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Cyber Rights: Defending Free speech in the Digital Age

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A personal tale from the Digital Freedom Front
A Thrilling, Inside Story of Internet Legal Development
Human stories about cyberspace and law
A coherent, passionate take on the subject
Reconciles online ethics and law

Cyber Rights: Defending Free speech in the Digital Age
Mike Godwin
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262571684

Amazon.com

Cyber Rights is an exceptionally rational and compelling account of the most explosive and controversial issues surrounding freedom in cyberspace. Author Mike Godwin is the well-known outspoken activist for online civil liberties and counsel to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). He's been directly involved in many of the news-making cases and offers cogent analysis of very thorny situations, such as:

Godwin is a natural teacher, carefully describing each event and explaining the issues surrounding it. Unlike many writers, he shows that he thoroughly understands the arguments for restricting speech. He then methodically takes the arguments apart, covering what is normally boring legal theory and explaining it in a lively manner so that readers are drawn into the story.

This book differs from other books on the topic in two ways: it's entertaining and it's a personal account. It's obvious that Godwin enjoys telling his stories, and he passes his enthusiasm on to readers. Readers also get a sense of Godwin's personal involvement as he describes his role in exposing the erroneous study that was the basis of Time magazine's "cyberporn" scare. In his chapter on the court decision that overturned the Communications Decency Act of 1996, it's clear that Godwin's work for the EFF is not just his job, but his passion. --Elizabeth Lewis

Book Description

Lawyer and writer Mike Godwin has been at the forefront of the struggle to preserve freedom of speech on the Internet. In Cyber Rights he recounts the major cases and issues in which he was involved and offers his views on free speech and other constitutional rights in the digital age. Godwin shows how the law and the Constitution apply, or should apply, in cyberspace and defends the Net against those who would damage it for their own purposes.

Godwin details events and phenomena that have shaped our understanding of rights in cyberspace--including early antihacker fears that colored law enforcement activities in the early 1990s, the struggle between the Church of Scientology and its critics on the Net, disputes about protecting copyrighted works on the Net, and what he calls "the great cyberporn panic." That panic, he shows, laid bare the plans of those hoping to use our children in an effort to impose a new censorship regime on what otherwise could be the most liberating communications medium the world has seen. Most important, Godwin shows how anyone--not just lawyers, journalists, policy makers, and the rich and well connected--can use the Net to hold media and political institutions accountable and to ensure that the truth is known.

Customer Reviews:

A personal tale from the Digital Freedom Front.......2003-03-25

I started off a review of a Bruce Sterling novel with a statement of full disclosure, so I must do the same here--even more so. Mike is a long-time friend from when I lived in Austin, Texas. He knew me, as they say, when. After my disastrous first year at the University of Texas, he helped me identify the classes to take that would awaken my interest (including Shakespeare at Winedale). Mike grilled me on my reading critically, forcing me to be able to talk about books on a level besides enjoyment. He was also the organizer of the Dull Men's Club, a regular meeting group for argument and drinking that often became similar to the Austin BBS Users Reading Group. Yes, I think it safe to say that he was, and still is, a friend.

As he explains his history in this book, Mike was in the right place at the right time interested in the right things. Mike's interest in electronic communication and constitutional law and his journalistic background all brought him to the attention of Mitch Kapor, who made his money with Lotus when they were known for a spreadsheet called 1-2-3. Kapor was forming a think tank to work on his pet project, the rights of people on the electronic frontier. This group eventually became the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) and Mike Godwin was hired as its first employee to be its legal counsel.

Nearly ten years later, the world has changed. The EFF has been part of some historic court battles and media frenzy and Godwin was there at each step of the way. In Cyber Rights, he explains these issues by giving you his personal history and his involvement. I can't think of too many other people who could have written a book like this (although Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown comes close; Bruce, however, was never so intimately involved in his non-fiction). Mike's background as a journalist keeps this from being a snooze, even when the legal hair-splits start looking like a bad day at Supercuts. If anything, some people may be turned off by his relative informality. I thought it actually helped, by showing that these are not dry issues that only lawyers and civil libertarians can love. Mike is passionate that the future of our society lies in the battles we are fighting today regarding what we can and can not do on the Internet.

What freedom are we talking about? Those guaranteed to you in the First Amendment, specifically freedom of the press, where the Internet is showing itself to be a new medium, just as radio and TV were earlier. In radio and TV, this freedom was abridged because of the issues of access to a limited spectrum. The Internet, however, is almost limitless, even more so than newspapers and publishers, who heretofore have enjoyed the full benefit of First Amendment protection. The issues that come up in these debates include: libel, pornography, privacy, marketing, and copyright. The Internet has changed the ground rules on all of these, yet most legislation and court cases have tried to link the Internet to older traditional media (likely due to our legal practice of using case law precedents), whereas Godwin feels that a new media, a new press, requires different interpretations.

I liked this book so much that I spent part of last semester designing a composition unit around the book and a writing assignment that would use Godwin's issues as a baseline to discover how things have changed since he finished the book at the end of 1997. I did not realize when I designed the unit that I would get a chance to put it immediately into practice, but circumstances have enabled me to teach two months of a freshman composition course this next semester on "Writing in a Technological Age and we'll be tackling Godwin's issues in February (in March, we'll be looking at Geoff Ryman's Internet novel, 253). I went by the bookstore earlier this week and noticed that I'm not the only teacher who is requiring this book; a professor in the School for International Studies is also using it as a text.

Okay, you're likely not one of my students, so you aren't required to read this book, so why should you? If you use the Internet for business or pleasure, the topics discussed herein are directly applicable to your continued use of this resource. Godwin explains in simple terms why you should be concerned, what the difficult issues are, and what things are being overblown by Chicken Littles. If you've been following these issues closely, this is a good summary; if you don't know what I'm talking about at all, this is your introduction.

A Thrilling, Inside Story of Internet Legal Development.......2000-02-04

"Cyber Rights" provides a real insider's view aboutthe early development of Internet law in the United States, focusingon free speech, privacy and copyright issues, among others.

He notes that some things have changed since he wrote "Cyber Rights": "One of the great ironies of cyberlaw is the extent to which policymakers were panicky about anonymity on the Net in the early 1990s -- nowadays it's increasingly obvious that the Internet is one of the least anonymous places there is, since so much that you do there is archived and recorded."

Human stories about cyberspace and law.......1999-04-05

This is the book that picks up where Bruce Sterling's "The Hacker Crackdown" leaves off. Lots of talk about law and philosophy, but wrapped in a series of very human stories. I was caught up in it from the introduction on.

A coherent, passionate take on the subject.......1999-04-04

What I liked was Godwin's willingness to invest some of his own passionate belief into his accounts of the principles and cases he discusses. This is also the first book I've seen that builds a coherent, positive theory of free speech on the Net rather than just a defensive one. I found the discussions of memes and virtual communities absolutely central to the book.

Reconciles online ethics and law.......1999-04-03

One of the things I liked about this book was the way in which it addressed the ethics of online publication (don't spread bad memes, try to counter bad memes with good ones) with the First Amendment (which basically keeps government out of the meme-regulation process). In other words, policing the Net should be a matter of individual ethics rather than of legislation or prosecutions. I didn't find the messages of this book inconsistent at all -- it seems to me to be one of the goals of First Amendment advocacy to explain how free speech leads to good results. I think that anyone who approaches the book as a simple guide to online rights is missing the larger message, which is that there is a philosophy of free speech and privacy that has to shape how we deal with the Internet.

Trade marks & the emerging concept of cyber property rights

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Trade marks & the emerging concept of cyber property rights
V. K Unni
Manufacturer: Eastern Law House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Law | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 8171771408

Hack Proofing Your Network: Internet Tradecraft

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Not the best one, but good for the price/size
Big Names, Great Book
Original content will satisfy security professionals
Better than the rest!
5+ Stars are Deserved on this one!

Hack Proofing Your Network: Internet Tradecraft
Ryan Russell , and Stace Cunningham
Manufacturer: SYNGRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Certification Central | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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Anti-Hacker Tool Kit, Third Edition

ASIN: B000069294
Release Date: 2000-07-25

Book Description

Systems and software packages are being connected to the internet at an astounding rate. Many of these systems and packages were not designed with security in mind. IT professionals need to keep their systems secure: this shows them how to make a meaningful security assessment of their own systems, by thinking like a hacker. Using forensics-based analysis this book gives ;the reader insight to the mind of a hacker. This understanding is crucial for security, Classes of attack, Diffing, Decrypting, Session Hijacking, Client and Server Holes, and choosing Secure Systems

Download Description

This book brings together some of the most talented IPSec professionals and prominent grey-hat hackers to tell you how to protect your systems from attack. The focus is on the practical and the objective is to leave you with the know-how and tools to deal with virus, session hijacking, client holes, spoofing, and more.

Customer Reviews:

Not the best one, but good for the price/size.......2004-10-15

The books offers some basic theory and knowledge. Not very practical though. Good starting point and reference book.

Big Names, Great Book.......2002-04-28

When I read the first edition of this book, was truly disappointed. I was wondering how such people could have written such book. Not that the book was worthless, but too 'standard' to met the expectations I had from these guys.
Still the idea was very interesting (information directly from the real experts), and I kept waiting for a new edition.
Well the second edition is now out, and not only fulfills, but exceeds all my original expectations !!

Let's take a look:

The Approach:

Understanding attacks and vulnerabilities, by understanding 'how to hack' (good hacking of course. . . .ahem )

The Book:

Rewritten, expanded and improved, the book consists of 800+ pages well structured into 18 chapters (against 450+ pages and 15 chapters of the first edition).
Well written, well presented, with a real fancy table of contents, the chapters include url's, a FAQ section and a SOLUTIONS FAST TRACK one.
A lot of CLEVER code is included as well as helpful 'Tool & Traps' and 'Notes from the Underground. . . ' outlines.

The new sections (all outstanding) include:
- Hardware Hacking (otherwise only found in papers)
- Tunneling (excellent)
- IDS evasion (very easily explained)
- Format strings attacks

The Intended Audience:

People willing to become network security pros.

Contents:

- Introduction to Security, Attacks and related Methodologies.
- Cryptography.
- Unexpected Input, Buffer Overflow, Format Strings.
- Sniffing, Hijacking and Spoofing.
- Tunneling, Hardware Hacking, Viruses (et al.).
- IDS Evasion.
- Automated Tools.
- Reporting Security Problems.

The Bottom Line:

It is not just a good book, it is the best book among high level network security books, and the only that compares with specialized papers. Only quite easier.
I got more than 60 papers on buffer overflows. None compares with the classical 'Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit' by Aleph One. IMHO, however, the corresponding chapter from this book, does compare and is really easier to understand.
Finally, the 'piece de resistance' of the book, is the chapter about Spoofing. Really enjoyed it, and by the way got surprised reading the innovative (to me) technique to 'Spoof Connectivity Through Asymmetric Firewalls'. Good Job Dan ;-)
As an added bonus, as an owner of this book, you'll find a lot of code files, applications and links...

Original content will satisfy security professionals.......2002-03-29

It's difficult to find original material in most security books. "Hack Proofing Your Network, 2nd Edition" (HPYN2E) breaks that trend. Responding to feedback on the first edition, the authors have made numerous improvements in the second edition. If you're looking for relatively novel content in a security book, read the sections of HPYN2E I discuss next.

HPYN2E shines in many respects. The "laws of security" in chapter 2 are accurate and enlightening. Chapter 4 helps teach secure programming techniques by comparing insecure and secure code snippets. Chapter 4 also demonstrates debugging and disassembling code, usually not seen in security texts. Chapter 8 probably contains the most advanced coverage of buffer overflows I've read in a book. By actually showing and explaining stack traces, the authors share a level of detail sufficient to satisfy all but the most elite coders. Chapters on "diffing" (5) and format strings (9) are robust. Hardware hacking, thoroughly described in chapter 14, is fascinating. The author cared enough to include numerous clear photographs of disassembled equipment, and mentioned many helpful external web references.

While these great chapters comprise more than half of HPYN2E, the remainder is not exceptional. I was not happy with the rambling, wordy chapters on spoofing (12) and tunneling (13). Spare us the quotes from Dante's "Divine Comedy"! Still, this material is easily skimmed.

Because HPYN2E is written more from an intruder's point of view, the title doesn't seem to reflect the material. The book isn't exactly a "how to hack" manual, but it expertly illuminates many facets of compromising information resources.

Better than the rest!.......2002-03-14

I have the first edition of this book also, and I was really glad to see the second edition come out. There are some great hacking books out now, but I really think these ones are the best. I found in depth coverage on a lot of stuff you just can't find any place else. Some very cool info. on administering hosts locked behind a firewall and tips for making a "poor man's VPN". I also like that a lot of big names wrote the book, and their personalities really come through. A lot of tech. books can be a little dry even if they are well written. This one is actually entertaining also.

5+ Stars are Deserved on this one!.......2002-03-12

I picked this book up about a week ago, and have been reading it ever since- I'm reading slow because it's *really* packed with info. There is tremendous coverage on everything from Buffer Overflow, Format Strings, Tunneling, etc. I've spent a ton of time reading Chapter 12 on Spoofing- extremely well-done! There's coverage here of such things as:
* Spoofing SSL by using web graphics to simulate the appearance of an SSL encrypted connection. After all, the user doesn't know what's on the wire, only what's on the screen.
* Routing packets in userspace using libnet and libpcap- a step by step tutorial
* Establishing a TCP connection between two firewalled and NATted hosts by setting a low time-to-live on a connection request and having some broker on the internet spoof a connection response.
This book is an absolute must to own...

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Hack Proofing XML with CDROM
Larry Loeb , Jeremy Faircloth , Ken Ftu , Carter Everett , and Franklin Curtis
Manufacturer: SYNGRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Hacking | Business & Culture | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: B0000A2WBQ

Book Description

Hack Proofing XML will allow web developers and database administrators to take advantage of the limitless possibilities of XML without sacrificing the integrity, confidentiality, and security of their information. Readers will be given hands-on instruction on how to encrypt and authenticate their XML data using prescribed standards, digital signatures, and various vendors' software.

Download Description

Hack Proofing XML will provide readers with hands-on instruction for how to secure the Web transmission and access of their XML data. This book will also introduce database administrators, web developers, and web masters to ways they can use XML to secure other applications and processes.

Terrorism, cyber security and the Bill of Rights: Remarks by Richard Clarke, National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-Terrorism

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Terrorism, cyber security and the Bill of Rights: Remarks by Richard Clarke, National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection and Counter-Terrorism
Richard Clarke
Manufacturer: Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Terrorism | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0006RR5SM

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Cyber Rights: Defending Free Speech in the Digital Age
Mike Godwin
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQT3XU

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