[2] A former columnist for Windows Magazine and Computer Shopper, Banks documented the growth of online services and the Internet and Web from the early 1980s onward.
[citation needed] Banks explored Internet crime and computer privacy with his books Web Psychos, Stalkers and Pranksters, and PC Confidential.
[citation needed] Banks also wrote On the Way to the Web: The Secret History of the Internet, which tells the story of what was happening online before the Web, including the histories of Videotex and online services such as CompuServe, The Source, PlayNET, AOL, Q-Link, Viewdata, and Prestel.
Banks wrote several novels, including The Odysseus Solution with Dean R. Lambe, and has also been a contributor to Analog, Asimov's SF, and other publications.
Banks also wrote Before Oprah: Ruth Lyons, the Woman Who Created Talk TV.