5 comments about Introduction to Executive Protection.

1. The content of the book is soundly built up and written. My respect for the author and his job for this book. The price for this is OK.



2. A Must For Executive Protection Specialists. Has information that would be useful even to a veteran of the field! Nicely done!



3. To Those Interested:
   
   Having had the opportunity to read Introduction to Executive Protection by Dale June, I can state the following.
   
   This book is well thought out and well written. The author does an exemplary job of combining the basics of executive protection along with personal insight. And though not technical in nature, which is not its intended purpose according to its title, it provides a clear and uncluttered look at the responsibilities of an executive protection agent.
   
   It's an excellent starting point for anyone interested in exploring a career in executive protection, especially those who do not have any formal government training.
   
   I believe this book accomplishes its intended purpose with distinction.
   
   Curtis Olmos



4. This book is the quintessential guide for the executive and personal protection professional. Newcomers to the field as well as veterans will find the book very readable and thorough in its coverage of all aspects of executive and personal protection. While providing a solid overview of the basics of the profession, the book also covers some advanced topics such as motorcade tactics, advances, and working the principal in different scenarios. The only drawback to this text is that it is over-priced. Nevertheless, I highly recommend it for anyone considering entering the field of personal protection or already working in it.



5. As the leading civilian authority on the U.S. Secret Service, I highly recommend this book from distinguished former agent Dale June. It is well written and very informative. Simply put, you cannot go wrong in purchasing this volume. I was a little disappointed with the 11/22/63 "whitewash", but that was to be expected, quite frankly (what is Mr. June going to say : "My colleagues screwed up in Dallas?"). Get this!

4 comments about Internet Denial of Service: Attack and Defense Mechanisms (The Radia Perlman Series in Computer Networking and Security).

1. Your take on this book really depends on where you are sitting. The authors lucidly describe what a Denial of Service attack is. More to the point, the book then goes into an explanation of its more dangerous variant - the Distributed Denial of Service [DDoS] attack. The book is really about the latter; not the simple DoS. We see how DDoS evolved rapidly from 1999 to 2005, with the number of computers hijacked to become agents for an attack expanding from hundreds to over a hundred thousand. And how it no longer seems to be done by joyriding hackers just seeking a thrill. Now, it may actually be a business; a major branch of malware.
   
   You should have a reasonable background in understanding TCP/IP, to appreciate the book's technical discussions. For example, if you see mention of the TTL field in a header, you should already know what it means.
   
   The book explains several postulated countermeasures to DDoS. Nifty ideas like traceback and pushback. Or perhaps doing an entropy count of good and bad packets, to help distinguish between them. The problem is that none of these are truly effective. DDoS is an unsolved problem. So if you are a cracker, this is good news. Not so for sysadmins.
   
   But there is something else. Perhaps DDoS is fundamentally insolvable, under the current IPv4 and current router capabilities. But maybe this field is still young. What is a problem for many could be a chance for you, as a researcher or inventor.



2. Internet Denial of Service
   
   I certainly enjoyed reading this book, in fact I started looking at it during the work day and couldn't wait for everyone to leave at quitting time so I could finish it. It seems to have a bit of trouble finding its niche, most of the time it has the feel of a research paper, but from time to time there are amazingly practical tidbits. If you are looking for a how to stop denial of service, step by step, buy the cup of coffee from Borders and leaf through the book and make your decision carefully. If you are a researcher in the USA interested in Internet protocols and US law and response, this is a must read, must have. If you are truly seeking to understand what zombie style distributed denial of service is and is capable of, buy the book and read it three times. My response team worked closely with one of the authors, David Dittrich from 1999 - 2001 and if there is a "been there, done that" individual when it comes to malicious code, he would be that person.
   
   This is not a book for a novice, but if you know your way around a network and know a bit about routing, there are a number of helpful illustrations and code segments that drive the points home.
   
   I realize I gave the book three stars even though I liked it a lot and that is primarily because the book is much weaker in the two final chapters, 8 and 9. You just can't throw issues like law, ethics, jurisdiction, evidence collection, and estimation of damages on the table, write a couple paragraphs and zoom on, someone could get hurt. For the right reader, this can be a wonderful resource.



3. There are obviously a multitude of ways an attacker can take your site down. One way is via a denial of service attack. There's a new book out that covers just that attack in great detail: Internet Denial Of Service - Attack and Defense Mechanisms by Jelena Mirkovic, Sven Dietrich, David Dittrich, and Peter Reiher (Prentice Hall).
   
   Chapter list: Introduction; Understanding Denial of Service; History of DoS and DDos; How Attacks Are Waged; An Overview of DDoS Defenses; Detailed Defense Approaches; Survey of Research Defense Approaches; Legal Issues; Conclusions; Glossary; Survey of Commercial Defense Approaches; DDoS data; References; Index
   
   Going into this book, I can say I knew about the basics of a Denial of Service (DoS) and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. What I didn't understand is how sophisticated they've become. The book covers (in deep detail) how bot or zombie networks are developed and utilized to launch these types of attacks. I didn't realize that it's relatively easy to acquire a bot network of over 100000 clients who can flood a site with packets. And it's not even necessary to use them all at once. Attacks can start with a fraction of the clients, and then escalate as the victim attempts to filter packets or add bandwidth. It's a scary thing. The authors also cover the various issues involved in the defense of these types of attacks. Filtering might work, but it can be difficult to find the correct filtering parameters that don't also drop legitimate traffic. And due to the distributed nature of the attack, it can be nearly impossible to find the culprit, and worse, to prevent it from happening again.
   
   Walking away from this book, you don't get a warm, fuzzy feeling about the current situation. Regardless of what steps you take, there is no current sure-fire method for defending these attacks. But by reading Internet Denial of Service, you'll be far more prepared to understand what's going on and what realistic options do exist. Better yet, it also gives you the steps you need to take to prepare your site for this type of incursion beforehand. If you've mapped out your plan ahead of time, you can definitely minimize (to some extent) the damage that can occur.
   
   This is a good read for any security professional tasked with security and availability of an organizational website. Reading this now could save your job later...



4. 'Internet Denial of Service' (IDOS) is an excellent book by expert authors. IDOS combines sound advice with a fairly complete examination of the denial of service (DoS) problem set. Although the authors write from the DoS point of view, as a network security monitoring advocate I found myself agreeing with many of their insights. Since there are no other books dedicated to DoS, I was very pleased to find this one is a powerful resource for managers and technicians alike.
   
   IDOS features some of the best minds on DoS research available. Everyone has heard of Dave Dittrich, but I found the work of lead author Jelena Mirkovic to be particularly valuable. Peter Reiher and long-time DoS researcher Sven Dietrich also give the project considerable weight. All four authors work for or with universities, and IDOS reflects this academic connection by frequently citing papers and DoS research. For example, chapter 7 describe DoS mitigation approaches and Appendix C examines the best available data on DoS techniques. I would encourage other authors to make similar references to the academic community and not write in a literary vacuum.
   
   By making references to outside works, IDOS successfully avoids repeating material published elsewhere. Chapter 6 was probably my favorite section, including much distilled wisdom and advice on responding to DoS attacks. I welcomed the authors' frequent recommendations to collect session and full content data. It is often impossible to detect and respond to attacks without this sort of network-based evidence. This point is often lost on vendors or consultants who lack experience performing incident response.
   
   I had minor problems with the book. First, I would have liked more technical detail in chapter 6. For example, it would have been nice to see examples of system metrics from nodes or routers under DoS attack. Specific advice on host tuning techniques would also have been useful, e.g., make changes X, Y, or Z on FreeBSD or Cisco IOS to better resist DoS conditions. I was also slightly disappointed the authors did not base their discussions of commercial products in Appendix B on hands-on evaluations. I understand the problem with meeting this objective, however.
   
   I did not have any problems with the legal or concluding chapters (8 & 9). I think the earlier three-star reviewer found himself on the wrong side of the 1999 "RST scan" controversy discussed on p. 52 and may not have been happy by the (correct) stance taken by IDOS.
   
   I highly recommend every security professional read IDOS. It's a convenient and illuminating discussion of a problem that will never disappear. This book will prepare you to do battle with DoS attacks, and for that I am thankful.

2 comments about Cyberstalking: Harassment in the Internet Age and How to Protect Your Family.

1. Harassment in the electronic age has moved beyond the realm of in-house and in-person to the cyberspace realm - and Paul Bocij handles common cyberstalking issues in his all-important Cyberstalking: Harassment In The Internet Age And How To Protect Your Family, which focuses not just on legal recourse but how the average individual can avoid cyberstalking on the internet. Bocij is a former university lecturer, writer and consultant: Cyberstalking shows how new technologies can all too easily lend to harassment - and what can be done to prevent technological harassment routines.



2. I am a victim of a cyberstalker. EVERYONE should read this book so that you do not become a victim as well... and if you do, learn how to protect yourself!

5 comments about Incident Response: Computer Forensics Toolkit.

1. A well considered and well structured work for the IT professional.

   The book is fast paced and wisely does not get dragged down with too much detail and 'how to' guides. It provided the knowledge and check lists to enable the reader to react appropriatly to an IT emergency or situation where a forensic approach is required.

   It's clear structure will enable me to use the book as a reference work in the future.

   The included CDROM was useful although in the future a PDF guide of each file would have been handy reference. It would have also been nice to have seen the free tools mentioned in the book included on the disk.

   Overall an excellent read I will look out for Douglas Schweitzer books again.




2. This book gives the reader a solid grounding in a difficult field. Since forensics and response are an area where you're up against a creative enemy, it's impossible to give the reader a cookbook approach. Schweitzer gives the reader the tools and framework necessary to begin tackling this very difficult problem. I'm really happy to see this book available on the market, since the problem it addresses is one that's getting worse all the time and shows no sign of getting better soon.

   Good job, Doug!

   mjr.




3. The author covers different aspects of incident response, but fails to go deeper in the matter.

   The author talks briefly about types of attacks, briefly about forensics tools, and briefly about the incident response procedures. Such shallow coverage of the topics makes for a quite dissappointing read.

   On the other hand he offers the readers complete text of USA Patriot Act 2001 - with little discussion of its implications, privacy concerns and its impact on the organizational security! Readers also get treated to full texts of Janet Renot(sp?) speeches - also with little explanation. Seems he tried to increase the word count of the book.

   Forensics tools are mentioned with instructions to run them starting as "Step 1:Click the Start menu button". Every tool has a half a page description on how to start it with a screenshot taking up the rest of the page.

   Forensics techniques are described, but the author presents this quite technical material in the abstract, easy-to-read form that takes away all the usefullness of it - reads like a summary.

   Incident response chapters present the reader with the common sense material. Might be useful to get an idea of what is involved in developing a incident response process, but it's hard to find it practical - it's simply too general.

   A fair introductory book, could be much better.




4. The introduction describes this book as a "complete introductory course in basic computer forensics and incident response" and that is indeed the case. It begins with an overview of computer forensics and incident response in Chapter 1 and progresses to legal considerations, obtaining and preserving digital evidence, system internals (mostly Windows although Unix is also discussed) and ends with analysis of real-world attacks and possible defences in Chapter 12. Press references and citations are used to give the big picture. All in all this is a book which I would recommend with two "buts": first, the author is writing from a US perspective for a US reader, presenting and discussing US-specific legislation and legal issues; while this would be of direct interest to our US-based brethren it is of no much use to anyone else. Second, platform-dependent coverage is mostly Windows, and although Linux/Unix get mentioned throughout the book the coverage of UNIX internals and forensics is not on par with Windows counterparts. Having said this, if you are in the US and are using Windows, do get this book - it is a readable and straight introduction to a complex and interesting field which becomes more and more important.



5. This book provides a good introduction to computer forensics and covers most of the necessary basic information. Do not expect to read this book (or any of the other computer forensic books available) and be able to perform any sort of in-depth forensic analysis. It's good information for Sys Admins or tech-savvy home users. Those needing professional-level information for their job (computer security, law enforcement, etc) should look to 5-6 day courses that provide in-depth, hands-on training.
   
   Again, as an introductory text on computer forensics, the book is good. Chapter 7 (Procedured for Collecting and Preserving Evidence) could use a little beefing-up with respect to boot disks. It is admirable that the author shows how to create Windows and Linux boot disks, but they don't provide any other benefit (no tools, etc). He should have mentioned freeware liveCDs for both Windows and Linux, such as the "Ultimate Boot CD for Windows" and "Helix" for Linux (search the web). Not only are they bootable media, they have tools useful for forensic analysis.

2 comments about Complete Guide To E-Security: Using The Internet And E-Mail Without Losing Your Privacy.

1. Mr. Chesbro discusses in detail and offers many practical solutions to internet and e-mail security. I found his book informative on exactly how e-mail messages are sent. More importantly his book has enabled me to send e-mail and surf the web by secure means without the worry of being intercepted by prying eyes. A must read for anybody who sends e-mail over the internet or desires greater internet security.

   His explanation on how e-mail is sent and how to implement privacy safeguards are clear, relevant and to the point. Not included is a lot of unnecessary technical detail. He details practical methods on how a citizen or even a corporation can set up private and secure e-mail using free/public internet e-mail security programs. I especially liked his tips on anonymous web-browsing and e-mail remailers.

   E-mail security is briefly touched on in the author's book "Privacy for Sale". In "The Complete Guide to E-security", Mr. Chesbro goes into much more detail on e-security when surfing the web, sending e-mail, e-communications planning, and laws pertaining to electronic communications.




2. Michael Chesbro's The Complete Guide To E-Security covers all aspects of using the Internet and email while protecting personal privacy. Chesbro reveals how anyone's email can be accessed and read a dozen times between the time it is sent and when it is received, that through such techniques as cookies and bugs, the unscrupulous can track which websites you visit, your IP address, email address, geographic location, even the type of computer you use. Chesbro then goes on to explain everything needed to insure both safety and anonymity while surfing the Internet, how to set up encrypted email, crate uncrackable passwords, "off the shelf" unbreakable encryption programs, and sending email through remailer services to disguise the source. The Complete Guide To E-Security is essential reading for anyone seeking to protect and ensure his or her privacy on the web or in electronic communications.

5 comments about Handbook of Computer Crime Investigation: Forensic Tools & Technology.

1. Capably edited by Eoghan Casey (System Security Administrator, Yale University), Handbook Of Computer Crime Investigation: Forensic Tools And Technology is a fascinating guide to the software and hardware tools necessary for collecting digital evidence of cyber crimes ranging from cyberstalking and child pornography to financial fraud, espionage, or terrorism. Essays by a variety of learned and experienced authors present the latest means of forensic analysis for Windows, Unix, and more systems. Sample code, charts, and appropriate case examples pepper this amazing, cutting-edge criminology reference. Handbook Of Computer Crime Investigation is an invaluable and "user friendly" contribution to the field of computer and Internet security.



2. The 'Handbook of Computer Crime Investigation' follows on well from Eoghan Casey's previous title, 'Digital Evidence and Computer Crime' which I found to be a sound introduction to the subject. This latest book is targeted at those already proficient in Computer Forensics and provides in depth detail of techniques essential to any computer related investigation. Also included are sections specific to examining various operating systems. As someone who both works in information security and has a particular interest in computer forensics I can thoroughly recommend this book!



3. The book reviews different tools and techniques for a forensic investigation by experts in the field. Very good reference manual for new and experienced investigators.



4. This is an excellent book from a real expert.

   Everyone and their brother are writing books about computer security and digital forensics.

   The difference here is that Eoghan Casey knows what he is talking about.

   Excellent book!




5. Eoghan Casey's text is immediately useful. It's not theory, it's practical. It's not biased to one operating system, but covers several technologies. Finally, Eoghan and the book's contributors do not gloss over today's most offensive topics, they address them with vigor and solutions.
   
   I would share one concern: the chapter-long product/vendor discussion. Some reviewers label it marketing; other reviewers don't mention it at all. I'll just forewarn you that you will learn much more about EnCase or NFR than about their competitors.
   
   As a security consultant for Hewlett-Packard, it seems my bookshelf fills up entirely too easily, especially as of the last few years. Therefore, I've gotten fairly selective with new book purchases (until I can get a new bookshelf). However, Casey's text is DEFINITELY worth getting - worth knocking another book off to make room. :)
   
   I hope you enjoy this comprehensive text at least half as much as I do.

5 comments about Stealing the Network: How to Own a Shadow (Stealing the Network) (Stealing the Network).

1. You can definately see the influence of the infamous Johny Long in the writing of this one. The book is incredible i was 150 pgs into it before I could take a bathroom break. :D get it and the rest.



2. This book was excellent for someone interested in technology but has a hard time reading dull technical books. I have been interested in digital security for a while, but until recently hadn't played around with SQL injections. I was interested in learning more about them and pleased to see that this book offered an excellent primer on SQL injections in the form of a story, which held my interest. In addition there was a cool primer on RFID hacking which I really enjoyed. The supporting story was intriguing and kept me reading to find out what happened next.
   
   There was a cliffhanger ending, and now I'm really looking forward to the next one.



3. It's nice when recreational reading overlaps with technical material, and the Stealing The Network series qualifies for that designation. The latest installment is Stealing the Network: How to Own a Shadow - The Chase For Knuth by Johnny Long, Timothy Mullen, Ryan Russell, and Scott Pinzon, and it's an enjoyable read that is heavy on the technical how-to while maintaining a decent plotline.
   
   There's basically two story-lines here... The first involves Robert Knoll Jr. and his father, and is a continuation from the last book. All the police surveillance and investigations are taking a toll on Junior's life, so he decides to act on his father's cryptic message to head down to Mexico with nothing much more than the clothes on his back (and a large amount of cash). He is contacted by people who work for his father, and is taken down to Costa Rica where Senior runs an on-line poker site. Everything that Junior wants is provided (top of the line, too), and he starts doing some programming and network intel for his father. But he really doesn't have a clue as to what Senior is really up to...
   
   The second story-line involves an autistic kid by the name of Paul Wilson. As he grows up, he starts gaining an interest in computer hacking and solving puzzles involving gaining access to various network sites. He's befriended by an on-line entity known as Rafa who is amazed at how Paul can pick up concepts almost immediately. It helps that he has a photographic memory and is wired such that these types of problems engage him. Rafa starts paying him for "research assignments", and Paul is thinking that he's actually doing legit security work. That, coupled with his intense interest in the martial arts, pretty much absorbs all his time. But he starts to understand a bit of what's really going on when he starts to hack a mysterious local business in order to help out a woman in his dojo. She has an ulterior motive for wanting to use his phenomenal hacking skills, but it may get them both arrested or killed.
   
   From a plot pacing standpoint, I was pleasantly surprised. The other books tended to be a bit more "vignette" in nature, so the overall story suffered. At least here, the plot and technology actually supported each other. Again, it's not New York Times best-seller action-adventure, but it works for this type of approach. Paul seemed to be a bit over-the-top in his skills, but that element was supported by his autism. It stretched credibility at times, but not so much that you started to laugh (or at least I didn't). My biggest disappointment is that there was no plot resolution to either story-line, so it's a given that you'll need to read the next one to see how it turns out. The plotlines are converging, and the next book *should* be pretty good. Still, I would have liked a bit more payoff at the end.
   
   Regardless, this is an interesting book about hacking techniques (complete with code) all wrapped up in an action/adventure plot. I'll be interested to see how they merge the story and carry it on in the next installment...



4. Let me first say that I am one of the authors on this book. I don't think authors can objectively review their own work in a forum such as this, so I won't. This won't stop me from rating it five stars to help reinforce the law of averages. ;-)
   
   I will, however, address a few reviews posted here. First and foremost, I am a huge fan of the Stealing series, and the authors that worked on each of the three previous books. But based on customer reviews and our own feelings on the matter, the authors unanimously agreed that boosting the story value of the book was a priority. After all, even security geeks deserve a good plot and decent characters if they take the time to read technical fiction. Books of this genre should also teach. By all fair reviews, this book does both. If you're interested in straight fiction, or straight tech, you'll find this book to only be half-good. If you're willing to be entertained, and are looking to learn something cool about hackers and how they operate, this is the book for you. And there I go, drifting into a review.
   
   So let me address one other complaint: the lack of a "real" ending. Well, that's our fault. There's more to the series, and we know how it's going to end, but we adamantly refused to slip another deadline, so the book went to print with a cliffhanger ending. Now we're not out to sell more books or make your life miserable by leaving you hanging, but this book had to either wrap up where it did, or it would have been scrapped by the publisher, who had no real choice in the matter. As authors, we missed our deadlines, but we did it in order to improve the final product. I'm personally proud of the end result, and the reviews show that we have good reason to be proud.
   
   So to long-time Stealing readers, this book is different because we grew in our craft, and our EXTREMELY capable story editor (Scott Pinzon) held us to the standard of mainstream fiction. Will we make the New York Times best-seller list because of our efforts? No. But this book isn't for those readers. It's for those in and around technology that have read one to many straight technical books.
   
   So we would love to hear what you think. Post a review if you'd like, or if you just want to chat about the book, head over to the "book talk" section of my web site's forums (you know where to find it- Google is your friend). I'd love to hear from you.
   
   j0hnny



5. Did you enjoy the previous three Stealing the Network books? Are you looking for more? Then move along now, nothing to see here.
   The prior books were interesting because they introduced the reader to new ideas or new angles on old ideas, then moved on without belaboring them. If you wanted more details, there were often URLs provided. The last two tied the stories together with the intriguing Knuth character. But the folks running the project chose to switch to a new format, with fewer characters and stories, not to mention fewer authors, and fewer ways to split the profits.
   After three books with the same (proven) formula, it's understandable the authors would want to try something new. Alas, it's a disaster.
   
   Welcome to "How to Own a Shadow," aka "The SQL Injection Adventures of Pawn." Pawn is one of the new characters in this volume, and is the first StN character I hoped would get shot to death by the cops in a mini-mall parking lot. Yes, he's that irritating. Particularly after reading 40 pages about his childhood as a high-functioning autistic (or something like that), and around 100 pages of him performing SQL injection attacks. Most of which is totally unrelated to Knuth. Note to the authors: SQL injection is interesting, but if you want to write a book about it, just write a book about it. I even gave you a title, what more do you want? You can even recycle much of this book, like you recycled part of the last one here.
   
   Oh, you noticed the real subtitle of the book, "The Chase for Knuth." First, one chases _after_ fugitives, and hunts or searches _for_ them. Not that it matters, because there's not much chasing or hunting going on in this book. There isn't much Knuth, either. We see him in the first hundred pages, which is mostly about his son analyzing poker software. That's the last we see of either of them. Because, really, this is "The Biography of Pawn." We do get 50 pages of Knuth at the end of the book, but don't get excited: it's all from the last book, added as obvious filler.
   
   Speaking of filler, there's a 17 page advertorial thrown in for BiDiBLAH, which is commercial software by SensePost. Oddly enough, they're listed as technical advisors for the book. I'm sure it's a fine app, but the authors have forgotten about Knuth again, since it has nothing to do with the story. If it had been relevant, it might have been a less obnoxious addition.
   
   Not everything is bad. There's a brief bit about RFID, which of course turns into how to use RFID for SQL attacks. We get to meet Knuth's supposedly dead wife, and a charming shrew she is. All in all, though, this book isn't worth reading unless you're a truly devoted fan of the series, or SQL. I'm still a fan of the previous books, and I hope the authors can recapture what made them so intriguing for their next book. I won't be buying that one until I'm sure it's not Book Two of the Pawn Saga, however.

5 comments about Murder in the Sentier.

1. and that's the truth. This is the best Cara Black mystery I have read yet. The plot and the details of Paris were so interesting I hated to have to put the book down to do something else (like eat or sleep). I'll add some personal reasons why this book appealed to me, since there are a lot of rave reviews already. First, I have spent time in many parts of Paris, but never the Sentier. I had just finished Sarah Turnbull's Almost French, a nonfiction book about an Australian who comes to live in the Sentier. While it gave me an overview, Black supplies historical and cultural details of the neighborhood that now make me feel I have been up and down every street. The book also comes with a map of the area so that readers can easily follow along.
   
   The German terrorists Black bases the story on were real. The Baader-Meinhof gang came to trial in 1975 and I was in Germany at the time. I still have the issue of Der Spiegel magazine that features the indictment on the cover. Much of the detail she uses about the fictional gang members is actually true. "Ulrike" would be Ulrike Maria Meinhof, a journalist turned terrorist. She actually did have a family, with twin daughters, that she abandoned. She was not a young student, however, but a woman over 40. She and others really were found hanged in their cells, and whether it was suicide or homicide has never been proven. "Marcus" is Andreas Bernd Baader, and he was in fact supported by Jean-Paul Sartre and other well known persons. For information on the real story, I recommend www.baader-meinhof.com. This site is in English.
   
   Here is my one criticism: if an author is not fluent in a language (German), it is better not to use it or to have a German-speaker proof it. Spelling and grammatical errors aside, there are two things non-German-speaking Americans dont always know. One is that all nouns are always capitalized. I had to convince one of my bosses of this (in publishing) because he thought it looked "weird". Most importantly, English and German do NOT translate literally into each other, and one has to be very careful with idioms. A word in English can have five or six different meanings, while in German there may be five or six different words, one for each meaning. Please, Ms Black, dont get in over your head. It's not hard to make sure of the correct way of saying things, in any language you have your characters use. If you cant do it, use English. Readers will assume that a Russian is thinking in Russian, und so weiter.



2. First, all these Soho mystery paperbacks are excellent,including the book design! Murder in the Sentier belongs among the top European mysteries, and C. Black's series is right up there with Simenon's Maigret, from decades back. Higher praise does not exist! Our odd and flamboyant German/French late 20's Detective/Computer Expert Heroine meets a shady lady, who may have some secrets about our heroine's mother, and any part she played in a near defunct 1970's Terrorist group. Unfortunately, the shady lady is shot dead while waiting to meet Aimee at a Paris Cemetary. The rest is a fine whodunnit, plus very fine scenes in the Sentier neighborhood, along with a motley crew of Parisians of many sorts, from Bourse traders, Coffee House Turks, and Street People of all sorts. Stylistically, this is way above many competitors in the Euro-Mystery field, and really a pleasure to read thruout! One of the final scenes may have been a bit predictable to an old mystery hand, but still done with real polish and flair throughout! In fact, this is one of the few mysteries good enough to merit a re-reading, which I might do soon!



3. This title seemed to have so much going for it: local author, attractive design, Parisian setting.... For me, it just didn't deliver. While the story line is rather (too?) complex, that wasn't a major issue. Instead, I felt that at least two of the major questions posed by the mystery remained completely unresolved at the end, while the momentary distraction that permits our heroine to escape from the clutches of death seemed as contrived to me as if a bolt of lightning had shot from the sky and knocked a gun from the clutches of the villain. In addition, the Parisian atmosphere struck me as a very thin veneer indeed, with unidiomatic French phrases inserted at regular intervals (literal translations of English that don't have the same meanings in French, a reference to the female protagonist in the masculine form...). Other details are off, too (musician Youssou N'Dour's name is misspelled, Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' is referred to as having been released a year earlier than it in fact was, etc). I can say that my attention was at least held to the end. Was I expecting too much?



4. Cutsey private investigator introduces a myriad of characters that never relate to the chase towards a solution to the mystery--and what's the main mystery?--"Where's my mother?", which never gets solved in the whole dull reading. The author attempts to ompress you with details of the streets of Paris, which, also, muddles the tale. This was my first test of Cara Black --also my last. No thanks.



5. Aimee LeDuc is drawn into the aftermath and repercussions of 1970's terrorist groups. It appears that her mother was involved in some way with the kidnapping of a French industrialist, and that her father, a policeman now dead from a terrorist bombing, was framed for the theft of the industrialist's extensive art collection.
   
   This could be an excellent novel, but the author simply doesn't know how to make scene transitions, and isn't really very good at dialogue. Maybe she needs a good editor. The story seemed choppy and disconnected; the LeDuc character is like an unfunny and unappealing version of Kinsey Milhone. The attempts to work French expressions into the dialogue simply do not work. In short, this was an annoying novel laid atop a compelling story.

5 comments about Dot Dead: A Silicon Valley Mystery (Silicon Valley Mysteries).

1. No gun battles? No bizarre death scenes? No serial killers? Oh My! No recipes either. So what kind of a mystery can Dot.Dead be without those standard formulas? Answer: A very good mystery - a mystery written and carried out through intellect and believable actions.
   
   It all starts when Ian Michaels, a hotshot Silicon Valley executive, is excused from jury duty and arrives home unexpectedly only to be clobbered from behind. That's bad enough, but when his beautiful cleaning lady is found dead in his home the next day, Ian's life as he knows it is set upon a slippery slope only he can make right.
   
   Kudos to Keith Raffel for such an entertaining, interesting, and well-crafted novel. I look forward to reading more from him.



2. This title caught my eye at the local library and I'm so glad I picked it up. I finished it in 2 days in the middle of a busy week. I do hope Raffel writes again and often.



3. I personally picked up the book because of the book's reference to Silicon Valley. I became interested in it after learning that its protagonist was an executive at a high tech company operating in Palo Alto, CA. I thus expected the high tech environment to play an integral role in the story. However the central murder case itself turned out not to have anything to do with the high tech industry; as such the environment reduced to an exotic backdrop to the story.
   
   To the author's credit, the story line was tightly structured, and its characters were realistic. It contained interesting dialogues, and I also enjoyed Raffel's intimate depiction of various locations in Palo Alto. However in my opinion there wasn't enough elements in it for the book to be classified as a great mystery.



4. Admittedly, mystery is not my favorite genre, but I purchased this book after being persuaded by the author himself at the local bookstore.
   
   The characters lacked depth and are completely unbelievable. The 911 operator actually exclaims "Oh my" when the protagonist tells her that he's been attacked in his home.
   
   Everyone was beautiful, successful, athletic, rich, has an Ivy League or Stanford education. Having grown up just minutes away from Palo Alto, I found incessant references to the "fair city" of Palo Alto laughable at first but soon they became an annoyance. This is not a tough mystery to figure out, but somehow it took the protagonist 280 pages to do it.
   
   My advice, skip this one and the leave the sleuthing to Nancy Drew.



5. This is a fast-paced mystery set in Silicon Valley with a little of it taking place in Del Mar outside of San Diego. The characters are well developed, mostly likable, with the author doing a great job in making them believable. The plot was carefully thought out with many surprises and twists. As an ex-Silicon-Valley exec, the best and worst of the area comes through accurately. The hero, a likable Silicon Valley executive shows his brilliance as he tries to solve a crime. Highly recommended. Once I got into it I couldn't put it down. It would make a great movie.

5 comments about CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, Revised.

1. I bought this book because I was interested in human aspects of these stories (RTM especially), more than the technical side. I found it very satisfying, and more. I could have not imagined it is so detailed and even ... entertaining.

   Reading this book I've felt again that nice atmosphere I first met while reading the superlative Cliff Stoll's "The Cuckoo's Egg". Indeed, those of you who have luckily read it too, will find Stoll himself here in an important role in the chapter about RTM...




2. The tales in this book are old ones now. Mitnick's escapades continued on to more infamous heights than this book, as the new epilogue explains. Having grown up working with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) computers, the descriptions of Mitnick's hacking on PDP-11 and VAX systems was like a dark-side of my high school days. Having worked at Radio Shack just after graduating college, I knew a lot of "phreakers" who worshipped the people mentioned in the book.

   I teach classes for computer professionals in UNIX. One of the courses is a 2-day class in unix security, and the "Morris worm" is one of the case studies we discuss. We don't go into too much detail in the class on the subject, and I usually recommend this book for those who want to go further.

   The other reason I recommend this book to students in my class is the story (in Kevin's section) of Susan Thunder. The concept of "social engineering" is one that transcends computer model, operating system version, etc. Many computer types just don't understand it, in the same way they don't understand office politics. If you fall into this category, or if you have an interest in the social side of hacking/cracking/phreaking, Hafner and Markoff do an excellent job of presenting these concepts.




3. First off, John Markoff does NOT tell an unbiased story, especially regarding the Mitnick case. Kevin Mitnick, preferring to keep a low profile, has not promoted his own story, and as a result he has had his name slandered by mediawhores like Markoff. Markoff traveled extensively with Tsutomu Shimomura, the security expert who eventually (and with much government aid) apprehended Mitnick. It is quite clear whose side he is on as he repeatedly demonizes Mitnick as a fat, malicious, juvenile person with no self-control and no respect for anyone else. This typecasting is quite understandable though, once you know that Markoff has a share in the Miramax movie Takedown that details Mitnick's capture. Nobody wants to see such unfair treatment happen to a real, sympathetic person. (Takedown, incidentally, is more slanderous than Cyberpunk and from which the real Kevin Mitnick, whom it is based on, is not getting a dime).

   But apart from my distaste for Markoff, this book still failed to be a interesting read. I enjoy reading about the early history of hacking, etc, so I bought it with high hopes. The only reason I didn't put it down was because it was my only reading material on a six hour bus trip. The Internet revolution was fascinating and the people involved in it were interesting, dynamic people. But to hear Markoff tell it, everyone was petty, whining, insecure, and one-dimensional, with no other motivation than to cause trouble for others. He hasn't got a gift for writing novels with well-rounded and interesting characters that the reader can actually sympathize with and care about.




4. Although Markoff is an exceptional writer and the book is both easy to read and entertaining, the content is presented as factual when the truth is that these guys definitely wrote the book with only part of the whole story at their disposal. One of the main "cyberpunks" depicted in the book is Kevin Mitnick, who claims that he has never even met John Markoff. How can the book fairly and accurately speak to the topic of hacking during the early days of the Internet revolution when they never did any investigations with real "hackers"? The story is told only from a law enforcement point-of-view. I am sure that the Rodney King story is told differently by King than the LAPD. Same goes for this case.

   Like many works today that seem to be written for financial reasons, it seems very one-sided and sensational.




5. I have read this book a number of times over the years (I picked it up when it first came out) and have always enjoyed reading it. Even though it does only scratch the surface of the hacker culture, it's definitely an entertaining read. I know that I've heard that many of the things that were written in here (especially about Kevin Mitnick) have been termed libelous and untrue by some people. I can't vouch for what's fact and what's not in this book. I can only say that it does give a good idea what hacking was like in the good 'ol days.
   If you like this book, you might want to try Steven Levy's book "Hackers", which really (I think) gives you a better understanding of the spirit of most hackers, and covers the history of hacking from the early days of MIT, up until now. Cyberpunk doesn't, but it's still definitely worth reading if you enjoy a good story.