An engrossing volume about hackers that should cause readers to immediately tweak their passwords.
A cybersecurity pundit blends memoir and advice in this compact debut book.
With society’s shift to wireless and cloud-based computing, Schober, president and CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems, which makes diagnostic equipment for wireless networks, has found a second career helping people thwart hackers. In this volume, he connects with readers on a personal level by sharing his own experiences of being hacked and showcases his authority by chronicling how often he has been sought out by TV and other media, such as after the notorious Target and Sony data breaches. Schober begins with bank account and credit card risks and notes the nontechnical ways that cyberthieves in the workplace steal identities through careless habits, like sticky notes with passwords on monitors. He discusses spam, malware, phishing, and spoofing; different kinds of hackers; and the dark web, where they trade stolen data. Despite these subjects’ technical nature, the author consistently uses plain language geared to novices and writes in a straightforward, conversational style reflecting his considerable public-speaking experience. A good glossary of cyberterms is included. He uses the metaphor of physically securing a home, advocating multiple layers of defenses designed to make thieves move on to easier targets. He emphasizes strong passwords changed regularly and details techniques to apply and avoid in creating them. He suggests substituting gibberish or passwords for security question answers, like school or pet names, which might be guessed or found on social media. He warns readers not to click on links in unsolicited emails. Few of his tips are original, but the author breathes life into his counsel by combining deep technical knowledge, extensive personal experience, and a down-to-earth communication style. Some may find his name-dropping gratuitous, but by placing himself at the center of the fast-paced action, Schober creates a narrative that is more likely to keep readers engaged than typical tech guides—one that pulls together all major cybersecurity threats, details their consequences, and offers practical, preventive actions that are easy to understand and implement.
An engrossing volume about hackers that should cause readers to immediately tweak their passwords.Pub Date: March 15, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9969022-0-5
Page Count: 202
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 11, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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