COMPUTER CRIME

The information superhighway has its share of speeders and hijackers; as traffic increases, issues of privacy and the right- to-know and the fine lines between mischief and crime become increasingly important. In this timely book, Judson covers the right topics: phone fraud, credit-card theft, stealing industrial or financial information, pilfering computerized money, viruses, worms. As she points out, there's a more or less clean line between diligent nerds who see passwords as affronts to their inalienable right to someone else's files and outright criminals making a killing through electronic theft. Unfortunately, technology, morals, and laws haven't kept pace with networks. Basing her useful overview on other books, articles, and some firsthand interviews, Judson briefly describes computer technology but focuses on crime and mischief. There are a couple of minor glitches—the principle behind laser printing isn't RF energy, and AT&T would be astonished to learn that it shelved work on ISDN after divestiture; still, on the whole, thorough, slightly redundant, but well documented. Glossary; source notes; further reading; index. (Nonfiction. 12+)