BK2NDCNT.RVW 931014 Tor Books 49 West 24th Street New York, NY 10010 "Second Contact", Resnick, 1990, U$3.95/C$4.95 The jacket blurb states that this book is a treat for anyone who likes "computers, science fiction, or just a plain good read." The "good read" part is going to depend on personal preference: the science fiction part seems to be almost a side issue. The computer enthusiasts will be presented alternately with ideas and giggles. The book is set seventy-five years into the future. Neither politics nor technology appears to have advanced very far and, with a publication date just before the "Seven Days That Shook the World" (as CNN would have it), the major national security concern of the US is still "Russian spies". (Interestingly, the book lists the US, Russia, China and Brazil as spacefaring nations, while the cover shows a clear shot of a "NASA/ESA" logo on a rocket-like device.) Computers equipped with voice recognition still cannot deal with more than one speaker. At one point a computer retailer tells one character that if the modem (what happened to ISDN?) she is trying isn't fast enough, they have one that will transmit at "38,400 baud." (If the author isn't just confusing baud and "bits per second" this indicates some improvement over "voice grade" lines, but hardly enough for the seemingly ubiquitous "vidphones" unless trellis coding has gotten *really* sophisticated.) None of the data security or communication issues raised are terribly sophisticated. The author has apparently never heard of telnet capabilities or the like. As usual in fictional accounts, the "hacker" is not only skilled with computers, but is a phone phreak as well. Two of the security topics are of some interest. One is the account of files being secured by "moving". The concept of "security by obscurity" is justifiably condemned, but it is true that leaving "standard" accounts open or having "standard" directory and file structures is, to a certain extent, a potential security loophole. The next logical step, beyond putting files in a non-standard location, is to keep moving the files. Unfortunately, there must be a way to retrieve the files, so somewhere there must be a pointer to them. The other point regards database security. At one stage of the plot, the heroes are trying to track the identity of an individual who is "classified to the max." By using the database inference problem, they are able to pinpoint his location. The example is somewhat simplistic, but involves generating a number of queries and discarding the ones the computer does *not* reject as classified. The topic of alien contact, suggested by the title, is really of relatively minor importance. A computer security whimsy in sf clothing. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1993 BK2NDCNT.RVW 931014 ====================== DECUS Canada Communications, Desktop, Education and Security group newsletters Editor and/or reviewer ROBERTS@decus.ca, RSlade@sfu.ca, Rob Slade at 1:153/733 Author "Robert Slade's Guide to Computer Viruses" (Oct. '94) Springer-Verlag