Subject: REVIEW: "Fatal Defect", Jefferson Scott

From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan and Trevor" <[email-masked]>
Date: 06 Aug 2000 17:16:47 -0400

Fatal Defect by Jefferson Scott
	  Review Copyright 2000 Robert M. Slade

The jacket of Scott's second book tells us that he has a science degree.
Since we surmise from his previous books it can't be in computing, math,
engineering, or physics, something seemed to indicate it had to be
biology.  That now appears fairly certain.  As long as this current book
sticks to biology it seems to work.  The terminology is correct, and
barring a little jumping the gun on cloning and recombinant DNA, the
technology seems real or, at least possible.  He even has a pretty good
take on the genetic basis of character.

Of course, any biologist who thinks shark skin is smooth needs to spend a
little more time down in marine zoology, but we'll let that go.  I'm not
so sure about his transposon toxin: it seems you'd have to wait for it to
invade cells, wait for it to start swapping genes, wait for them to start
producing proteins, and even then you wouldn't be sure whether you'd come
up with something really toxic, or just a bad allergic reaction.

But Scott is still relying on computer technology for most of the action
in the book.  Some of the technology might possibly develop in a few
years, but isn't terribly likely.  EMP (electro-magnetic pulse) weapons
still seem to be limited to a range of about a yard, with no great signs
of any increase in the near future.  TEMPEST works at a longer range, but
nothing remotely like the distance to even low earth orbit.  Trying it
while you're beaming microwaves at someone is a pretty good way to
guarantee that you'll fail, given the radiation confusion.

By the way, sport parachutists regularly drop from 10,000 feet.

I was all set to dump on "TCP/GP," until I realized what it was.  However,
even if GlobeNet uses IPv6, you are just not going to get the techies to
change the name of a protocol.

I have, in the past noted that using weather downlink data as an
infiltration channel is fraught with peril.  Not for the defender, but for
the attacker.  The opportunity to break into a system that way is just too
slim, since you'd have no way of knowing what is on the receiving end.  On
the other hand, kilobyte sized chunks of data are just fine for email, and
pretty much anything else; Ethernet sends a maximum of 1500 bytes per
packet.  The entire first message and a bit more could have been sent in
one piece: twenty five chunks is definitely overkill.

The mad scramble to chase down an address is a bit much.  You can't
encrypt a network address or even flip one bit and expect it to get to its
destination.  It'd be sort of like encrypting the address on a letter:
nobody, including the post office, would be able to figure out who it's
for.  In any case, the strenuous effort would not be needed.  The evil
hackers are out on a leaf node of the net.  A single link connects them to
the rest of the world.  Once that has been determined, it is a simple
matter to collect all the traffic, in *and* out.  The messages may be
encrypted, and they'd never be broken in that short a time, but the
addressing would be clearly visible.  Okay, maybe the bad guys could
bounce traffic off a few hijacked sites: with a single link to look at,
those sites could be identified and cleaned up in short order.

Scott is starting to do a better job of integrating Christianity into
thrillers.  Not good, just better.  At least people are starting to
remember a few Bible verses, and not just send off the odd prayer when all
else fails.  On the other hand, the fact that none of the characters are
facing any crises of obedience is making the plot even less realistic than
was the first book.  The author has yet to subject Christianity to any
real opposition: aside from some snide comments and a rather insufferable
assumption of superiority, faith is still disjoint from the action in the
story.

%A   Jefferson Scott [email-masked]
%C   P. O. Box 1720, Sisters, OR   97759
%D   1998
%G   1-57673-452-8
%I   Questar Publishers/Multnomah
%O   U$10.99 Fax: 541-549-0260 [email-masked]
%P   339 p.
%T   "Fatal Defect"

======================  (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer)
[email-masked]  [email-masked]  [email-masked] [email-masked]
Murder is a crime. Describing murder is not. Sex is not a crime.
Describing sex is.        - Gershon Legman (b. 1917) American writer
http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev    or    http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade