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From: joeholms@DORSAI.COM(Joseph Holmes)
Subject: File 2--Review of _CYBERPUNK_
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 91 15:38:40 PDT

"Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier," is
journalism's second mainstream book on hackers, although since 1984
when Steven Levy wrote his "Hackers," the definition has certainly
changed. Cyberpunk is the story of three groups of "outlaw" hackers --
Kevin Mitnick, whom the authors call the "darkside" hacker, and his
friends in California, Pengo and the other West German hackers who
were pursued by Cliff Stoll in "The Cuckoo's Egg," and Robert Morris,
the author of the worm that took down the Internet in 1988. The
authors, Katie Hafner, technology and computer reporter for "Business
Week," and John Markoff, computer industry reporter for "The New York
Times," live up to both the best and the worst of journalism.

The good news is that they've assembled a ton of new details,
including the days leading up to Robert Morris's release of his worm
into the Internet, and lots of information about Pengo, Hagbard
Celine, and the other West German hackers visiting their Soviet
connection. For that reason alone, the book is sure to sell well. On
the other hand, there are passages in the book that leave the reader
more than a little skeptical about the reporters' accuracy.
Pittsburgh's Monroeville mall, for example, did not serve as the "set
for the cult film 'Night of the Living Dead'"--that was "Dawn of the
Dead." While that's hardly an important detail, such inattention does
nothing to inspire confidence.

And unfortunately, very little of the detail is put to any interesting
use, since the book offers almost no analysis of the facts. There's no
suggestion offered as to why Pengo, Mitnick, or Robert Morris did what
they did (the authors could take a lesson from "The Falcon and the
Snowman"--the book, that is, not the movie). Instead, Hafner and
Markoff have apparently drawn their own conclusions about the Mitnick,
Pengo, and Morris, and they seem to have written Cyberpunk to convince
us that Kevin Mitnick is a shallow, vindictive, and dangerous genius,
while Robert Morris is an innocent, misunderstood genius, more
scapegoat than outlaw. While those conclusions might easily be true,
we're never trusted to discover that from the facts alone.

As they tell about the dangerous pranks and hacks by Mitnick, for
example, they seem always ready to pass along every scary anecdote
about his power over everything from computers to the phone company to
security guards. No matter what the source (and it's usually
impossible to tell what their sources were), they apparently believe
every story they're told, even when the stories are obviously the
bragging of the participants. On the other hand, when they discuss
Morris, he gets the benefit of every possible doubt as they trace him
from his loving upbringing through his trial and sentence. They
mention, for example, Robert Morris's habit of ranging throughout
various networks and computers using decyphered or stolen passwords,
and they note, "Robert made a practice of breaking into only the
computers of people he knew wouldn't mind." Incredibly, this is stated
without the slightest bit of irony or skepticism. I myself have long
believe that Morris was something of a scapegoat, but what I'd like to
learn from a book like Cyberpunk are the facts to help me make up my
mind about Morris, not apologies and half-baked conclusions.

Cyberpunk is ostensibly about the people involved, not the science, so
computer and science readers will be disappointed to find that it
avoids explaining how phreaking and hacking works. I sorely miss Cliff
Stoll's ability to clearly explain to nonprogrammers the technology
behind all these exploits. Stoll, for example, easily explained how a
hacker with a dictionary and a little patience could figure out a slew
of encrypted passwords using simple logic rather than brute force.
Because Cyberpunk doesn't bother to delve into such details, it misses
the opportunity to involve the reader more deeply.

The writing style will win no awards (Hugh Kenner's review of the book
in the July Byte calls it "sledgehammer prose"). But of course,
Cyberpunks will nevertheless be gobbled up by all the
computer-literates -- the users and the hackers -- as well as a public
ready to be scared by news of the new evil breed of young computer
masterminds who are about to take over the world. Or at least the
world's credit ratings.


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