Upshot: Some may not like the tone, but if you can get past chapter one, this is an essential primer on File Sharing for those not in the know.

When last we left your humble reviewer he had taken to task a security book for lack of (controversial, but necessary) content. Well, with mixed feelings I’m here to tell you: Be careful what you wish for.

Let me back up a bit: there is a lot of disinformation, if not outright malarky from the ‘PC security industry’ as well as the mainstream media about File Sharing & BitTorrent— and a lot of ‘dancing around the topic’ by other authors.

But there is none of that in Cancel Cable: How Internet Pirates Get Free Stuff by Chris Fehily. This book is both a primer and a quick-start guide to the world of BitTorrent piracy: why it’s done, how to do it, and what the pitfalls are.

But even if you’re not a ‘pirate’ there is a LOT of excellent information here for ‘normal’ PC and Mac users.

Chapter 4 about Malware is a common sense introduction to threats that alone is worth the price of this book— the other sections on files & archives are as well.

In fact, even without the sections on piracy this would be a good book for parents to understand just what is on their children’s machines and why they should be secured.

In fact: I absolutely recommend this book for parents. If your child is talking about ‘Matroska files,’ ‘seed ratio,’ ‘warez’ or other such Greek— and you’re wondering what these terms mean— you need this book. Even if they aren’t, their friends are. Trust me on this one.

The only downside is that this book is written the same way is Sun Tzu wrote the Art of War, Machiavelli wrote The Prince, or Edward Bernays wrote Propaganda. It is unapologetic, direct and matter of fact in its tone. Despite piracy not being my favorite topic, I found it to be a very concise and refreshing read.

Make no mistake: Lawyers that deal with intellectual property, system administrators, and your 12-16 year old son/daughter already know what is in this book.

Ignorance is no excuse. I highly recommend this book.

If you do get this book I recommend getting it DRM free from the author’s site. The links in the ePub are all clickable with either the Firefox plugin or in iBooks.

Disclosure: Chris Fehily was kind enough to send me a DRM free ePub for review purposes.