Hackers: Crime in the Digital Sublime

Rating:
Summary: Endorsement
Review: "A must-read for anyone who wants to understand the hacking phenomenon that has swept the world." --Dorothy Denning, Georgetown University

Rating:
Summary: Security Breaching, Where's the Line?
Review: Author Paul A. Taylor writes about the issues of security breaching between the hacker and the computer security industry in his book Hackers: Crime in the Digital Sublime. Taylor begins the first half of the book giving the definition of a hacker, walking the reader through the evolution of hacking and describing the Hacking culture. His point being, to look past the stereotypical label of hackers being criminals. Using interviews of well-known hackers, in the hacking community, and elite hackers, Taylor provides his audience with a perspective of the positive moral and ethical values most hackers inhibit. This reinforcement helps balance the arguments between the computer underground (hackers) and the computer security industry.
The issues that Taylor concentrates on are about hackers' intrusion on big business systems opposed to an individual's personal records. The main argument that consistently appears throughout the book is whether hackers who intrude on big business systems should be punished and how society can determine how they should be punished. Although Taylor leans toward the side of the computer underground, he mediates the arguments throughout the book with a balanced amount of interviews from both sides of the argument.
In today's society, Taylor states that cyberspace laws are compared to those that exist in a physical space, the "real world". By providing the point of view of the hacker, Taylor is able to contend that in order to develop a more legitimate law against the intrusion of secured computer systems, society will have to define whether cyberspace is comparable to the real world or if a new set of rules should be developed to aid the regulation of cyberspace.
The way in which Taylor structures his book, Hackers: Crime in the Digital Sublime, is comparable to the structure of the MSNBC news program, Hardball with Chris Matthews. During the show Chris Matthews proposes an issue or argument and brings in specialists from each side to debate it. Taylor follows this structure by interviewing people from the computer underground and people from the computer security industry about where laws should be placed or not be placed in cyberspace. Of course, many books have been written giving both sides of an argument, but what separates Taylor's writing from the rest is how the interviews are separated structurally from Taylor's own opinions. The book reminds me of a TV news program transcription. For instance, the interviews are always separated from Taylor's writing by a line space and indented from the left side by five spaces. This structure gave me the feeling that he was not confident enough in writing his argument in his own words or maybe he did not have that much to say about it. Only half of the 176 pages were actually written in his own words. I was very interested to learn about hackers through the eyes of someone who knows some of them personally and favors their point of view, but given his lack of interpretation on the arguments between the underground and security industry, I find him not very convincing.
It is apparent that Taylor favors the side of the hackers. Although Taylor equally balances the time spent on each viewpoint, he sometimes uses quotes that make the other side, the computer security industry, seem hostile and unintelligent. For example, Taylor argues about how hackers violate laws and professional codes of ethics but he does not believe that hackers are liars, cheaters, or stealers. His reason being that there are no allegations held against them. After stating that all of the hackers he has met seem to be decent people, he then strings five quotes together about how deviant the computer security industry thinks hackers are. For instance, one quote read, "Somewhere near vermin i.e. possibly unavoidable, maybe even necessary pests that can be destructive and disruptive if not mentioned." (107). This quote is taken out of its original context and put into one of which would persuade his audience to believe his opinion. Taylor does not give the information about what kind of argument the person was having when that statement was made. For all we know this could have been a CEO speaking about a hacker who infiltrated the company's system and did so much damage that it to cost the company millions of dollars to repair.
Despite the lack of trust I have for the author, Taylor put together a great understanding of the hacker, the history of hacking, the hacker culture and their motivations. I now denounce the stereotypical negative connotation that the word hacker possesses. The similarities between the book and Hardball would be effective if both parties were given an equal opportunity to share legitimate information about their viewpoint. Unfortunately, since both parties were not presented in the exact space and time like a news show, Taylor is able to edit the information he collected and skew it to benefit his own opinion.

Rating:
Summary: A trenchant, hype-free analysis of the computer underground
Review: Freedom fighers or anarchists? In Hackers, Paul A. Taylor looks at these characters and at the perennial battle between computer hackers and the security industry. He talks to computer scientists, security experts and the hackers themselves about the practicalities, objectives and the wider implications of what they do. In astonishingly frank interviews, Taylor provides a revealing and richly sourced account of the debates that surround this controversial practice. He reveals that extreme conciliation and antagonism from the computer industry toward hackers creates potentially dangerous outcomes and argues that a new middle way must be found if we are to make the most of society's high-tech meddlers.

Rating:
Summary: Not so intellectual...
Review: I enjoyed many quotes of the media hype on hackers, but I do not agree that this book is ``the first major intellectually rigorous study of hacking'' as another reader reviewed.

Steven Levy's _Hackers_(It had criticized the Weizenbaum's view that the author depended.), Eric Raymond's _Cathedral and the Bazaar_, and _The New Hacker's Dictionary_ by many contributors had already researched and provided exciting resources on the hacker's culture and sociology. I cannot find the reason that they are not so intellectually rigorous. (Though Levy had made some mistakes, he tried to collect the mistakes in later edition.)

The author understand the hacker in the filed of the counter culture, rather than the serious computer development. That's the why the author ignore the both study of _Cathedral and the Bazaar_ and _The New Hacker's Dictionary_. So he failed to cover the hackers' most succeed and international part.

I fond some bibliographic mistakes in this book.

_The Cyberthief and the Samurai_ is by Jeff Goodell, not Godell.

_Wargames_ is the movie in 1983, not in 1989.

As URLs in the reference had already expired(maybe before this book is published), the date information or mirroring service might be helpful.

Rating:
Summary: The first major intellectually rigorous study of hacking
Review: Salem revisited

Twenty five years ago when I was starting out in my career as a computer barrister I ran into an elderly Queen's Counsel and got chatting. "I'll have none of your computery Kelman" he replied when I started talking about technology. 'Computery' was a word the QC made up on the spot which exactly matched his way of thinking - computers were magical and "computery" was like sorcery - a black art perpetrated by young dangerous wizards who did not know they place.

Dr Taylor's book takes the reader into this world where the establishment were frightened and yet fascinated by the 'computery', where young immature men (for it was mainly men) sought to use hacking to raise their social prestige and where hysteria and hype created a modern day Salem with show trials on both sides of the Atlantic. But while some of the hackers deserve to be considered young investigative journalists a large number engaged in primitive tribal rituals using their technical abilities in arcane coding for the pursuit of power without responsibility.

Dr Taylor documents this phenomenon and a revealing picture of the late twentieth century "new barbarian" culture (to use a phrase popularised by Professor Ian Angell of the London School of Academics). How society will embrace and extend its power over hackers with share options, main board directorships and new academic posts instead of punitive sanctions is the unwritten text of a latent follow-up volume.

This book on hackers is the first major intellectually rigorous study of this social phenomenon. I can commend it as required reading for anyone who is interested in the way society approaches threats which undermine the pecking order of society. Filled with quotes from the hackers themselves and visionary authors it is a mind expanding piece of literature which teaches while it entertains. Buy it.

Alistair Kelman Barrister and Visiting Research Fellow LSE Computer Security Research Centre The London School of Economics

Rating:
Summary: An Encyclopaedia of Hacking
Review: Taylor's Hackers is anextended and rigorous analyses of hacking as illicit computer intrusion (or cracking as some insist it should be called. Taylor explores in detail the nature of hacking from every angle. His book is based on over 60 in-depth interviews and is written sympathetically, treating hackers as human rather than as pathological teenagers. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Hackers. There are only two extended, academic pieces on hacking, this book and the complementary statistical analysis by John Howard (available at http://www.cert.org/research/JHThesis/index.html).Hackers also has the advantage of being accessible and well-written. Perhaps the best way to look at this book is as an encyclopaedia of hacking, because it provides extended quotes from hackers, computer security personnel and interested others (journalists, academics, etc.) on all relevant topics. An excellent piece of work.

Rating:
Summary: A Cracking Good Read!
Review: This is the first serious study I have seen of a generally media sensationalised area. Being straight from the hackers' mouths, the source material gives a more balanced view than those given by previous authors who tend to be overly moralistic and prejudiced in their approach to the subject. True impartiality is on display as well as meticulous research. Well done Dr. Taylor. I found the grammatically ludicrous, error strewn review of Mr. Yamane particularly unhelpful and inaccurate. People in grass houses shouldn't throw stones.