. He also repeats (almost word for word) large sections of text throughout the book - presumably because your either too stupid to understand it first time, or because he needs to pad out a bit.

   Apparently NASA produce virtually bug free software - because they use methodology and redundancy. Err, why then, have they recently managed to produce a number of unmanned (thank God) piles of space junk. What's the conversion factor for cm to inches ? Apparently Motorola's mo-phone outfit in India are a shining example of how to do it right. Has Mr Minasi ever used a p.o.s Motorola mo-phone I wonder? Try a Nokia - far more pleasant.Motorola phones aren't just bug-free, they're also feature free too. Not exactly difficult to write very little that does not-a-lot.

   If you believe Mr Minasi's assesment of how to make software 'bug free' then all you need are mediocre programmers that use a methodology to design, build and test their software. Egotistic programming guru's are a sure fire way to get buggy software apparently. Of course Mr Minasi knows this to be true because he's been a programmer himself and he's spoken to lots of people 'in the know' - mainly academics.

   Being that Minasi is actually a journalist I'm interested to know when he last cut a line of code that actually got shipped to a user ? What companies has he worked at that actually make and ship real product ?

   Methodologies can help write good software, but you still need skilled people with experience. Even then in a big project you're still likely to suffer things like the odd memory leak - which Minasi doesn't even mention as being a cause of 'bugs'.

   The out of context quotations from industry big hitters just add more waffle and padding as do the lame analogies with construction projects. Mr Minasi seems to have left his brain at home here. How - exactly - would you make V2.0 of NY's world trade centre towers when the users tell you they want 3 new floors and an express elevator ? How long did it take (from initial design to completion) to build the WTC towers ? And at what cost ? Was it completed flawlesly or did it have some bugs ?

   The fact is that many software projects are run along old fashioned lines - you have a goal, you get a budget and a project plan , you get staff and off you go - hopefully starting with a sound design and architecture. Projects don't fall apart because you didn't use SSADM or because software houses want to release a product with bugs. It's usually down to poor management, project planning or poor design / architecture choices. Programmers are all too often put under immense time constraints by managers who have no idea how to code - and then wonder why the product is missing functionality and has some bugs.

   Well that covers Chapter 1- 3 the rest is waffle about licence agreements and the law - and is mostly US specific.

   This is a book (the bit about bugs anyway) that needs to be written by a group of real programmers, not a Sunday afternoon programmer/magazine hack. So 1* - just to balance out the (i.m.h.o) overly generous other reviews.




2. Despite what other reviewers said before me, I would like to bring a different point of view. Maybe Mr. Minasi is a sunday afternoon programmer who's doesn't live the everyday life of a "real" programmer but he brings to us something precious.

   The software industry is sick and needs to be regulated. He expose clearly and honestly why we, customers, should be more concerned about software quality and our rights to use these products with a reasonable set of conditions. Making a product gives a company the right to receive money for its work but that previlege should also come with *responsabilities* towards the customers. So far, software manufacturers get away with it but YOU as an accountant, an architect, an engineer or a doctor are fully responsible for every act you perform. Why should it be different for these companies ?

   The issue of the license agreements is even more pathetic where abusive clauses are added as new versions comes out. The customer has no right what so ever against crappy softwares. It's clearly explained in his book...

   Finally, the whole point of this book is to provide a good understanding of the industry and also educate the public toward our rights as customers to buy and use good quality products. If we let them make the rules, we will loose big time and that's what this book brings up.




3. The first computer I programmed was a Sinclair ZX 80; 1 kilobyte of RAM, 1 MHz processor. At that time, i tried to envision what computers would look like in the year 2000, and I believed that computers would be small, extremely fast and user friendly; that they would make our every day's life easier.

   Now, almost 20 years later, all I see is that computers became more powerful in terms of Megahertz and Gigabytes, but they are unreliable, unfriendly, technical beasts. Obvisously, the concept of the personal computer doesn't scale well. (Also see Norman's "The Invisible Computer").

   Software is becoming an important infrastructure of our society, and still, software defects regularly are the cause of financial damages, or even the loss of human lifes - not to mention the usual annoyances millions of users experience everyday.

   Mark Minasi's book is a good introduction into Software Quality. It contains some sad but true stories about defective software, which hopefully open people's (esp. software managers') eyes.

   The book's title is a bit inaccurate; I don't believe in nor have I experienced something like a "conspiracy" in the software industry (altough I can imagine that it might look like one to end users).




4. Great book. Really great book. I absolutely loved it. Reading this book has helped me to become a better programmer. It's just great. Really great. I love it.



5. This author should have stoped writing this book on page 18. At this point he had already covered everything several times. Makes me think i could write a book so long as i went over the same stuff over and over.

1 comments about Internet Safety Parents' Guide.

1. The advice given in the book is mostly accurate and common sense. Some amount of it also pertains to anyone of any age using the Internet. As general guidelines, including those related to etiquette and safety.
   
   However, there are two caveats. Firstly, it recommends that if you are at a cybercafe or publicly accessible computer, and browsing at a "protected or secure" area, that this is done using encryption (i.e. https). Since there could be malware on the computer. The problem is that encryption is insufficient against malware like keyloggers. These capture your keystrokes. They read in plain text everything that you type. The fact that encryption happens is irrelevant. The encryption refers to the channel and not to the endpoint where you are at. Another drawback is that the website that you are going is presumably some well known location, like a bank at which you have an account. But an unknown computer can have a pocket universe, where the routing to a bank URL goes to a fake website, pretending to be the bank. Perhaps in a Man In The Middle attack, where what you type is relayed to the real bank. Then, the fake website monitors all traffic. Later, it can log in as yourself. Here, the encryption happens to the fake website. Again, the encryption only protects the channel from evesdroppers. It cannot protect you if that endpoint is bogus.
   
   A second caveat is the text's recommendation that a teenager's username should not indicate "age, race, religion or gender", because this could invite attacks based on that information. I respectfully disagree with the recommendation. By way of explanation, I offer an analogy. Last week, on the University of Southern California campus, there was an event, "Take Back the Night". Run by a women's group, and meant to educate women and men. It suggests that women do not lock themselves indoors at night, due to fears of assault or rape on the streets, since that is tantamount to blaming the victim.
   
   Similarly, suppose you are a teenage, and you want a username like buddha_fan, because it expresses your religious belief. Yes, this can cause you to get hate messages. But if you really want that username, perhaps you should go right ahead and do so. Because to do otherwise is to give in to bigots, as you would be restricting your behaviour on the Internet because of prejudice.
   
   A counterargument, that is perhaps implicit in the text, is that you, the teenager, should wait till you are an adult. Then, you will have the maturity to deal with such problems. My response is that maturity should be sooner rather than later. Please note, I'm not saying, in the above example, that it is good that you should get such responses. But in the event that you do, it helps you develop within yourself earlier. An inoculation.
   
   There is also another aspect. Revealing information about yourself in a username is much safer than the Take Back the Night campaign. I agree with the latter, but pragmatically, some streets can indeed be dicey at night. That campaign does entail some physical risk. By comparison, choosing certain usernames is far less riskier. You at a computer in your home or library are much safer than being on certain streets.

4 comments about A Margin of Error: Ballots of Straw.

1. It's a realistic novel that will intrigue anyone interested in fair elections, especially for Florida voters.
   
   Realistic scenarios in the voting process that should make you wonder if this could happen or if it has happened.
   
   Makes you wonder if paperless voting machines should be banned.



2. Lani Massey Brown uses well-written fiction to make a point to those of us who are neither political wonks nor computer-types. This book is a real page-turner and a good read for anyone that likes high drama. Even if you don't care about how easy it is to steal an election, the perils that confront the characters in this book make it worth reading just for fun.



3. On break this summer, I holed up with some of my favorites, Grisham, Roberts, Koontz, Cornwell, Flynn and a Higgins Clark tossed in for good measure. Then with all the election brouhaha in the news, I switched to "A Margin of Error Ballots of Straw," expecting a high-tech rampage of murder, mayhem, and technical speak in overdrive...not. Susan Cady Palmer is a business woman challenged by all the under the table stuff most women in business don't talk about publicly. Her boss is a throwback, straight from Dilbert, but more perverse. Sexual harassment is his special kick-down Cady tool. She's put up with it for years. Until now, when the stakes soar to an all time high and she tells him to, "Put a sock on it." One of those snapshot moments. I wish I'd said that!
   
   Then comes Cady's spy, Neal Charles. Glorious Isabella may not want to take Neal home, but I do. Move over, Cady.
   
   "A Margin of Error: Ballots of Straw" is an unlikely love story. And oh, by the way, I'm a convert. Fiction, sure. But the facts jump off the page. Could a vast right, left, or center conspiracy hijack this or any election? Maybe it already has.



4. Lani Brown pulls off a topical and frightening scenario of 21st century electoral corruption in A Margin of Error: Ballots of Straw. Being the former tabulation manager for one Florida county's election committee, Brown has a unique insight into the machinations of our new voting systems, as well as a keen eye for a story. Her lead character, Cady Palmer, Deputy Elections Supervisor knows that Miami's election has been rigged by a high-tech stalker, but no one wants to hear it. People in power have spent a great deal of money to get the election results they wanted, and they don't care to undermine anything. Soon, Palmer's embroiled in a national conspiracy going to the highest reaches of government. This book reminded me of Don Bruns' Florida conspiracy/caper novel STUFF TO DIE FOR.

2 comments about Criminal Justice (with Casebook Plus) (MyCrimeLab Series).

1. This is a great book. I had to purchase it for my intro to criminal justice class. It is very useful if you want to learn a great deal about the system. I read almost all the chapters in the book before i was supposed to.



2. This book was in excellent condition, arrived quickly and was better
   than the one the college offered. Will be buying next semester from
   Amazon!

No comments about Student Safety Tips: 40 That Every 1st - 2nd Grader Must Know.

No comments about High-Technology Crime Investigator's Handbook, Second Edition: Establishing and Managing a High-Technology Crime Prevention Program.

No comments about Information Risk And Security: Preventing And Investigating Workplace Computer Crime.

5 comments about hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble.

1. This book is for you if:
   * You like mysteries with twists and turns which require the last chapter to be solved
   * You have lived in or are interested in the internet bubble experience. The use of stock price tracking and internet chat rooms is absolutley brilliant and a true reflection of how everyone behaved during that time.
   * You just happen to like darn good books!



2. How many millions of words have been written about the mass psychosis that afflicted the investment and technology worlds at the end of the century will have to be counted by others, however, you will gain a better understanding of how and why that period happened by reading Tom Evslin's novel than by reading any articles or essays. I guess you had to be there to understand the sick joke that was played on all of us that came to be known as the bubble. Tom Evslin was there and Hackoff.com is a fun way to read about it.



3. Reviewed by Cherie Burbach for Reader Views (6/06)
   
   This book, first serialized online, has attracted readers from around the globe with its tale of murder, sex, power, and greed. Fictional CEO Larry Lazard served time in prison for hacking through bank security systems and obtaining credit card numbers. He then parlayed his conviction into an online security consulting business, which became hackoff.com. To start, the main character of Larry Lazard is annoying, abrasive, obnoxious, and yet you find yourself rooting for him. Lazard started hackoff.com in the time of the Internet bubble, as it were, which makes this story all the more exciting and fun.
   
   Like "hackoff.com", author Tom Evslin founded a company that went public during the infamous Internet bubble. Evslin's personal experience combined with his original writing style makes hackoff.com a page-turner that will keep readers up at night trying to finish. It keeps the reader guessing, and never loses intensity. The ending is no less disappointing, making this book a satisfying read from beginning to end.
   
   "hackoff.com" is original in its form and set up as well. Interspersed with the prose are email exchanges, chat room transcriptions, stock quotes, and interviews with the police. Each element adds something new to the story, and along the way helps define each of the characters. There's Donna, the former Sports Illustrated swimsuit model that is a CFO but longs for more, Dom, the chief technology officer that starts off as a minor character - we barely know him, and yet ends up as one of the most interesting and unique.
   
   Besides the characters, the story itself is captivating. The way the author describes the initial public offering for "hackoff.com" is quite fascinating, and I felt like I was getting a behind the scenes look at what really takes place with an IPO and how the stock market reacts to it.
   
   This was one of the most original and entertaining books I've read. I loved it. LOVED it! It held my attention from beginning to end, and at just under 650 pages that is no easy accomplishment.



4. This is one of the best books I've read in a long time. It is fast-paced, with good characters and a good story. And you can learn something while you are having fun. The author provides great insight into things like how Wall Street works (or doesn't); what IPO roadshows are like; and how to manage sales people.



5. Positioning his novel somewhere between the world of a dot.com thriller and something analogous to a Detective Colombo television episode, Tom Evslin's hackoff.com falls effortlessly into the recent wave of fiction narratives that depict the euphoria of the boom and bust of the stock market in the late 1990s.
   
   Evslin begins his narrative with a press release issued by Eve Gross, Chief Marketing Office of a company called hackoff.com announcing that its CEO, Larry Lazard, was found dead in his corporate office of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
   CEO Larry Lazard was an ex-convict who pleaded guilty to the crime of attacking or as he termed it, "Gotcha," the credit card files of a number of major banks.
   He served six months of a nine-month sentence in a federal penitentiary for white collar criminals. Apparently, as Lazard stated, "Gotcha" was not created to do harm but rather to illustrate the vulnerability of the financial systems to hackers. In fact, Lazard did not monetarily profit from his escapades, as he neither sold the credit card numbers he downloaded nor used them for his own personal gain. However, when he was released from prison, he put his knowledge to good use when he created a company called hackoff.com that would in fact prevent such attacks in the future particularly against e-commerce sites.
   
   Lazard and his CFO Donna Langhorne were quite an ambitious team when they decided to take hackoff.com public. They hired the investment banking firm of Barcourt & Brotherson- a firm they felt could tell a credible story to potential investors concerning hackoff.com. However, they had their work cut out for them, as not only did they have to convince investors that Lazard had been rehabilitated but also that they had to convince investors that hackoff.com's practice of receiving equity or shares from companies purchasing the licenses instead of cash was not so bad, as hackoff.com is not only a software company but also a holding company of several promising e-commerce web sites.
   
   Author Tom Evslin, as was the case with Larry Lazard, similarly founded a company that went public during the Internet bubble. However, Evslin lived to tell his story and no doubt the knowledge he gained from bringing his enterprise public helped in neatly interweaving his own experiences into his riveting narrative. He effectively captures the smoke and mirrors method used by investment bankers and traders from the time a project is conceived to the actual approval by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC). Methods and practices that very often are unethical and that sometimes border on fraud in order to market a company's stock to potential investors.
   
   Thrown into the narrative is the prospect that Larry did not commit suicide but was murdered. All kinds of scenarios are explored by Detective Mark Cohen including Larry's involvement with outsourcing some of hackoff.com's programming to Palestinians from Jenin even against the strong objections of its principal programmer Dom Montain who is against showing the company's source code.
   How it all ends I leave as a mystery for the reader to find out. The single disappointment of hackoff.com is that I found the ending was somewhat confusing, nonetheless, it is a compelling read supported by well-defined ancillary characters and some engaging subplots.
   
   Norm Goldman, Editor Bookpleasures

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