JIM BIDZOS, the outspoken president of RSA Data Security Inc., is determined to reform crypto export laws.
The Crimes of Patriots, by Jonathan Kwitny. "It's a fascinating book about how the CIA funds its nonpublished activities. The story begins with the suicide of a banker in Australia and offers an incredible peek at the inner workings of covert operations. It was interesting to see how one could operate a bank that carried on activities it didn't want to be held accountable for. The more you know, the better."
The Puzzle Palace, by James Bamford. "This is a perennial favorite: the first expos� of the NSA. A huge amount of the material for this book was classified information, but it was publicly available in a library in Pennsylvania. The information was sewn up after the book appeared, and though the NSA has opened up in recent years, there will never be another book like <The Puzzle Palace. It's required reading at RSA."
Orders to Kill, by William F. Pepper. "Pepper examines the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and makes the case that James Earl Ray was working with the FBI, that he wasn't a random racist. The story gives tremendous insights into King. My respect for him has gone up incredibly since reading this. So has my distrust of the government."
IARA LEE is Korean by blood, Brazilian by birth, and New Yorker by choice. The experimental director's first full-length film is Synthetic Pleasures.
A Field Guide to Germs, by Wayne Biddle. "It's a fascinating book about parasites, bacteria, and viruses. It's pretty wild. I can envision a film solely composed of microscopic images set to an electronic soundtrack. I love to use the real images in an abstract way, to manipulate material and give new life to older objects."
Pihkal, A Chemical Love Story, by Anne and Alexander Shulgin. "I spent several months looking for this book about psychedelic biochemistry and sexual chemistry. The story chronicles two fearless psychonauts and their adventures ingesting various chemical compounds. Though it's a somewhat encyclopedic study of synthetic methods, it's also great fiction. I'm very interested in things that expand consciousness and enable you to see past the boundaries of the physical world."
THE DARK TANGENT, aka Jeff Moss, organizes the annual hackers-in-Vegas event, Def Con, and runs a Web consulting business.
Cheating at Cards, by Bryan Clough and Paul Mungo. "It's all about the history of automatic teller machines, banking cards, and electronic crime by the authors of Approaching Zero. It's a pretty bleak picture of the whole credit versus debit systems. They chronicle our technological follies and explain how the established protocols can't be changed because the system is so entrenched. You know, there's a 1-in-300 chance that your PIN will work on someone else's account!"
Games of State, by Tom Clancy. "I've read them all. Some are really bad, but some are really good – good pulp at least, good airplane reading. Clancy's books are all technological, but some scenes are hilarious – things happen that are possible, but the actual technology is not there yet. Like that Schwarzenegger movie Eraser in which they traced a pager. Every lowly drug dealer knows you can't trace a pager!"
| STREET CRED
Russian Animation Comes Out of the Cold
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