Steal This File Sharing Book: What They Wont Tell You About File Sharing

The most common e-books found on the Internet are advanced computer books from O'Reilly, Que, Sams, Microsoft Press, New Riders, and Peachpit (see Figure 11-2).

Figure 11-2: E-books from O'Reilly appear frequently on newsgroups and file sharing networks.

The latest bestsellers also often appear on the Internet. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix appeared as an e-book on file sharing networks and newsgroups just hours after going on sale. And practically every book and short story written by Isaac Asimov, Ursula Le Guin, and Roger Zelazny can be found on newsgroups or file sharing networks along with horror stories by Stephen King (see Figure 11-3).

Other popular e-books are ones that cover taboo subjects, like lock picking,-erotica, creating fake IDs, building your own handguns, password cracking, brainwashing, hacking, cable and satellite TV descrambling, and the usual penis-enlargement techniques.

For many downloaders, the thrill comes from finding and downloading books, not from actually reading them. Stuffing thousands of e-books onto their computers gives bookwarez traders the modern-day thrill of owning something akin to a huge mahogany-shelved library. The point is often just to show themselves (and others) that they own them.

Figure 11-3: Over 300 postings in the alt.binaries.e-book newsgroup contain nearly all of Stephen King's books, with most books being posted in several different formats for the reader's convenience.