World Wide War: Angriff Aus Dem Internet (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
The author did a decent job of presenting some cases for why Cyber War are important and how they could be used to augment kinetic war. If you can navigate through the political talk (lots of areas where he's saying 'I told this President to do xyz and he ignored me'), then there is some decent material afterwards. Toward the end the themes seemed to start to get repetitive, but I think he got his point across fairly well. So, a year or so ago I needed to read some non-fiction after reading the first two “Game of Thrones” books back to back. 1500 pages of Dragon this, M’lady that… Great stuff but it gets to you. I also wanted something short. After so much dense fantasy, 350 pages of “Cyberwar” seems short. This book came out a few years ago and tries to be a primer on state use of internet attacks and the defense of states from internet attacks. I’m sort of torn about it. It is pitched at folks who have a minimal understanding of computers, but a decent understanding of government policy which makes it an odd choice for a popular press release.When I read a book like this, I ask myself if I’ve come away with new insight into the topic. Well, there were a few fun anecdotes. I found out that you can apparently gain root access to a radar station via the radar dish… that needs to be patched, dudes. I also gained a bit of insight into how nations think of the internet. It is a way that enemies can sneak into your country and mess things up.Although I shared the outrage when places like Egypt and Libya cut off their connection to the internet during the Arab Spring and I know that it is easy to quash dissidents when no-one can tweet. I now appreciate that it is necessary to keep other governments, and rebels from exploiting your network and crashing trains, grounding planes and cutting off power. Hence, hitting a kill switch may actually be the right decision… sometimes. (Damn you for making me sorta’ agree with Joe Lieberman.) Don’t think that can happen? Stuxnet was probably the cyber version of the Heroshima bombing. It probably won’t surprise you to know that the US is much better offensively than defensively in this war. Even North Korea has a team of hackers holed up in a swank Chinese hotel waiting to rain digital hell down upon us.But the book plods. It never finds its legs as either a techie book, or a policy book. It falls into a dull dull middle ground. If you want the gist, here it is in a three bullet point nutshell.1: Some “hacking” is actually nations attacking each other on the new exciting virtual battle field. This isn’t just “lets bring down the FBI website.” It is also “Lets cause the power grid to go down!” 2: The US is way more dependent on the internet to run our infrastructure than many other countries, and we need to defend it appropriately. 3: Because the US can’t balance the rolls government and private companies, we suck at protecting ourselves. There. Now you don’t have to read the book.Next Non-fiction will probably be the Keith Richards Autobio that I borrowed a while go and need to give back ASAP. For now, it looks like I’m headed back to Westeros. #Unsolicitedbookreview, It is known.PS: I’m not an Amazon Affiliate. Link is for educational purposes only.
What do You think about World Wide War: Angriff Aus Dem Internet (2010)?
Worthy topic, but factual/technical errors in the first few pages made me abandon it.
—FelipeRocha_RJ
Poor treatment of an important topic. Defensive triad suggestions possibly useful.
—Bella
The world is a horrifying place. Don't read this book in the winter.
—kangnie
