From hungary-online-owner Fri Mar 24 07:28:28 1995 Return-Path: owner-Hungary-Online Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id HAA02056 for hungary-online-out31415; Fri, 24 Mar 1995 07:28:28 -0800 Received: from localhost (daemon@localhost) (fnord) by nando.yak.net (8.6.5/8.6.5) id HAA02047; Fri, 24 Mar 1995 07:28:17 -0800 Received: from carlson@odin.net () via =-=-=-=-=-= for hol@hungary.yak.net (2045) Received: from odin.net (root@omega.odin.net [193.130.116.3]) (fnord) by nando (8.6.5/8.6.5) with ESMTP id HAA02038 for ; Fri, 24 Mar 1995 07:26:20 -0800 Received: from [193.130.116.13] by odin.net with SMTP (8.6.10/1.2-btv) id QAA31261; Fri, 24 Mar 1995 16:35:12 GMT Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 24 Mar 1995 16:20:56 +0100 To: hol@hungary.yak.net From: carlson@odin.net (Steven Carlson) Subject: (HOL) Cliff Stoll can't say that: "Silicon Snake Oil" reviewed Sender: owner-Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net This is a thoughtful review of Cliff Stoll's book, _Silicon Snake Oil_, which I mentioned in my latest column. I found this posting on the Computer Underground Digest list, which is a pretty useful source. Details at the bottom. =steve= --- Date: 19 Mar 95 14:42:00 EST From: George C. Smith <70743.1711@compuserve.com> Subject: File 2--Cliff Stoll can't say that: "Silicon Snake Oil" reviewed "CLIFF STOLL CAN'T SAY THAT, CAN HE?" or NOTHIN' BUT GOOD TIMES AHEAD IN "SILICON SNAKE OIL" I don't know if Cliff Stoll ever met historian Christopher Lasch, but if he did they certainly would have had a lot to talk about. Just before his death, Lasch closed his last book, "The Revolt of the Elites" with a biting assessment of the current mania with technology: "Those wonderful machines that science has enabled us to construct have not eliminated drudgery, as . . . other false prophets so confidently predicted, but they have made it possible to imagine ourselves as masters of our fate. In an age that fancies itself as disillusioned, this is the one illusion - the illusion of mastery that remains as tenacious as ever." Stoll's "Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway" (Doubleday) is steel-plated with the same underlying idea, that much of what is said blindly exTOLLing networks, interconnectivity and computing is illusory - at best exaggerated, at worst, completely fabricated. Of course, there have been other books which hoe the same row. Lauren Ruth Wiener's "Digital Woes" and Theodore Roszak's The Cult of Information," both excellent, come to mind. But neither deliver the same engaging personal style Stoll effortlessly inserts into "SSO" which is a greater read for it. The book deals directly with the mysterious mental disease that is now infecting large numbers of seemingly rational and very vocal people: That computers are the new philosopher stones of American society, capable of transforming the lead of inequality, crumbling public education; unresponsive, corrupt political processes; stagnant career opportunity; or the moribund sex life into different varieties of revitalized techno-alchemical gold. And it means for the greater part of the making of "Silicon Snake Oil," Stoll must have been sleeping with his bullshit detector plugged in. However, he's more gracious, calling it his "bogometer." To wit: "In physics, you measure the brightness of light with a photometer and voltages with a voltmeter. Bogosity -- the degree to which something is bogus - is measured with a bogometer," Stoll writes. "Alan November, a consultant for the Glenbrook high schools in Illinois, believes that today's students are in the test preparation business. In the May/June 1994 issue of _Electronic Learning_, he says that pupils will soon build information products that can be used by clients around the world. Teachers, in turn, will become brokers 'connecting our students to others across the nets who will help them create and add to their knowledge.' That one pegged my bogometer." Mine too. Passages like these are a delight to the closet curmudgeon. A mere thirty pages earlier, Stoll notes "I've also noticed that the computer cognoscenti hang on to their jobs by creating systems where they are at the chokepoints of the organizations. Workers who don't know computers get trampled, discounted or pushed to the side." As for information being free? Bah, Stoll indicates. "I hear this from those who duplicate software or break into computers. It's techno-Marxism -- abolish private property and we'll all be happy." The Free Software Foundation, writes Stoll, claims "that copyrights harm society by preventing the free flow of information." You can tell he doesn't believe much of it. Slogans and cyber-aphorisms of this nature are conveniences in 1995, usually used to rationalize the process of someone else, but never the individual spouting said cliches, being ripped off. I would suspect little, if any, of this will endear Stoll to the disciples of the church of Toffler now encamped within the gilded walls of the mainstream media. That's good. He also has doubtless alienated the cypherpunks movement by essentially stating that while their technical accomplishments are neat, the problem they're trying to solve - the preservation of information privacy through the employ of cumbersome, almost unusable anonymous remailers and cumbersome, almost unusable encryption technology - looms trivial in the global picture. In fact, "Silicon Snake Oil" gores so many sacred cows in cyberspace it's guaranteed the author will be regarded like a dysenteric hog loose in the streets of Mecca on some parts of the net. That would be a shame because "Silicon Snake Oil" has genuine heart. There's not a mean bone in it; neither will you find the sour breath of the corrosive cynic. Paradoxically, Stoll confounds the reader's expectations by appearing to be a hopeless romantic in everyday life, and, by contrast, the nets, where he is up to his neck in connections and still very obviously in love with the pulse of the cursor. In the end, "Silicon Snake Oil" is saying the future could be a pretty dim, brutish place if we trade the critical and analytical capacity, stuff that ain't broke, a real voice on the end of the telephone line or the tough teacher for the newest software, indigestible floods of valueless, curiosity-numbing information or glib futurology that is simply faster and louder than real life. That's a great message from a killer of a book. [George Smith is the author of "The Virus Creation Labs" (American Eagle).] ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 19 Mar 1995 22:51:01 CDT From: CuD Moderators Subject: File 7--Cu Digest Header Info (unchanged since 19 Mar, 1995) Cu-Digest is a weekly electronic journal/newsletter. Subscriptions are available at no cost electronically. CuD is available as a Usenet newsgroup: comp.society.cu-digest Or, to subscribe, send a one-line message: SUB CUDIGEST your name Send it to LISTSERV@VMD.CSO.UIUC.EDU The editors may be contacted by voice (815-753-0303), fax (815-753-6302) or U.S. mail at: Jim Thomas, Department of Sociology, NIU, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA. 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