THE USER'S GUIDE TO COMPUTER CRIME: Its Commission, Detection and Prevention

In the wake of the Equity Funding scandal -- a two billion dollar fraud largely based on computer manipulation of phony insurance policies -- businessmen suddenly became concerned about the ethics of their own data processing personnel. Leibholz and Wilson, as the officers of a company that builds security, surveillance and communications systems, have a special interest in safe-guarding such systems from sabotage, theft of services, assets or information, as well as natural disasters. The authors are emphatic in reminding the presumably naive reader that the old ""black-box"" mystique of computer infallibility is misleading and dangerous. Crimes and errors may have been a little easier to commit and harder to conceal under the manual system, now it's just the opposite. The authors pay particular attention to the problems of bugging and otherwise ""spoofing"" via telephone lines and the need for a complete new set of legal statutes specific to their industry. Their survey of computer insecurity is of value as a checklist for general management, but about as compelling to read as an operations manual.