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Copyright 1996 CAUSE. From CAUSE/EFFECT Volume 19, Number 3, Fall 1996, pp. 52-53. Permission to copy or disseminate all or part of this material is granted provided that the copies are not made or distributed for commercial advantage, the CAUSE copyright and its date appear, and notice is given that copying is by permission of CAUSE, the association for managing and using information resources in higher education. To disseminate otherwise, or to republish, requires written permission. For further information, contact Julia Rudy at CAUSE, 4840 Pearl East Circle, Suite 302E, Boulder, CO 80301 USA; 303-939-0308; e-mail: [email protected]


Recommended Reading

Actually Useful
Internet Security Techniques

by Larry Hughes, Jr.
(New Riders Publishing, 1995, $32.00, 371 pages)
ISBN 1-56205-508-9

Reviewed by Mark Bruhn

Interest in the Internet continues to grow dramatically, and more and more of our veteran (and some not-so-veteran) colleagues are taking advantage of the explosion of users by sharing their knowledge and experiences. However, in my somewhat pessimistic view, it appears that many are taking this opportunity to throw together a text with an interesting title in an attempt to make money on this new and unsuspecting audience. This is clearly demonstrated by the myriad of not-so-useful volumes on the shelves of our favorite stores. I think I can say with some confidence that this particular author's motivation is much different. I offer two items of proof: first, I know and have worked with Larry as a colleague at Indiana University for many years, and have long admired his enthusiasm and knowledge in the area of network and computer security -- especially considering that he is not primarily a security analyst. Second, I am an Information Security Officer, and have actually read and used this book quite successfully. Larry is genuinely interested in the subject -- enough to take a lengthy sabbatical to review and refresh his knowledge in order to get the stuff right.

The text begins with an easy-to-read section dealing with "the basic anatomy of Internet communications," which gives the reader a good basis for the rest of the material. It then pursues very helpful discussions of specific related security exposures, such as "address spoofing," "hijacking," and "message replay," followed by descriptions of solutions such as "application proxies" and "packet filtering."

Subsequent chapters delve into other areas of particular security interest: mail, file sharing, user authentication, encryption, Kerberos, World Wide Web security, and a good- sized section called "Actually Useful Security Tools." In nearly every area, there are sidebars with notes and tips to highlight specific areas of concern or additional information that may help the reader better understand the text. In addition, there are helpful diagrams and sample program code for those who learn best by doing.

In an era where there is no possibility that even the best security analysts can be knowledgeable about all aspects of computing and networking, having a reference such as this is invaluable. This book provides an ideal level of depth, which at the very least enables readers to formulate much better questions about implementations and potential problems to present to those techno-specialists who are responsible for their systems and networks.

Reviewer Mark Bruhn is a Senior Manager and Information Security Officer at Indiana University Computing Services.


Public Access to the Internet
Edited by Brian Kahin and James Keller
(MIT Press, 1995, $20.00, 390 pages)
ISBN 0-262-61118-X)

Reviewed by Paula Kaufman

One can hardly pick up a contemporary newspaper, popular magazine, trade publication, or scholarly journal without reading about the miraculous wonders of the Internet. Communication is enhanced, new information resources are at one's fingertips or the click of a mouse, fortunes are waiting to be made, new research discoveries are accelerated. The worlds of business and commerce, of higher education and research, of elementary and secondary schools are being transformed by this wondrous new technology.

And so they are. Yet, little attention has been paid to the Internet's potential for transforming communities, for accommodating new classes of users, for changing community cultures. The editors of this volume sought to address these issues at a conference on public access to the Internet held at the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1993. This volume contains revised and updated papers from that conference.

Every technological innovation has been seen by visionaries to have the potential to reform education, enhance participation in the democratic process, make government more accountable, and improve the quality of life. As Lewis Branscomb points out in his essay, "Internet is egalitarian for those who are on it; it is elitist for those who cannot use it or do not have access to it." Society must address such issues as: Who will protect the public values in the information infrastructure? Who will protect the culture built into the Internet by the users who created it? How will people with few financial resources access the Internet? What is the role of the federal agencies that advance the National Information Infrastructure, and what policy provisions should they incorporate in it? Essays by Branscomb, Richard Civille, Beverly Hunter, and Brian Kahin stand out among this group of solid contributions for the eloquently compelling way in which they address these issues and propose approaches to finding solutions.

The Harvard Information Infrastructure Project, now six years old, has had a serious influence on thinking about the impact of a digital infrastructure on many aspects of society. In this work, the Project's editors have sustained their role in raising issues of special import to American society. For that we are grateful.

Reviewer Paula Kaufman is Dean of Libraries at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and a member of the CAUSE Board of Directors.


Working Wisdom
by Robert Aubrey & Paul M. Cohen
(Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1995, $25.00, 192 pages)
ISBN 0-7879-0058-3

Reviewed by Kathi J. Dwelle

With the increasing rate of change, it's a given that organizations need to develop employees who are life-long learners, and create an environment where there is cumulative "organizational learning." Easy enough to say, but how to do it? Authors Aubrey and Cohen are among the first to tackle this challenge with empirically derived and thought-provoking insights.

Wisdom is more than knowledge transfer. It comes from reflection on action. Aubrey, an international management consultant, is fascinated with the question "How did you learn what has been most useful in your working life?" and has been asking the question in his seminars. The answer, he discovered, was almost never "in a training class," nor was it as simple as "on the job." Most often it was through the help of a non-dogmatic mentor.

The authors identify and define five skills organizational leaders and coaches can use to impart wisdom in everyday workplace activities, a process that they regard as a journey. They categorize these time-tested and pragmatic strategies for accelerating learning as: accompanying, sowing, catalyzing, showing, and harvesting. The book contains an energizing mix of practical, current-day examples along with the methods of ancient masters.

If you've been expecting instantaneous results in your organization, their concept of organizational learning as a journey with stages can help you understand the necessary progression and give you the patience to persevere. The authors also present a vision of how technology can help impart wisdom, and propose new roles for managers in learning organizations.

Working Wisdom is highly readable, with ideas so interesting it is best digested slowly, a chapter at a time. If you're looking for strategies for your organization's learning programs (or just want to impart your own wisdom to others), check this out.

Reviewer Kathi J. Dwelle is Director of Organizational Effectiveness for the Division of Information Technology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.


Standards Policy for
Information Infrastructure

Edited by Brian Kahin and Janet Abbate
(MIT press, 1995, $35.00, 653 pages)
ISBN 0-262-61117-1

Reviewed by Clifford A. Lynch

This book is another of the very valuable collections of papers prepared by the Harvard Information Infrastructure Project; it is based, in large part, on (updated) contributions to a workshop held at Harvard on the same topic in June 1994. This book is relatively unique, and I believe fills a real need both as professional reading and as a potential text for a number of classes. While it looks at issues surrounding a number of specific standards (such as High Definition TV) as case studies, and examines the process and bureaucracy of standards-making in a number of areas, these are used as case studies to get at much more basic and important issues. In particular, the essays in the book look at the interplay between formal (i.e. ANSI, ISO) and informal (i.e., industry consortia, the Internet Engineering Task Force) standards-making approaches, the appropriate role of government in standards development and implementation, and the pivotal role of standards in the development of infrastructure (obviously, with emphasis on information infrastructure in various contexts). It includes excellent coverage of international issues in standards and also other key topics too seldom discussed, such as how to finance the standards development process and intellectual property issues related to standards. It also considers in depth the various definitions and implications of "interoperability," a now much overused term that has become common advertising hype.

One does not need to know (or care) a great deal about the technical details of specific standards or standards-making processes to learn a great deal from the essays in this book, which will provide the reader with an excellent set of perspectives on increasingly important and controversial (and high-stakes) policy issues.

Reviewer Clifford Lynch is Director, Division of Library Automation, University of California Office of the President.


Over the years, CAUSE members have contributed to a growing list of books that they have found worthwhile reading. Each issue of CAUSE/EFFECT magazine features several book reviews like the ones above. We hope you will share with us the titles of books that you would like to recommend to your colleagues.

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