Book Review: Anarchy Online

Reviewed by Scott Skinner

Anarchy Online by Charles Platt, 1997, ISBN: 978-0061009907

Probably the last thing the world needs right now is YABOH (Yet Another Book On Hackers).  After all, is there anything left in this genre that hasn't already been adequately covered/exploited by such noteworthies as The Cuckoo's Egg, Cyberpunk, The Hacker Crackdown, Masters of Deception, The Fugitive Game, Takedown, The Cyberthief and the Samurai, and slues of other lesser known works?

This question was foremost on my mind as I plowed through the first chapter of Charles Platt's Anarchy Online, which begins with a tiresome recap of hacker ways and means.  By the end of the book, I was happy I endured, for several elements combine to make Anarchy Online a unique and worthy read, and which allows me to answer my aforementioned question with a definitive yes.

Whereas another recent publication, Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon's Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet, paints a vivid portrait of the Internet's genesis, Anarchy Online picks up where Wizards leaves off, discussing the complex social issues and corresponding power struggles contributing to the "anarchy" online.

Anarchy Online, then, is very much aware of its predecessors, featuring and acknowledging Katie Hafner and other authors as it examines topics ranging from free speech issues to online pornography to digital cash.  Indeed, perhaps the only common thread that ties these chapters together is their close relation to the Internet (with one noteworthy exception being its excellent examination of satellite video piracy).  In this respect, Platt breaks from the usual thematic literary approach and instead presents us with a second-order view rich in meta-content, a book about other books and issues relating to the Internet.

This second-order view allows Platt to make observations and judgments that are usually reserved for the critic.  For example, examining not only the Kevin Mitnick saga, but the books written about Kevin, and the authors of those books, and the books written about those authors, etc.

While Anarchy Online exercises hindsight to the extreme, it also breaks some new ground, especially with its consideration and analysis of some of the most recent issues affecting netizens, including the Internet's inevitable entrenchment into the world of commerce.

Overall, Platt takes a positive approach toward the Internet, acknowledging its many problems (including hackers), but also putting those problems into perspective.  Anarchy Online, for example, points out that many "ex-hackers" from the past are now Internet Service Providers of the present, using their unique perspectives to secure free speech and online rights, in contrast to the extreme censorship that characterizes such conservative giants as AOL and CompuServe.

On the down side, Anarchy Online lacks both source notes and an index, both of which are of inestimable value for those of us hoping to find our names mentioned somewhere in its pages.

Additionally, I was disappointed that the story of Edward Cummings (a.k.a. Bernie S.) was not mentioned, as his ordeal is perhaps the clearest demonstration yet of a chaotic and unfettered Internet nonetheless resulting in a powerful political gestalt capable of empowering individuals and grass-roots efforts, and initiating change.