[3904] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: Ruthless.com
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Robert Hettinga)
Tue Jan 5 10:15:31 1999
In-Reply-To: <19990105121133.A26046@tightrope.demon.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1999 09:57:13 -0500
To: cypherpunks <cypherpunks@cyberpass.net>, cryptography@c2.net
From: Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>
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At 7:11 AM -0500 on 1/5/99, Steve Mynott wrote:
> He's the sales blurb for Tom Clancy's new book: Ruthless.com
>
> A new novel from one of the bestselling
> authors in the world, Ruthless.com is a
> potent blend of international power politics,
> intrigue, and cutting-edge military high-tech.
> When the President of the USA bows to
> commercial pressure to deregulate computer
> encryption code, he paves the way for
> potential disaster as terrorists have possible
> access to the national defence computers and
> the security of the country is seriously
> undermined. Sure enough, an armed nuclear
> submarine becomes the target of a powerful
> terrorist group who plan to hijack it and
> demand the largest ransom in history. Roger
> Gordian, CEO of America's largest computer
> company, understands the danger and has the
> resources to act against them before it's too
> late.
>
> !!!!
Lucky me, my brother-in-law the Harley dealer (and former nationally-honored
high school principal :-o) sent this thing to me for Christmas. He must have
been pulling my leg, as you'll see in a bit.
Haven't read this book yet, though I expect it, even Clancy-sponsored
(Coverblurbage: "New York Times #1 Best Selling Series; Tom Clancy's Power
Plays; Created by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenburg"), or, come to think of it
these days, because it *is* so, to be on the same order of the movie "Murcury
Rising", i.e., not really about crypto, and more about FUD.
- From the back cover of my copy:
> "August, 2000. The new millenium has brought a new kind of terrorism...
>
> <noir-score: "Dah-dah-dummmm" :-)>
>
> Encryption technology keeps the codes for the world's security and
>communication systems top secret. The profit potential is huge -- but
>deregulating this state-of-the-art technology for rexport could put a
>back-door key in the front pocket of spies and terrorists around the world.
>
> And when American business man Roger Gordian refuses to sell his
>sophisticated encryption to foriegn companies, he suddenly finds his
>company the object of a corporate takeover 00 and to say it's hostile
>doesn't even come close. Gordian is the only man who stands between the
>nation's military software and a powerful circle of drug lords and
>political extremists who want to put Roger Gordian -- and the leadership
>of the free world -- out of business for good...
>
> ruthless.com is a novel based on the Red Storm Entertainment computer game."
With a back cover like that, it'll probably be a jingo-statist diatribe and
Clipper apologia good enough to make even Dorothy Denning blow coffee out her
nose, laughing so hard...
I'm trying to figure out if I should hold my own nose, read the damn thing,
and do a book-review.
Maybe I should do it only if I get paid to do so. :-). I mean, I couldn't get
through the last Clancy book I got, the one about the weevil Jap badguy who
crashed the entire American capital market, using a single tape-drive, all
while co-opting what marginally passes for a Japanese space effort to lob a
missle at us. So, I'm not sure I can do it this time, either.
The reason I think the gift was humorous was that my brother-in-law also sent
me Paul Erdman's "The Set-Up", about a framed Fed chairman on the run. (:-o)^2
Erdman also wrote "The Crash of '79", which I actually read, in 11th grade or
so, the "Panic of '89", and other precient masterpieces in that vein. Maybe
Declan McCullough and Tim May could help him write "The Infocalypse of '00",
or something.
Cryptography and programmers and bankers, oh, my...
Cheers,
Robert Hettinga
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-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@philodox.com>
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism <http://www.philodox.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
