Sunday, April 16, 2000
Title: Net Spies
Author: Andrew Gauntlett
Publisher: Vision Paperbacks
I'll admit from the start that I picked Net Spies out of a bargain bin, and I paid cash so no one could prove that I did, but then I always pay cash its harder to track. Information can be monitored, and lets face it, is monitored, and with the explosion of the internet there is more traffic than ever. Net Spies looks at the ideas involved in this from the fraud that can be committed to the security issues.
Things like skamming - following a link to a false site which then follows your actions for the rest of your session. Or plug-ins which are actually reconnecting you to a more expensive phone line. Or Back Orifice which infamously enables remote control of your computer. Then there is stalking, spamming and general data abuse.
The other side deals with how secure your email really is, who can read it and why. Privacy and why governments don't like it, but internet business is crippled without it. As always one of the biggest issues with the internet is the differences between the US and Europe. Of particular concern is the Ech/-/elon and Mel/-/with Hill discussion. Ech/-/elon reportedly being an agreement between the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand for surveillance that stems back to wartime. The big issues are that governments aren't supposed to spy on their own citizens - so they get round this by spying on each other's people. The author includes details of how a politician that tried to investigate this set up conveniently died in a car accident before he could get anywhere.
Net Spies goes from individual issues and legal issues to conspiracy and crime. His range is fairly thorough and his style sufficiently unbiased that we can follow the arguments for ourselves. He also writes from a level which anyone should be able to follow - regardless of technical experience. In the end the author's point is that you should be aware. Whether you have a computer or not, regardless of how secure yours is, companies and services hold information about you in computers and unless they are doing things properly you have no privacy; you have no security.
RVWR: PTR
April 2000
