'War On Science' Enflames Hacker

by Rachel Deahl, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 12/21/2005

Last weekend was a big one for Chris Mooney's The Republican War on Science. Such a big one that staffers at Perseus, the house which published Mooney's book under its Basic Books imprint, think it was the spark which led a hacker to try to bring down the book's site, www.waronscience.com.

On Friday Perseus spread the word that War had been optioned for a documentary by filmmaker-of-the-moment Morgan Spurlock (known for catastrophically raising his cholestorol levels in his Oscar-winning 2004 doc Supersize Me). Then, on Sunday, War was featured on the cover of The New York Times Book Review (with a mostly-positive review-- despite "chunky and cliched" prose, reviewer John Horgan said Mooney "addresses a vitally important topic and gets it basically right"). The major one-two punch is what Perseus president David Steinberger thinks led to the hack; that and the controversial nature of the book.

"I think the timing is not a coincidence," he said. "The book got exposure in two significant ways…and this is clearly a very hot issue." The issue which Mooney's book addresses—namely charges that the Bush administration and the Republican machinery at large has stifled scientific discovery and the scientific community—seems to have particularly strong reverberations given the very vocal debate between supporters of creationism and supporters of evolution.

Peter Costanzo, director of online marketing for Perseus, said that the hack was caught early. Costanzo, who developed and maintains the site, said he happened to check out the URL from home on Sunday and immediately knew something was wrong. The attack, which was essentially a planted virus that randomly deletes data, kept the site down until Sunday evening.

The hack, Costanzo said, marks a first for Perseus. Steinberger added that the attack is particularly disturbing because the book, which now has about 40,000 copies in print after starting at 10,000, got such a big initial boost from its Web site and online presence.