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Cyber Crime
DRM vs Rights
Media Levy
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| | My reading materials come from all directions. I still
prefer print on paper, so subscribe to a (large) number of technical industry
magazines. In addition, I browse the technical sections of my local book stores
fairly frequently and tend to pick up at least one book on each of the various
systems, languages and programs found on my customers' systems - mostly for
reference.
In the realm of general technology I tend to pick up Scientific
American, Popular Science, even Popular Mechanics and other similar publications
whenever I travel. Recently this has meant that I've been pretty much up to date
on all the more popular ones.
Online, I subscribe to a number of mail lists and digests, and
participate in several of them as time and topic permit.
Historically, I've been a reader of good ol' traditional Sci-Fi
- lots of Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke and more recently, Spider Robinson. Not much
fantasy (although I read the Ring Trilogy and loved it - and re-read it recently
and went to the new film and loved it and want to see the rest as soon as they
come out). I've read at least one set of David Eddings books and enjoyed them,
although they didn't make me go out and buy more.
Books I've Found Useful and Interesting Recently
- The Salmon of Doubt - Douglas Adams (posthumously)
2002, Macmillan - ISBN 0-333-76657-1
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The (unfortunately) last of DNA's books - made up of
writings found on his computer after his death. At the time I'm writing this
I'm about half-way through the book. I have to say that I was late in
reading any of Douglas' books - but have been working fairly rapidly to
catch up. This book is not just another in the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the
Universe series, but instead includes writings from articles and non-fiction
books along with some great vignettes and one-liners.
The main thing this book has done is shown me that Douglas and I share many
aspects of our background and interests. Not that I was born and raised in
England or attended English boarding school (although I did spend grade 7 at
the best of the local equivalents as a day student; St. Georges in
Vancouver). Its just that I too love Bach, the Beatles, and Physics, am fond
of writing (but I don't yet make enough to live on) and love SCUBA diving.
This parallelism may in fact give me the impetus to get out of my current
high-tech rut and do some serious writing, although I may be too late to
actually become successful and rich at it.
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- Body of Secrets - James Bamford
2001, Doubleday - ISBN 0-385-49907-8
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An intriguing look into the NSA (National Security Agency of
the U.S.A.) - candid, believable, fascinating. Even though written before
the events of 0911 this year, this book provides background on the conflict
in the Middle East (as well as others) which sets the stage for the conflict
with Al Qaeda.
- Secrets and Lies - Bruce Schneier
2000, John Wiley & Sons - ISBN 0-471-25311-1
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In my opinion, the definitive work on Risk Management
in the computer connected world. Required reading for all business
executives.
- Incident Response - Kevin Mandia & Chris Prosise
2001, McGraw-Hill - ISBN 0-07-213182-9
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An excellent overview of the tools and techniques necessary
to catch and convict the culprit(s) after the damage has been
done, or recover damaged systems compromised or destroyed by viruses or
worms.
On the nightstand:
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The Axemaker's Gift - James Burke and Robert Ornstein
"A Double-Edged History of Human Culture" |
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A Man Called Intrepid - William Stevenson
The secret war - definitive volume on intelligence service around WWII |
Still on the pile to be read:
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The secret history of the CIA - Joseph J. Trento |
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Intrepid's last case - William Stevenson |
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Man without a face - Markus Wolf - "autobiography of
communism's greatest spymaster" |
Some of you returning to this page
will note that I no longer have a list of favourite links and resources. The
reason for this is that I have become convinced that the search engines now
available (July 2002 as I write this), especially www.google.com
are more than adequate in finding out what the latest information is about any
particular subject the reader might consider interesting. This is amply backed
up by what seems to be an ever increasing answer post to questions in various
Usenet News groups which is along the lines of:
"Search engine broken? Here, use mine" with a
URL complete with search functions and key words already filled in, somewhat
like:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=search+engines
Thus, I can truly say - my resource list is at www.google.com On
the other hand, you will find links to specific resources in the various pages
and articles I write - enjoy. richard | |
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