[.ca] Byte Wars: The Impact of September 11 on Information ... (ISBN 0130477257)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Less sensationalistic than its title suggests, Byte Wars: The Impact of September 11 on Information Technology compiles software developer Edward Yourdon's timely concerns about 21st century IT security. Specifically addressing government officials, corporate executives, IT managers, programmers and citizens, he identifies risks to safety, privacy and other fundamental values and provides concrete steps they (that is, we) can take to disarm threats. Yourdon is well known for having beaten the Y2K drum vigorously, and it would be easy to mistake him for a hysteria monger. His clarity, confidence and good humour will quickly allay any doubts in the reader's mind--though some of his ideas have only the most tenuous link to the events of 9/11/2001, they are all well considered and valuable as we move further into an era we don't yet understand. Examining emergent systems, resiliency, death-march projects and more with an eye toward securing our lives and liberty, Byte Wars gives us an optimistic look at our murky future. --Rob Lightner

YET ANOTHER BOMB:
A few years back, Ed was so hard up for cash that he wrote a book called "Time Bomb 2000!" in which he predicted the end of civilization. This silly prophecy only served to expose Yourdon for the fly-by-night, fast-talking, hourly-rate, con artist that he is. In other words, Ed completely undermined his reputation with every CIO in the industry. My guess is that, on 1/1/2000, Ed was hunkering down in his survival retreat, drinking his bottled water, and wondering where in god's name his credibility went. Given that his career as an oracle was cut short, Ed decided that he'd stop predicting the future and start cashing out on the 9/11 mania. Just like any talk show host or stand up comedian, Ed found ample material to make a few bucks off of the hysteria. He demonstrated the kind of initiative that would make Jeraldo Rivera proud. The goal of this book is to keep Ed's name in circulation, so that he can charge a few more dollars for his worthless consulting services. Perhaps he'll use the royalties to refinish his deck or replace the transmission in his aging sports car. Ed's not going to tell you anything you don't already know, he's just going to make you think he will (which is the trick he uses to get you to buy it). This leads me to think that I need to write Ed a letter... Dear Ed, Hello there little trooper. Isn't time for someone to pack it up and call it a career? Wouldn't the whole industry benefit if you took your fat, wrinkled, mug out of the public eye. You pretty much admitted, in DeathMarch, that structured analysis was a crock. Face it, old man, you're over the hill. You've got no good ideas left. You're so desperate for ideas that you're reprinting Deathmarch. What are you going to do next time, reprint Time Bomb 2000! I think you've fooled enough people out of their money. You've had your fun, Ed, now retire to Boca Raton and give us all a well deserved rest. Please, Ed, pretty please. Your Pal, LLNL Engineer

Wait for a better book:
Ed Yourdon's most well-known recent work is probably TimeBomb 2000, a book that inspired so much unwarranted fear that one terrified couple on his Internet forum attempted to give away their newborn grandchild to complete strangers in hopes that it would survive the terrible Y2K rollover. Indeed, Yourdon himself was quoted as saying that the likelihood that the various Y2K "trigger dates" would pass without incident was equal to that of pigs learning to fly. Thankfully, Byte Wars avoids such ridiculous predictions and hysteria, but instead offers the reader no new insights into information technology and little to nothing relating to 9/11. Yourdon is a true Master of the Obvious in this book, which apparently capitalizes on the 9/11 tragedy without actually addressing it. If you're looking for real insight into the effects of 9/11 on the IT industry, I would wait a few more months for a more relevant work. This one just doesn't cut it.

Much more than the impact of Sept. 11 on IT:
The subtitle of this book is a trifle misleading: Byte Wars is about a great deal more than the impact of September 11 on information technology. It is indeed as it proclaims, but covers a far wider scope. In Byte Wars, Ed Yourdon examines the myriad strategic shifts, trends, and paradigm changes not necessarily caused by Sept 11th, but trends that were already underway and have been changed or accelerated by the war on terrorism. The author speaks directly to the reader in his typically confident tone, but the voice this time is more sober. There is not much of the typical humor we expect from Ed Yourdon, he is clearly shaken and sobered, like most of us, by the horrific events of Sept. 11th. Indeed, the first sentence, "This is not a book I expected to write" is a harbinger of much of the book's the sobering matter. The structure of the book is straightforward: It begins with an overview of the broad changes which will profoundly affect industrialized and developing countries. This introduction is followed by more specific, detailed chapters about major aspects of IT and thoughtful predictions of sweeping changes to come in the areas of security, risk management, emergent systems, resilient systems, good enough systems, and death-march projects. A note about the "Death-March" chapter--it may suffice as an introduction to this topic for the general reader, and provides a timely update on the topic for readers of Mr. Yourdon's earlier book by the same title. This is an important book-particularly for IT professional and those directly affected by the IT industry. I highly recommended Byte Wars for this audience as well as general business readers and thoughtful readers of the general public.

Forget Y2K! 9-11 was real, we need to to think about it!:
I read Yourdon's Y2K book a couple years ago, so I decided to read this one too. I don't see why people are making such a stink about all of this. He didn't predict the end of the world with Y2K - he just said there COULD be problems, and that people ought to check it out and make their own decisions. Anyway, y2K was theoretical when everyone was writing those books, nobody knew for sure what might happen or might not happen. September 11 was real, the only question is whether something like it might happen again. The terrorists say that it will, and the government bigwigs say that its pretty likely. So the question is what should we do about it. I thought maybe Yourdan was going to talk about anthrax and smallpox and nuclear bombs in his book but he doesn't. He only talks about the computer risks. I don't see why anyone wold attack my computer at home, so I was skeptical at first. But he made me think a lot about the idea of grass-roots networks and what he calls emergent systems, because things are happening too fast and too unpredictable for the government to tell us what to do. Like it took the government six months to come up with this color coded alert system, and all they can do is tell us we are at yellow alert right now but they don't tell us what we should do about it. We have to figure it out by ourselves, we're on our own. I see some other people are saying Yourdan only wrote what you could find in other books. Well maybe so, but he has a bibliography with 54 books in it, and I'm sure glad I didn't have to buy all those books and read them to understand what's going on. And it looks like he tracked down hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles to get the detailed information, and I sure don't have time to do that by myself. Anyway, Yourdan really made me think about some stuff that I didn't even know about. Some of it doesn't matter very much in my life, especially because I don't even work in a computer job. But if God forbid there is another terrorist attack, and if it's a computer attack instead of planes flying into buildings, some of his ideas could really be important to me and my family. It doesn't matter to me if I agree with everything he says. The main thing is he made me THINK about some things.

Byte Wars -- Another Yourdon Beatup.:
I paid ... for this worthless beatup. There is little new thought in it, and almost no depth. The main thread running through it is that September 11th changed all of the rules and a secondary thread is that Ed had finally twigged to the fact that many other races and nationalities don't like the style business practices and methods of the US of A. Well Ed, September 11th didn't alter ANY rules of computer security, it just moved security to a brighter location in the CEO's firmanent and most third worlders have loathed the USA for as long as I've been on the planet. They've just got a lot more effective in expressing that feeling lately. I can honestly say I expected a book with some technical appreciation of the problem and some working methods for bypassing and sidelining mid-level managers whose major worry is the number of fly-buys they've racked up for the month. If you're looking for answers or technical tips on Infowar don't spend your money on this ... book, its a yaaaawwwwnnn! Regards, Sherro.