Ali Jahangiri: The Security Policy Cookbook Plagiarism

Sat Aug 7 18:50:04 CDT 2010

Dr. Ali Jahangiri released a book titled "The Security Policy Cookbook: A Guide for IT and Security Professionals". From his website describing the book, he says "I decided to address the need, spending more than two years to study and bring together the contents of this book in order to create a comprehensive collection of security policy templates." This collection is "based on the 14 years of experience of its author, security expert and trainer" and "initiated in workshops and lectures by participants who asked for Jahangiri's security policy templates". There is no confusion over Jahangiri's language, that these are "his policies" and were developed over two years, based on workshops and lectures using his 14 years of experience.

After receiving a tip from a reader suggesting some content may have been taken from public sources without attribution, Attrition.org did a more thorough review of the book. Using simple Google queries for key phrases from the book ( partially available online via Amazon.com), we found what appears to be sweeping plagiarism. The table below breaks down the book, page count and approximate percent of material lifted from other sources. With a limited sample of the book available, we relied on Ben Rothke to check the remaining chapters since he had a physical copy of the book. This table represents investigation by Rothke and Attrition.org staff. Ben wrote a review of the book based on his experience and thoughts.

• The Security Policy Cookbook: A Guide for IT and Security Professionals
• ISBN 10: 098427152X
• ISBN 13: 9780984271528
• Page Count: 160
• List Price: $49.95

When Dr. Jahangiri was asked about the plagiarism, his e-mail response contained more interesting information along with more questions. He first responded that in the last 10 years, he had developed various policies for clients before saying that he subcontracted other companies in different countries to develop those documents. This makes it unclear if he and/or his company created the policies or if they were subcontracted from a third-party.

Jahangiri goes on to say that he purchased a set of policy templates in 2005 from a foreign company while he was busy on other engagements. He claims the set of documents included in that batch are the same ones found at the Texas Department of Information Resources and that he has the rights to use those purchased items. However, this claim seems bogus as some of the policies that were used had been published as early as 2002. Either the company he bought them from plagiarized, and he did not verify the material he received, or his claim is an outright lie.

Regardless of why, selling a book with 141 pages of security policies that are freely available on the Internet without disclosing where they came from (e.g., he hired a company to draft them, he collected them from the Internet) is fraud. Charging $49.95 for a print book of public material, and having the audacity to charge $150 for an electronic version is far from ethical.