/books
The Myth of Homeland Security, Marcus Ranum
The Myth of Homeland Security, by Marcus Ranum, is about as much fun as a depressing book on security can be. Generally humorous tone, not a lot of optimism. He doubts that yet another try at getting the FBI and CIA to cooperate will work, and doesn’t really have high hopes for the TSA.
Much of the book is about computer security, as you’d expect given the author’s background in that field. He’s not too happy with the opportunists and “former” crackers in that field. He thinks that if the federal government coordinated it’s computer purchasing to get a better integrated, consistent set of systems and to pressure vendors for better stuff at better prices a lot of good would come of it. But he doesn’t imagine that will happen soon, either.
The book suffers from some oddities in design. There are quotations from the text set off in large type on approximately half the pages. There are innumerable asides in boxes or at the bottoms of pages that mostly ought to be integrated into the text. It looks like magazine design applied to a book. Computer books look a bit like that as well, although at least here we don’t have icons and screen shots.
I’d say the book is worth reading.
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