Silicon Snake Oil: Second Thoughts on the Information Highway - Hardcover

Stoll, Clifford

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385419937 ISBN 13: 9780385419932

Publisher: Doubleday, 1995

Synopsis

In Silicon Snake Oil, Clifford Stoll, the best-selling author of The Cuckoo's Egg and one of the pioneers of the Internet, turns his attention to the much-heralded information highway, revealing that it is not all it's cracked up to be.  Yes, the Internet provides access to plenty of services, but useful information is virtually impossible to find and difficult to access. Is being on-line truly useful? "Few aspects of daily life require computers...They're irrelevant to cooking, driving, visiting, negotiating, eating, hiking, dancing, speaking, and gossiping. You don't need a computer to...recite a poem or say a prayer." Computers can't, Stoll claims, provide a richer or better life.

A cautionary tale about today's media darling, Silicon Snake Oil has sparked intense debate across the country about the merits--and foibles--of what's been touted as the entranceway to our future.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

About this title

From the Back Cover

icon Snake Oil, Clifford Stoll, the best-selling author of The Cuckoo's Egg and one of the pioneers of the Internet, turns his attention to the much-heralded information highway, revealing that it is not all it's cracked up to be.  Yes, the Internet provides access to plenty of services, but useful information is virtually impossible to find and difficult to access. Is being on-line truly useful? "Few aspects of daily life require computers...They're irrelevant to cooking, driving, visiting, negotiating, eating, hiking, dancing, speaking, and gossiping. You don't need a computer to...recite a poem or say a prayer." Computers can't, Stoll claims, provide a richer or better life.

A cautionary tale about today's media darling, Silicon Snake Oil has sparked intense debate across the country about the merits--and foibles--of what's been touted as the entranceway to our future.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Reviews

When a computer expert has second thoughts about the information highway, we should slow down and listen. Stoll is skeptical of the overblown promises of technology mavens, government officials, industry hacks, and educators that, he says, first produce bloated expectations and then burst bubbles. "Lotus-eaters, beware," he writes, virtual reality is no substitute for the real thing: computers alter our thinking processes; they isolate us and minimize social interactions; they are expensive and difficult to use; and they become obsolete in a few years. The Internet is a disorganized waste land, and E-mail isn't as good as the U.S. Postal Service. In chapter 11, Stoll expresses fear for the future of libraries: too much of libraries' resources are being devoted to technology, he says, and not enough to books and librarians. Ultimately, though, Stoll contradicts himself too often: in one sentence, he fears the demise of libraries; in the next, he states why book-based libraries won't disappear. What's more, he undermines his argument's seriousness with comic footnotes and deliberately improper grammar. Still, his book signals the first wave in the backlash against the race to the future that computer technology now represents. Benjamin Segedin

Stoll, a Berkeley astronomer who chronicled how he broke a computer spy ring in The Cuckoo's Egg (LJ 9/15/89) and who has been netsurfing for 15 years, does an apparent about-face here, warning that the technophiles are trying to sell us a bill of goods on the promise of the Internet?one on which it can't deliver and that, ultimately, both ignores the cost of forsaking human interaction and actual financial costs. His is a lone voice countering the mass of media hype that has been touting the national information superhighway and the rush of individuals and businesses to get connected. In chapters dealing with everything from education to E-mail (Stoll reports he lost less mail via the U.S. Postal Service) to the "virtual" library, he details the limitations of the networks. Though he is occasionally not quite up to the minute on some library implementations, his message nevertheless should be read as a caution to every librarian rushing down the information highway. [For an interview with Stoll and an excerpt from his book, see p. 100.]?Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal.
-?Francine Fialkoff, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Doubleday
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0385419937
• ISBN 13: 9780385419932
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 247