John Markoff Libros

This Element suggests that the very crises that generated radical mobilizations since the turn of the millennium have both led activists to reject other strategies for social transformation and to see anarchist practices as appropriate to our time. It suggests the need for research on social movements as important sources of theory.

Fire in the Valley is the definitive history of the personal computer, drawn from interviews with the people who made it happen, written by two veteran computer writers who were there from the start.

Told by a leading chronicler of technology and society, this definitive biography explores the life of Stewart Brand, an iconic serial visionary. From his involvement with the Merry Pranksters and the influential Whole Earth Catalog to the fusion of environmental awareness and hacker capitalism, Brand's story is intertwined with the emergence of a new planetary culture. While he is well-known among counterculture enthusiasts and environmental advocates, many outside these circles recognize him for his mantra, "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish," famously endorsed by Steve Jobs. Brand's life is marked by striking contradictions: a blond-haired WASP with a modest background, he became an artist and photographer during the 1960s LSD revolution. His vision of seeing Earth from space culminated in a photograph featured on the cover of his catalog, a cornerstone of counterculture literature. Committed to protecting indigenous cultures and the environment, he has also faced criticism for his pragmatic embrace of technologies like nuclear power in combating climate change. Rejecting traditional politics, Brand focused on direct empowerment and was an early advocate for the computer revolution. John Markoff masterfully unfolds Brand's complex narrative, revealing how his individualism, respect for science, and diverse influences create a powerful worldview that embodies a California state of mind and offers a hopeful vision for humanity's futu

Using the exploits of three international hackers, Cyberpunk provides a fascinating tour of a bizarre subculture populated by outlaws who penetrate even the most sensitive computer networks and wreak havoc on the information they find -- everything from bank accounts to military secrets. In a book filled with as much adventure as any Ludlum novel, the authors show what motivates these young hackers to access systems, how they learn to break in, and how little can be done to stop them.

An analysis of the political and cultural forces that gave rise to the personal computer chronicles its development through the people, politics, and social upheavals that defined its time, from a teenage anti-war protester who laid the groundwork for the PC revolution to the imprisoned creator of the first word processing software for the IBM PC. Reprint.

A world-renowned computer security expert gives his personal account of the thrilling and ingenius capture of the Internet's most notorious cyberthief--Kevin Mitnick--in a gripping drama which illuminates the good, the bad, and the ugly of the computer world. Photos.

As robots are increasingly integrated into modern society—on the battlefield and the road, in business, education, and health—Pulitzer-Prize-winning <em>New York Times</em> science writer John Markoff searches for an answer to one of the most important questions of our age: will these machines help us, or will they replace us? In the past decade alone, Google introduced us to driverless cars, Apple debuted a personal assistant that we keep in our pockets, and an Internet of Things connected the smaller tasks of everyday life to the farthest reaches of the internet. There is little doubt that robots are now an integral part of society, and cheap sensors and powerful computers will ensure that, in the coming years, these robots will soon act on their own. This new era offers the promise of immense computing power, but it also reframes a question first raised more than half a century ago, at the birth of the intelligent machine: Will we control these systems, or will they control us? In<em> Machines of Loving Grace, New York Times </em>reporter John Markoff, the first reporter to cover the World Wide Web, offers a sweeping history of the complicated and evolving relationship between humans and computers. Over the recent years, the pace of technological change has accelerated dramatically, reintroducing this difficult ethical quandary with newer and far weightier consequences. As Markoff chronicles the history of automation, from the birth of the artificial intelligence and intelligence augmentation communities in the 1950s, to the modern day brain trusts at Google and Apple in Silicon Valley, and on to the expanding tech corridor between Boston and New York, he traces the different ways developers have addressed this fundamental problem and urges them to carefully consider the consequences of their work. We are on the verge of a technological revolution, Markoff argues, and robots will profoundly transform the way our lives are organized. Developers must now draw a bright line between what is human and what is machine, or risk upsetting the delicate balance between them.

Vo februári 1995 zatkla FBI najhľadanejšieho počítačového zločinca na svete Kevina Mitnicka, po ktorom pátrala už niekoľko rokov. Mitnick by bol možno dodnes na slobode, keby neurobil osudnú chybu. Na Vianoce 1994 prenikol sieťou Internetu do osobného počítača jedného z najlepších odborníkov na bezpečnostné systémy v Amerike - Tsumomu Shimomuru. Od toho okamihu sa začal odohrávať strhujúci zápas dvoch geniálnych mozgov, v ktorom zvíťazil ten lepší. Nešlo však len o osobný súboj, išlo najma o záchranu obrovského množstva dát, ktorých majiteľmi boli veľké počítačové spoločnosti a vládne úrady. Kevin Mitnick mohol v každom okamihu ukradnúť a zničiť informácie v hodnote stoviek miliónov dolárov. Zatknutie Mitnicka bolo udalosťou, ktorá sa objavila na prvých stránkach svetovej tlače a ktorá podnietila mohutnú diskusiu o fenoméne Internet a o práve na súkromie. Táto kniha je predovšetkým napínavým detektívnym príbehom. Je však súčastne príbehom z virtuálneho sveta Internetu, v ktorom už dnes žijú milióny ľudí a v ktorom prebieha zápas dobra proti zlu presne tak, ako v každom inom ľudskom svete.