Hackers Books

Just grabbing this off the shelves in the holiday-gift rush, this book was not high expectations-wise for me. I am pleased to say, however, that it was well-worth it. It is about a 16-year old girl living in a small, quaint North Vermont town. Angelina as a narrator is good, telling about her father and the event that happened that changed her, her family, and her town's life forever: he had a stroke, leaving him paralyzed on one side, not able to eat or talk. The narration is excellent, and the story line was very touching and deep, very moving.
One part that I did not like was the theme of gayness in the novel, with her best friend being gay and her having a crush on him, and her mom's best friend being a lesbian. I wouldn't mind so much if, in the end, her recently widowed mother kissed her lesbian friend passionately on the lips.
But overall, it was worth the read and I enjoyed reading it. There are some good lessons in here as well.

Claire Malroux's booklength poem sequence, A Long Gone Sun, beautifully evokes life during the '30s and '40s in a small village near Toulouse in the south of France, evidently Saint- Sulpice or nearby, where traces of that life can still be seen and felt. Certainly the memory of World War Two still lives vigorously in that milieu of the poet's father, who was active in progressive politics and the Resistance, and who died as a result. The book is a subtle tribute to him and the world he helped to preserve. Malroux's unobtrusive imagist style suits her project, an oblique autobiography without egotism, a Bildungsroman in poetic form that also meditates on history's complex impacts upon the individual. She tells the truth but tells it "slant," as Emily Dickinson recommended. The translation by Marilyn Hacker echoes with grace and fidelity the syntax and internal rhymes of the original. Hacker has done a favor for American readers by introducing both a fine writer and a time and place worthy of our thoughtful attention.

This is a simple but warmly told mini-chapter book (nine chapters, each about three pages long), about a city dweller who moves to the countryside. Although only a couple of words actually rhyme, James Stevenson's rhythms, word choices, and formatting, convey the feeling and cadence of poetry. The book is short on excitement, but young ones will enjoy practicing their reading with this old-fashioned, nicely illustrated story.

Mr. Hacker no longer knows his city: The neighbors are now strangers, and the things are noisy, dirty, or broken-down. He moves, but his new location is too quiet and too isolated, and he begins to wonder whether he made the right decision. However, Mr. Hacker makes friends-animal friends! A brown dog and a yellow cat begin to compete for the food he lays out for them. The dog (in one of the more humorous passages) wins, eating both the dog food and the cat food, but Mr. Hacker loses his temper. Eventually, with patient training and increasing affection for the animals, all is in order again, but the situation repeats itself when the squirrels eat the birdseed Mr. Hacker leaves out!

This is a quiet book about making a home for yourself. There's very little plot and not much conflict, but Mr. Hacker's slow accommodation to his surroundings (echoed by the two animals acceptance of Mr. Hacker) is warm and reassuring. Mr. Hacker's initial anger with the food-stealing dog subsides, and one gets the feeling that they've forged a real friendship together. The watercolor and black pen illustrations resemble those of Stevenson, but they are by Frank Modell, whose style will be familiar to "New Yorker" readers. They convey the emotions in a book where emotion plays an important role.

But I only used it when I was taking the class, not after...

This book drives home 90% of the Wifredo Lam story - here we see a painter as brilliant as any of the great Europeans with whom he spent many years of his early youth. Lam was born in Cuba, and as the son of a black ex-slave and a Chinese immigrant, he probably would have never been recorded in history had it not been for the vision of his grandmother, who saved enough money (recognizing his artistic talent) to send the young Lam to study art in Spain. Because of racism, he ends up in Paris, where he hangs around Picasso and the other luminaries of the times. It is easy to see how Picasso "discovered" African themes in Lam's works and copying the Cuban master's ideas, delivered a new period to his own works. Lam escapes the Nazis and returns to Cuba, and after Castro becomes an icon in world art - somewhat tainted in the eyes of many Cubans -- by his close relationship with the government of the Communist dictator. There has been much controversy about Lam's works after his death, as many "fakes" have surfaced, and some have even accused the Cuban government of producing (and certifying) them.

A Writers Reference is a good book to use to help write papers. It is well organized in that you don't have to flip through an entire chapter or wade through pages of index while looking for a certain topic. It is a real time saver.

A Writer's Reference by Diana Hacker (May 99 ed.) is a great reference book. It is required for my English Comp class and is filled with up-to-date information that is extremely helpful with writing in accordance with MLA guidelines.

Katie Hafner and John Markoff write an excellent book about three groups of individuals that got caught hacking and compromising computers in the 1980s. The stories themselves are able to stand alone. This book can be read and re-read, and enjoyed each time.

The story of Kevin Mitnick is the story of an aloof, over-wieght, junk-food junkie that has been portrayed as the stereotypical computer hacker addict/criminal. His persistence and technical expertise caught many experts off guard. His multiple downfalls (arrests) and convictions reveal a lot of how computer specialists' shortcomings in approaching security procedures and problems helped enable his success. The debate regarding security and freedom of information still continues. Their was little difference in personalities between Kevin and many of the experts.

The story of the West German group (which includes Pengo as a member) that had some connection with the Chaos Computer Club and committed espionage for the old Eastern Bloc for relatively little money is a sad story. The addiction to computers and drugs, and the lack of mature guidance as youngsters allowed these men, of little moral convictions, to evolve to betray their country and the western world and wrap it in some starry-eyed belief that providing information to the Eastern Bloc would make the world safer by equalizing the technical information for both sides. This story reads like a Peter Seller's Pink Panther version of a bad James Bond movie. The individuals involved were lucky that the Iron Curtain collapsed before they were tried for treason and espionage, and sentenced. Cliff Stoll's The Cuckoo Egg describes his part in the case as he experienced it from UC Berkley.

The final section is about the unique individual, Robert Morris, and the virus/worm he released which caused havoc across the United Stated in the mid-1980s. This incident received a lot of press at the time. The authors are sympathetic to Robert and appear to accept that the havoc caused was not intentional, and the havoc was caused by a programming error. The `light' sentence he received when was convicted was mainly due to judicial confusion regarding computers and computer crimes that existed back in the 1980s - there was even debate among the computer experts as to if he had done anything really wrong. The incident could not have been a career enhancer for his father, a top scientist at the National Security Agency.

The book is great in providing information about the early era of computers and the interent. It could be termed the `wild west' years of the early internet. Laws and expertise regarding computers lagged badly behind the advances, especially regarding the internet. Confusion and no technical understanding among judges,lawyers and law enforcement was the rule not the exception. It is little better today.

This is another excellent book that can be read and re-read that was partially written by John Markoff.

...Steven Levy's "Hackers". Hackers is the more technically and historically detailed of the two. Cyberpunk is a breezy bit of pop journalism centering on three early cases of hackerism. It's an entertaining read, though substantively little more than a gloss on Levy's much better book.

I have read this book a number of times over the years (I picked it up when it first came out) and have always enjoyed reading it. Even though it does only scratch the surface of the hacker culture, it's definitely an entertaining read. I know that I've heard that many of the things that were written in here (especially about Kevin Mitnick) have been termed libelous and untrue by some people. I can't vouch for what's fact and what's not in this book. I can only say that it does give a good idea what hacking was like in the good 'ol days.
If you like this book, you might want to try Steven Levy's book "Hackers", which really (I think) gives you a better understanding of the spirit of most hackers, and covers the history of hacking from the early days of MIT, up until now. Cyberpunk doesn't, but it's still definitely worth reading if you enjoy a good story.

Although Markoff is an exceptional writer and the book is both easy to read and entertaining, the content is presented as factual when the truth is that these guys definitely wrote the book with only part of the whole story at their disposal. One of the main "cyberpunks" depicted in the book is Kevin Mitnick, who claims that he has never even met John Markoff. How can the book fairly and accurately speak to the topic of hacking during the early days of the Internet revolution when they never did any investigations with real "hackers"? The story is told only from a law enforcement point-of-view. I am sure that the Rodney King story is told differently by King than the LAPD. Same goes for this case.

Like many works today that seem to be written for financial reasons, it seems very one-sided and sensational.

First off, John Markoff does NOT tell an unbiased story, especially regarding the Mitnick case. Kevin Mitnick, preferring to keep a low profile, has not promoted his own story, and as a result he has had his name slandered by mediawhores like Markoff. Markoff traveled extensively with Tsutomu Shimomura, the security expert who eventually (and with much government aid) apprehended Mitnick. It is quite clear whose side he is on as he repeatedly demonizes Mitnick as a fat, malicious, juvenile person with no self-control and no respect for anyone else. This typecasting is quite understandable though, once you know that Markoff has a share in the Miramax movie Takedown that details Mitnick's capture. Nobody wants to see such unfair treatment happen to a real, sympathetic person. (Takedown, incidentally, is more slanderous than Cyberpunk and from which the real Kevin Mitnick, whom it is based on, is not getting a dime).

But apart from my distaste for Markoff, this book still failed to be a interesting read. I enjoy reading about the early history of hacking, etc, so I bought it with high hopes. The only reason I didn't put it down was because it was my only reading material on a six hour bus trip. The Internet revolution was fascinating and the people involved in it were interesting, dynamic people. But to hear Markoff tell it, everyone was petty, whining, insecure, and one-dimensional, with no other motivation than to cause trouble for others. He hasn't got a gift for writing novels with well-rounded and interesting characters that the reader can actually sympathize with and care about.

I can recognize Dan Verton really did a lot of researching for writing this book but, despite all of it, it's a bad book. Excepting HD Moore I never saw any of those hackers interviewed. The tales are very unintersting. A mom from a friend of mine liked it and probably my mother will.

This is one of the only books that directly talks about teenage hackers and one that tries to change the people's and the media's perception about a hacker. It does not, however, do a great job of conveying this message at least that is what I thought. The preface starts as a restatement of the well know Hacker's Manefesto authored by Mentor a decade ago. The book will not appeal to the technical audience, since it is mostly a novel. One issue that I really found serious in the book was that the message is contradicted. Although the book wants to convey the message that hacking is bad and people who practice it are normal teenagers who might be cutting your grass; the choice of characters was no where normal. The characters which are mostly from divorced parents, living with no water in their house, picking fights, getting arrested, and getting expelled from school; hardly the norm for the average teenager IMHO. A couple of technical inaccuracies were also spotted between the text and there a huge gap in the time line described between the day the hacker fiddled with his first computer and the day he started to break computers. Other than that issue the book is a good read although it does really appeal to my technological taste.

This book will change your view of what you thought of the typical teenage hacker. This book has 8 stories about teenage hackers as the title shows. The chapters on average are 20 to 25 pages long so the author does not have very long to go into deep detail of each hacker or group of hackers he delves into there family lifes some but does not have long to go for their hacks and exploits .

Some of the characters are as follow

1) Genocide who grew up in a shack in alaska with no electricity telephone or running water.

2) Theres joe magee and noid who where complete opposites but curiosity in the familys new vcr would start their interest into computers. A intersting story from the book about joe and the family vcr was when he was 10 he had a problem with insomnia and late night eating because of it. So one night withsuch problem he goes down stairs to make a pb&j sandwich and when he thinks he is going to get busted he shoves the sandwich into the vcr and a sure mess came about with the heat melting the jelly.

3) Theres prometheus and explotion with promethius being a self-proclaimed satan worshiper living to deface christian and religous websites.

One of two out of this group that really amazed me was 15 year old anna moore who had computer friendly parents at age 4 she could read at a 3rd grade level she also was the first female hacker to win the ethical hacking contest at the annual defcon hacker convention in vegas.

The other one that was really amazing is h.d. moore who started hacking at age 13 who got a job working for the air force before he was 18. He developed on his own alot of programs that are uaed today and even gave a big presentation at a convention at the age of 17.

I said at the start that this book would change your veiw of hackers in that they are not the teenagers that tv and moives portray or what most of us probably think of they are the kid next door the star quarterback and such not as alot the evil names they choose as shockvalue and that most of these kids go on to productive lives seeing that hacking has become something other than what they veiwed it as away to share info and despies those who made money from it to now the feeling that the most modern day hackers are only concern with damaging and destroying websites. This book is a little hard to get threw if you are a computer novice as far as the terminology.

This book is horrible. Hackers are the people who commit crimes using computer, Hackers are people who are expert programmers. A better book would be "Hacker: Heroes of the Computer Revolution".

This book is one of a few that provides insight into hackers, security personnel, and cybercrime investigators through first-person interviews. It reads much like a magazine article or investigative newspaper report.

The title implies that we will get a very personal glimpse of hackers, as if reading their diaries. That is not the case. We only get what the hacker is willing to say to the interviewer, so there is a level of info we don't get to see.

As a computer geek myself, I expected more techinical information, but the author saw need to explain what things like "telnet" means. If you are not a technical person, you will be able to read this book without being left in the dark on anything. But geeks like me will be left wondering more about specific techniques and tools used, while bored at the basic information provided.

I don't have a lot of time or patience, so the fact that I read this book cover-to-cover without giving up on it means it has some value, though it leaves something to be desired. It is not a book that will change your life or give you a deep insight, but it is an interesting read.

Computer security is not only part of my job, but a bit of a hobby of mine, so I love reading books like this. This book was fun to read and I read it in pretty much one night. This is a rare feat for me... I barely ever read books in one night, much less a few nights. So that should tell you how much fun the book was to read.

The reason for 4 stars instead of 5? 1) It only comes in a hard cover instead of a paper back? At least, I couldn't find a paper back anywhere! 2) It's obvious (and Poulsen has commented on this) that the author has made up some things that Kevin said or did. However, this is obviously to keep the book interesting and make for a better read... So, don't take everything that the author says to heart, but the underlying story is still pretty much what happened from what I understand and have found to be true, anyway.

Great read, thrilling, exciting and fun. If you like stories about computers, security and hackers.

I had Kevin for dinner on 1 July 1999. It seems he was about to marry my wife's first cousin, who--at the time--was an attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Neither was I impressed by Kevin's putative depth of knowledge, nor did he indicate that this book bore the least relationship to his exploits. I was just disappointed all around. I believe my wife made her Polynesian meatballs.

Jonathan Littman's The Watchman is well written and engaged me enough to read it in one sitting. I wanted for some time to learn more about Kevin Poulsen having heard about some of the exploits attributed to him. This story accomplishes that in a compelling way and manages to be pertinent years later. This is required reading for anyone wishing to know the darker side of the hacker sub-culture, about Kevin Poulsen, Ron Austin or Justin Petersen and some of their creative mischief and crimes.

If you like true crime stories, this one is for you. I wont try and debate the truth of the book, (it's a controversial subject)because I dont know the truth. But I know this is a good story, even if there are a few fabrications here and there.

I am a computer geek at heart, so I especially loved this book. But even my non-technical girlfriend loved it, it's a great story.

The storytelling in this book is magnificent, you really get a feel for his personality right off the bat, and the story is filled with excitement and suspense, and pardon the cliche, is impossible to put down. The first time I picked up the book, I sat and read it to the end, despite my best efforts to walk away from it.

The imagery is great, and you start to feel a closeness and sympathy for Kevin, and you forget at the time he was a criminal. You hope he doesn't get caught, and cringe when he does. You watch him do well, and slip, like an addict who can't take control, and you start to feel an understanding of what it was like for him.

Overall, I would say from a technical standpoint, it's a great read. From a true crime perspective, great read as well. Good all around book that's entertaining from start to finish.

I had no idea who Kevin Poulson was when I picked up this book. All I knew was that I wanted to read a book which dealt with computer hackers and this book had been recommended to me by a friend of mine. Suffice to say I was not disappointed.

Littman writes a compelling story about Kevin Poulson, who is perhaps the second best known hacker in North America best Kevin Mitnick. And what makes this book such an interesting read is that it is a modern day, and real life, version of the Fugitive. But unlike the Fugitive, Kevin is hunted to tapping in to phone systems and learning much more about the telephone networks than the average, non-telco employee, should be allowed to.

The book is filled with first hand accounts and funny anecdotes of the escapades that Kevin and some of his company managed to pull off. After reading the book, I was left scratching my head in disbelief. It was almost as if the feats Kevin was able to accomplish were too good to be true. But in the end, that's what makes this book so great.