Huber (Manhattan Institute for Policy Research) recounts the history of telecommunications and its regulation over the last century, arguing that the FCC should have been abolished years ago because it has protected monopolies, over priced services, curtailed free speech, and undermined privacy. He proposes that sensible telecommunications policies evolve through common law and not through government imposition of inflexible regulatory mandates. For general readers. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Digital games have become an increasingly pervasive aspect of everyday life as well as an embattled cultural phenomenon in the twenty-first century. As new media technologies diffuse around the world and as the depth and complexity of gaming networks increase, scholars are becoming increasingly savvy in their approach to digital games. While aesthetic and psychological approaches to the study of digital games have garnered the most attention in the past, scholars have only recently begun to study the important social and cultural aspects of digital games. This study sketches some of the various trajectories of digital games in modern Western societies, looking first at the growth and persistence of the moral panic that continues to accompany massive public interest in digital games. The book then continues with what it deems a new phase of games research exemplified by systematic examination of specific aspects of digital games and gaming. Section One includes four chapters that collectively consider politics and the negotiation of power in game worlds. Section Two details the ideological webs within which games are produced and consumed. Specifically, this important section offers a critical cultural analysis of the hegemony that exists within games and its influence upon players' personal ideologies. To conclude this analysis, Section Three examines game design features that relate to players' self-characterization and social development within digital game worlds. Section Four explores the important relationship between the producers and consumers of digital games, especially insomuch as this relationship is giving rise to a community of novices and professionals who will together determine the future of gaming and--to a degree--popular culture.

Answers many of the legal questions asked by sysops and users of the Internet and bulletin board systems.

Features the book, "The Hacker Crackdown," by Bruce Sterling. Includes a preface to the electronic release of the book and the chronology of the hacker crackdown. Notes that the book has chapters on crashing the computer system, the digital underground, law and order, and the civil libertarians.

"Code counters the common belief that cyberspace cannot be controlled or censored. To the contrary, under the influence of commerce, cyberspace is becoming a highly regulable world where behavior will be much more tightly controlled than in real space." -- Cover.

This book explores the extraordinary difficulties a nation-state’s law enforcement and military face in attempting to prevent cyber-attacks. In the wake of recent assaults including the denial of service attack on Estonia in 2007 and the widespread use of the Zeus Trojan Horse software, Susan W. Brenner explores how traditional categories and procedures inherent in law enforcement and military agencies can obstruct efforts to respond to cyberthreats. Brenner argues that the use of a territorially-based system of sovereignty to combat cyberthreats is ineffective, as cyberspace erodes the import of territory. This problem is compounded by the nature of cybercrime as a continually evolving phenomenon driven by rapid and complex technological change. Following an evaluation of the efficacy of the nation-state, the book goes on to explore how individuals and corporations could be integrated into a more decentralized, distributed system of cyberthreat control. Looking at initiatives in Estonia and Sweden which have attempted to incorporate civilians into their cyber-response efforts, Brenner suggests that civilian involvement may mediate the rigid hierarchies that exist among formal agencies and increase the flexibility of any response. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of information technological law and security studies.