Subject: REVIEW: "Bank of Fear", David Ignatius

From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan and Trevor" <[email-masked]>
Date: 01 Oct 1998 19:06:55 -0400

Bank of Fear by David Ignatius
	Review Copyright 1998 Rob Slade

While an exciting enough thriller, and one giving an unusually sympathetic
and insightful view of the Arab communities, this book is rather
disappointing both in the raggedness of its ending and in the unlikeliness
of its conclusions.

One must allow fiction writers some leeway to explain certain items, and
this is usually done through dialogue.  One character will expound to
another on a given topic.  It gets a bit annoying, not to mention
straining the willing suspension of disbelief, when a banker has to be
lectured on the precepts of banking, and a systems manager has to have a
tutorial on the standard backup command.

In general, however, the technology part of the book is pretty good.  An
important part of the plot involves finding confidential files on a known
system to which access has been withdrawn.  The solution is elegant,
functional, and involves that reliable of all data penetration tools,
ignorance on the part of management.  Actually, the method doesn't even
rely all the heavily on ignorance: most computer professionals would see
backups as a security tool rather than a vulnerability.  The use of UNIX
as a platform is more of a literary convenience than anything else, since
any common business system has the equivalent of an administrative user
who can gain access to anything.  The one weak point in this scenario is
the quick realization of the importance of the backup tape on the part of
people who were previously so lax that they didn't even use encryption for
vital files.

Other technical plot devices are used as effectively.  There is a lovely
piece of social engineering, again relying on management folly and a
demand for convenience.  Call back verification is used as well, and a
neat conceptual way of using it to for system breaking is presented.  And
everything a desktop machine can do, a laptop can emulate.

Communications technology does not get quite the same care.  The universal
nature of modem standards is mentioned, but not the functional difference
(and audible similarity) between modems used on computers and those
included in fax machines.  No allowance is made for possible differences
in systems and the need for different terminal types.  The call-back
spoofing trick is cute, but relies on the ability to force a line to stay
open after the remote end has dropped both the connection and the switch
hook, and also on a remote user leaving a home computer on, with a
communications program running, and an automated login script set up and
ready to go.

The worst error, however, is the one on which the final activity of the
plot relies.  Although there are gateways that can send electronic mail to
Telex systems, Telex is a separate system and cannot be reached by the
public dial phone system.  Although you can get Telex devices that can be
operated by computers, Telex does not use modems; at least not the same
kind that are normally used for computer work.  Telex lines, in fact, have
different operating characteristics from phone lines, and even different
voltages.  Plugging a modem into a Telex line would fry the modem as
surely as plugging an ISDN modem into an analogue line would fry the ISDN
device.

%A   David Ignatius
%C   1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019
%D   1994
%G   0-380-72280-1
%I   Avon Books/The Hearst Corporation
%O   +1-800-238-0658
%P   388 p.
%T   "Bank of Fear"