Police and medical services are unavailable. In the first chapter, “Warfare 2.0,” Koppel briefly considers a doomsday scenario in a great city, with darkness and the loss of electricity, water, food, and waste disposal. His intention in writing the book is to alert US citizens of that danger in order to encourage them to prepare as well as possible for potential cyberattacks that might affect them.

Koppel’s thesis is that (1) cyberwar is a significant danger to the United States, (2) that we are woefully unprepared for it, and (3) that there are some measures, however modest, that can be taken in preparation. Named by New York University as one of the top 100 American journalists of the past hundred years, he has won every significant television award. Ted Koppel is a forty-two-year veteran of ABC News, where he was anchor and managing editor of Nightline from 1980 to 2005. Koppel’s book is thus an excellent introduction to the subject. It has been prominent in current news because of the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee emails in connection with the 2016 elections, starkly illustrating its potential dangers. Cyberwar has occurred in many documented cases and continues to be a threat. This book was chosen for review because it concerns cyberwar, a topic of immediate concern to the world.

Lights out kopple