From: "Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>
Date: Sat, 13 Jan 1996 00:56:02 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Mitnick #4: Platt's final response to Markoff
Message-ID: <IkxcOg600YUq45_AVc@andrew.cmu.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Topic 1119 [media]:  Media Appearances of WELLperns VI, S.F.Bay Area Division
#217 of 296: Aaron L Dickey (kieran)      Wed Jan  3 '96 (20:19)     7 lines

 Charles Platt responds:
 
 "John Markoff's reply to my replies is much more factual and convincing
 than his original response to my review of his book. I thank him for his
 time and trouble. I still find it hard to agree with his overall
 perspective, but I am now convinced that he does have a sincere point of
 view, and I value the instances where he has corrected me on details."

Topic 1119 [media]:  Media Appearances of WELLperns VI, S.F.Bay Area Division
#223 of 296: Declan McCullagh (declan)      Thu Jan  4 '96 (07:33)    23 lines

 And one final response from Charles Platt:
 
 "Someone suggested that by criticizing TAKEDOWN I attempted to further my
 own career.
 
 "My primary career has nothing to do with computer journalism. Under a
 different name I write a series of prehistory novels, the first of which
 now has 200,000 copies in print. This is my main source of income; I
 pursue computer journalism as a sideline, because it pleases me.
 
 "I do have a computer-related book coming out under my own name later this
 year, but it was written more for pleasure than profit and is aimed at a
 small audience: people who are more concerned about really dangerous
 criminals such as James Exon or Ralph Reed than about hackers such as
 Kevin Mitnick. Frankly, this book will not sell a lot of copies no matter
 what I do, because decency legislation and first-amendment issues are a
 noncommercial topic compared with so-called computer crime.
 
 "Bearing all this in mind, it is misleading to suggest that I wrote my
 review for motives of self-promotion. I wrote it because I had just
 finished reading TAKEDOWN, it had irritated me greatly, and I believed
 (perhaps wrongly) that I possessed background information that might not
 be mentioned by other reviewers elsewhere."