Wayner, Peter 1964-

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WAYNER, Peter 1964-

PERSONAL: Born 1964.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, HarperBusiness, 10 East 53rd St., 7th Floor, New York, NY 10022. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: New York Times, New York, NY, technology reporter. Teacher of computer science at Cornell University and Georgetown University.

WRITINGS:

Agents Unleashed: A Public Domain Look at AgentTechnology, AP Professional (Boston, MA), 1995.

Digital Cash: Commerce on the Net, AP Professional (Boston, MA), 1996.

Disappearing Cryptography: Being and Nothingness on the Net, AP Professional (Boston, MA), 1996.

Digital Copyright Protection, AP Professional (Boston, MA), 1997.

Java and JavaScript Programming, AP Professional (Boston, MA), 1997.

(With others) The Management of Risks Created byInternet-Initiated Value Transfers, Internet Council (Herndon, VA), 1997.

Java Beans for Real Programmers, AP Professional (San Diego, CA), 1998.

Compression Algorithms for Real Programmers, AP Professional (San Diego, CA), 1999.

Free for All: How LINUX and the Free Software Movement Undercut the High-Tech Titans, HarperBusiness (New York, NY), 2000.

Also contributor Computerworld. to periodicals, including

SIDELIGHTS: Peter Wayner is a technology writer for the New York Times. He is also the author of books on computers and the Internet. In Agents Unleashed: A Public Domain Look at Agent Technology, Wayner discusses software agents. These are Internet programs that electronically order goods and services. Wayner examines the ins and outs of security, digital cash transactions, and programming tips for these agents. The book comes with a software agent disk. Digital Cash: Commerce on the Net is a complete guide to financial transactions on the Internet, including digital checks, digital coupons, divisible cash, and anonymous digital cash. The book also examines the currently available commercial digital cash systems. In PC Sebastian Rupley called the book a "treasure trove" for those wanting to use First Virtual technology for online selling.

Digital Copyright Protection considers technical methods of protecting data from theft by data pirates, including cryptography, compression, tamper-resistant features, and commercial products. It also includes discussions of the legal aspects of copyright versus artistic freedom, intellectual property law, and patenting ideas. In the Australian Library Journal Richard Pang wrote, "Comprehensive in subject scope, well-structured and in parts extremely detailed, this work avoids becoming a totally abstruse technical exegesis by commencing each chapter with a humorous anecdote."

In Disappearing Cryptography: Being and Nothingness on the Net, Wayner examines the use of encryption in computer files, including its pros and cons. On the one hand, encrypted data often attracts attention, letting observers know there is a secret hidden within. Encryption does not protect data from being erased, diverted, or corrupted. On the other hand, the possibilities for hiding encrypted files are endless: data can be disguised as a baseball announcer's game talk, or hidden in a photo of a pet. Each chapter begins with an amusing anecdote or game relevant to its topic, then discusses the technology involved in easy-tounderstand terms. This is followed by a more technical and mathematical analysis. Compression Algorithms for Real Programmers explains how readers can compress information and create the smallest possible files, so that they can conserve space, time, and money when sending files over the Internet.

In Free for All: How LINUX and the Free Software Movement Undercut the High-Tech Titans, Wayner examines the history of the free software movement, and how it continues to threaten the profits of big companies such as Microsoft. The free software movement was begun in 1984 by programmer Richard Stallman, who believed that software should be freely distributed. Linus Torvalds, a University of Helsinki student and follower of Stallman, invented LINUX, an operating system that is reliable, flexible, and free, is now used in over fifty percent of the Web servers on the Internet, and which, Wayner predicts, will eventually overtake Microsoft. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Free for All an "intriguing history of the free software movement," while in the New Yorker Francine du Plessix Gray deemed Free for All an "entertaining, unabashedly partisan chronicle."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

periodicals

Australian Library Journal, November, 1997, Richard Pang, review of Digital Copyright Protection, p. 438.

Booklist, May 1, 2000, David Rouse, review of Free for All: How LINUX and the Free Software Movement Undercut the High-Tech Titans, p. 1628.

Inc., June, 2000, review of Free for All, p. 145.

Library Journal, June 15, 2000, review of Free forAll, p. 104.

New Scientist, September 14, 1996, Wendy Grossman, "Collected Works," p. 46.

New Yorker, August 7, 2000, Francine du Plessix Gray, review of Free for All, p. 85.

PC, May 28, 1996, Sebastian Rupley, "All the Web's a Wallet—or Soon Will Be," p. 60.

Personal Computer World, September, 1996, Eleanor Turton-Hill, review of Agents Unleashed, p. 217; November, 1998, Tim Anderson, review of Java Beans for Real Programmers, p. 320.

Publishers Weekly, June 26, 2000, review of Free forAll, p. 65.

Wall Street Journal, July 26, 2000, Lee Gomes, review of Free for All, p. A24.

Washington Post Book World, August 27, 2000, review of Free for All, p. 11.