A particularly vexing issue is that of money laundering, on national and international scales, and Solomon devotes an entire chapter to the subject. But the range of such services seems to be expanding very slowly. The jury is still out on the overall security of such systems, which depend heavily on the use of secure passwords. Her point of departure is an oft-repeated remark by Doyne Farmer, who likens the search for chaotic patterns to the observation of a river rising after a rain. Sometimes, he says, by close inspection, one can predict the formation of a powerful eddy, more or less certain to evolve in a predictable manner until the water reaches a level sufficient to cover it over.
Electronic communications are tailor-made for the purpose.
Yet the search continues. I suspect that the same information could be condensed, for a technically sophisticated audience, into a few chapters of a book on emerging issues in electronic communication. The determined reader can learn much from this book. James Case is an independent consultant who lives in Baltimore, Maryland. Extensive footnotes furnish a beginners' guide to more technical information.