S. Vitali, J.B. Glattfelder, S. Battiston: The Network of Global Corporate Control (2011)

The structure of the control network of transnational corporations affects global market competition and financial stability. So far, only small national samples were studied and there was no appropriate methodology to assess control globally. We present the first investigation of the architecture of the international ownership network, along with the computation of the control held by each global player. We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers. (Abstract)

By Stefania Vitali, James B. Glattfelder, Stefano Battiston
Second version
Published on 19 September 2011
36 pages

commentary (Andy Coghlan and Debora MacKenzie, New Scientist)

More information (arXiv.org)

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Norbert Wiener: Cybernetics, or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948–) [EN, RU, IT]

“Acclaimed as one of the ‘seminal books … comparable in ultimate importance to … Galileo or Malthus or Rousseau or Mill’, Cybernetics was judged by twenty-seven historians, economists, educators, and philosophers to be one of those books published during the ‘past four decades,’ which may have a substantial impact on public thought and action in the years ahead.”—Saturday Review

First published by Hermann & Cie, Paris, 1948.

Second edition
Publisher MIT Press, 1961
Fourth printing, 1985
ISBN 026273009X, 9780262730099
212 pages

Wikipedia
Publisher

Cybernetics, or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (English, 2nd ed., 1948/1961, PDF, DJVU, updated on 2015-12-6)
Kibernetika, ili upravlenie i svyaz v zhivotnom i mashine (Russian, trans. G.N. Povarov, 1958, DJVU, added on 2021-4-8)
La cibernetica: controllo e comunicazione nell’animale e nella macchina (Italian, trans. Giampaolo Barosso, 1968/1982, added on 2021-4-8)

See also Monoskop resource on Cybernetics.

Matt Curtin: Brute Force: Cracking the Data Encryption Standard (2005)

In the 1960s, it became increasingly clear that more and more information was going to be stored on computers, not on pieces of paper. With these changes in technology and the ways it was used came a need to protect both the systems and the information. For the next ten years, encryption systems of varying strengths were developed, but none proved to be rigorous enough. In 1973, the NBS put out an open call for a new, stronger encryption system that would become the new federal standard. Several years later, IBM responded with a system called Lucifer that came to simply be known as DES (data encryption standard).

The strength of an encryption system is best measured by the attacks it is able to withstand, and because DES was the federal standard, many tried to test its limits. (It should also be noted that a number of cryptographers and computer scientists told the NSA that DES was not nearly strong enough and would be easily hacked.) Rogue hackers, usually out to steal as much information as possible, tried to break DES. A number of “white hat” hackers also tested the system and reported on their successes. Still others attacked DES because they believed it had outlived its effectiveness and was becoming increasingly vulnerable. The sum total of these efforts to use all of the possible keys to break DES over time made for a brute force attack.

In 1996, the supposedly uncrackable DES was broken. In this captivating and intriguing book, Matt Curtin charts DES’s rise and fall and chronicles the efforts of those who were determined to master it.

Publisher Springer, 2005
Copernicus Series
ISBN 0387201092, 9780387201092
291 pages

wikipedia
publisher
google books

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