Well, Pokemon (at least my review of it) will be going on the back burner for a little bit, but only because I have just recently become partial to an AMAZING book (yes, a book) called The Cuckoo's Egg. Written by Cliff Stoll, it's a true story, but it shows that all you need to play spy games is a computer. I like to call it a "science nonfiction" book because it has all the intrigue of crime drama paired up with... well, computers! NCIS's Timothy McGee would likely geek out about this book, it's that cool. Onward!
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There are quite a few recurring themes that come up within The Cuckoo's Egg; there's no way I will cover all of them here, so I'll look into the theme that stands out to me most. First off, I like the idea of thinking about networks as communities. Why? Because they essentially are communities. Take any given message board/forum on the Internet, for example. A message board has a given number of people--members with online accounts--it has administrators, moderators, and other staff to make and enforce certain rules that allow the vast majority to enjoy their time on it, and it most likely revolves around a given topic, like how Bulbagarden's forum talks mainly about Pokemon. Many members become great friends online (I should know, I'm friends with most of the active members on Quark), and those friendships allow for a real community to form. Your "neighbors" may be in other countries or states, but you have a tie to those people through a network.
Stoll takes this concept further and says those who hack into computer networks violate the trust inevitably formed in a community. Saying that it's no better than breaking in and robbing someone's house? "Wow, that's harsh," you say. Let's go back to the message board analogy. Perhaps a message board has a private forum for the staff. Okay, now say that a hacker knows about this forum and wants to access it. If the hacker is similar to the one Stoll brought down, then he'll try accessing a guest account. If successful, he can then utilize any hole in the security system for this message board. Eventually, he finds some obscure hole that not even the staff know about and gains admin privileges soon after. He would then reset the login information for an admin's account, preferably an inactive account so no one's the wiser, and then he would have access not only to this private forum but to the other privileges of an admin as well.
And what could he possibly do as an admin, or, Heaven forbid, a super-admin? Access to a private forum is the least of the community's worries! First, the members think a good member of the staff who had gone inactive is back when in reality this admin had just become their worst nightmare. Second, he could ban whoever he wanted to ban, including other admins, close down whatever thread he wanted to, or he could alter data somewhere. Worst of all, however, he'd have access to every member's private information which he could then exploit in a mass identity theft, if he wanted to. Any of these misused powers destroys trust within the forums, and, if he got his hands on webmaster privileges, no one except the real webmaster would be able to stop him (and even then the staff might have been booted off already), and the board would eventually get shut down by request of the staff. All because one person got privileges he shouldn't have and tarnished a well-known person's reputation.
Now, to be fair, this is the worst-case scenario; fortunately, in today's world, many security measures are in place that make it highly difficult for hackers to invade accounts like this, but what I portrayed above illustrates the idea Stoll was trying to get at. He lived in an age that didn't have nearly as many security measures anywhere, so anyone with decent hacking skills was able to reach almost anywhere, look at unclassified, but sensitive data, and steal accounts, whether old or new. Such a misuse of information really did violate the trust and privacy of a community, and he found himself a cause worthy of fighting for: freedom of computer use and peace of mind for everyone who this hacker had hurt.
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GSpark Light Says: I like the way Stoll vividly portrays his mission to take down the hacker that cost him $0.75, and I also like how he was able to express his opinions and the moralities behind what drove him to go to the lengths he did. I'm sure many of us, especially the NSA, are grateful for what he did and the standards he helped set in today's society. Because he was as persistent as the hacker was in his efforts, the world learned from its mistakes and started to take computer security seriously.
GSpark Dark Says: Unfortunately, there is a major language problem at the very beginning of the book, followed by other instances of medium to low profanity. Also, those who are offended by shower scenes should be cautious near the middle of the book. It also portrays alcohol usage, though not too heavily.
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Well, that was fun! I like deviation once in a while, and The Cuckoo's Egg was a definite deviation from what I normally look into, but once I started reading the book it was very difficult for me to put it down until it was finished. Anyway, I *should* have Pokemon for my next topic soon... if I can remember to put such games down long enough for me to write them up! ^_^' So, waving out for now!
--Gemini Spark
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