ERCB: Silicon Snake Oil

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Vital Statistics

Title:	Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Superhighway
Author:	Clifford Stoll
Publisher:	Doubleday New York, NY
Copyright:	1995
ISBN:	0-385-41993-7
Pages:	247
Price:	$22.00
Audience:	Luddites and Stoll groupies

The Network as a Half-Empty Cup

Publishers have left no stone unturned in their mad rush to exploit the public's fascination with the Internet. There's an unending deluge of books and articles on every conceivable subtopic, including (for the technologically challenged) vague but glorious speculations about the Internet's effect on society, authored by New Age Pollyannas ranging from Howard Rheingold to the late Timothy Leary. But Sir Isaac Newton told us that for every lash there is an equal and opposite backlash, and perhaps it was inevitable that some publishers would choose to go after the doom-and-gloom market niche instead.

Silicon Snake Oil, by Clifford Stoll, is a perfect example of some publishers' "smash-'n-grab" approach to the Internet. Stoll is, of course, the astronomer turned network hacker turned self-proclaimed Internet-security expert and purveyor of cookie recipes -- a celebrity of sorts as a result of his previous book, The Cuckoo's Egg. I had high hopes for this book when I picked it up, because Cuckoo's Egg was written from the heart and was vivid and entertaining. I was sad to discover that a far better title for Stoll's new book would have been Publishing Snake Oil.

Silicon Snake Oil represents a cold-blooded, cynical attempt to capitalize on Internet hysteria and Stoll's good name with a book that has literally almost nothing useful or original to say. It's embarrassing to take the time to read a book like this and find that the author hasn't done even the most basic homework on his subject -- if he has read Weizenbaum, Mander, Hardison, and comparable landmark books on the impact of technology, there is no evidence of it. The meat in this book would barely suffice for an Op-Ed column in Infoworld, but Stoll rambles on with vaguely formed opinions, half-baked musings, unsubstantiated prophecies of doom, and outright whining about library card catalogues for nearly 250 pages.

The most interesting thing about this book (and that's not saying much) is the appendix. Stoll reprints portions of a newsgroup discussion during which some participants assert, in effect, that Cuckoo's Egg must have been ghostwritten because it was "too good" to be the work of an amateur. Prior to reading Silicon Snake Oil, I would have scoffed at the concept that The Cuckoo's Egg was not exactly what it claimed to be. Now, I'm not so sure. In any event, save your money and buy Sherry Turkle's Life on the Screen or Stephen Talbott's The Future Does Not Compute instead.

-- Ray Duncan

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