The Surf 70

Review : Roar of the surf

* 17 January 1998 by Harold Thimbleby
* Magazine issue 2117

Net.wars by Wendy Grossman, New York University Press, $21.95, ISBN 0814731031

HERE at last is a sensible, thought-provoking and informative book about the complexity and challenges of the Net. Most books are too enthusiastic about the technology, too American, too Utopian, too get-rich-quick—or just out of date. In Net.wars we have a good, profoundly challenging book, which rises above parochialism. It is full of insights—as much into bulletin boards as sexual stereotyping, rights to free speech and establishing global copyright. Everyone, particularly police, lawyers, teachers, parents and scientists, can usefully read this book and consider what the Net really means for us all.

It is, for a start, forcing us to think in new ways. About privacy, for example. In real life, when I post a letter in the box in my street, nobody knows I posted it. If I go to a market and pay in cash, nobody knows ...