Rating: 
Summary: This is an Excellent Read
Review: "The Hacker Diaries" (THD) will make veterans of the security scene smile and wince. Smiles come from learning the personalities and quirks of the book's teenage subjects. Winces result from the perceptions of these teenage wizards' "skilz" and motivations, and the author's own awkward handling of technical concepts. THD is probably worth buying once it is republished in a cheaper paperback format, or borrowed from your local library.
THD suffers in parts from the author's unfamiliarity with his subject material. "X Windows" is not quite "an emulator that offers users the familiar Windows interface" (p. 11). John Vranesevich is not "thought to be one of the best hackers in the world" (p. 207). (Boy, that was funny.) While a couple guys from the "Cult of the Dead Cow" were also members of "L0pht," cDc did not become the @Stake company (p. 208). The Navy "SHADOW" paper of 1998 mostly discovered benign network traffic, not "highly coordinated scans" (p. 169). (Others fell for this explanation, though.)
Comments about Fairbanks, Alaska's "treeless tundra landscapes" aside, the author clearly did a lot of research and work on this book. He presents his teenage hacker subjects in clear and captivating prose. He covers some of the more intriguing security events of the past few years, such as Bill Swallow's undercover work tracking the Serbian underground and revealing Mafiaboy's involvement in DDoS attacks. Verton captured the essence of H.D. Moore with his comment that "he had the unique ability to speak as quickly as his mind processed his thoughts." Like Rick Fleming, when I last spoke with H.D. Moore in San Antonio, I also "strained to listen."
THD deserves a high three-star rating, but I couldn't rate it as highly as some of the four-star books I've read recently. Incidentally, although the author didn't include his own web site in the book's appendices, it's worth a visit. Maybe next time Verton will direct his considerable energy towards tackling the real sources of danger on the net: organized crime, foreign intelligence sources, and disgruntled insiders?
Rating: 
Summary: Manage your expectations, and you will enjoy this book
Review: "The Hacker Diaries" (THD) will make veterans of the security scene smile and wince. Smiles come from learning the personalities and quirks of the book's teenage subjects. Winces result from the perceptions of these teenage wizards' "skilz" and motivations, and the author's own awkward handling of technical concepts. THD is probably worth buying once it is republished in a cheaper paperback format, or borrowed from your local library.
THD suffers in parts from the author's unfamiliarity with his subject material. "X Windows" is not quite "an emulator that offers users the familiar Windows interface" (p. 11). John Vranesevich is not "thought to be one of the best hackers in the world" (p. 207). (Boy, that was funny.) While a couple guys from the "Cult of the Dead Cow" were also members of "L0pht," cDc did not become the @Stake company (p. 208). The Navy "SHADOW" paper of 1998 mostly discovered benign network traffic, not "highly coordinated scans" (p. 169). (Others fell for this explanation, though.)
Comments about Fairbanks, Alaska's "treeless tundra landscapes" aside, the author clearly did a lot of research and work on this book. He presents his teenage hacker subjects in clear and captivating prose. He covers some of the more intriguing security events of the past few years, such as Bill Swallow's undercover work tracking the Serbian underground and revealing Mafiaboy's involvement in DDoS attacks. Verton captured the essence of H.D. Moore with his comment that "he had the unique ability to speak as quickly as his mind processed his thoughts." Like Rick Fleming, when I last spoke with H.D. Moore in San Antonio, I also "strained to listen."
THD deserves a high three-star rating, but I couldn't rate it as highly as some of the four-star books I've read recently. Incidentally, although the author didn't include his own web site in the book's appendices, it's worth a visit. Maybe next time Verton will direct his considerable energy towards tackling the real sources of danger on the net: organized crime, foreign intelligence sources, and disgruntled insiders?
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and entertaining read on today¿s hacking culture
Review: Hackers, crackers, hactivist, whatever you want to call them; have all received huge amounts of press in recent days. With the increase of both criminal and lawful cyber-activities, criminologists will pursue the question as to what motivates such people to break into various computer systems. The Hacker Diaries - Confessions of Teenage Hackers - attempts to peer into the minds of some of the most celebrated hackers of the last few years. Hacker personalities such as Joe Magee, Genocide, Anna Moore, MafiaBoy and more are detailed in this interesting book. Verton is not an alarmist who hysterically views hackers as the bane of the world. Rather, he attempts to portray hackers in a rational light, but never rationalizes their occasional criminal behavior. Verton does a good job of giving the reader insights into what makes a teenager hack. By and large, it is for a sense of adventure, plus a variety of internal and external societal pressures. For those readers that are looking to understand why hackers do what they do, and understand it from both a criminal and psychological perspective, or how to use the information to protect corporate networks, The Hacker Diaries is not the right book. But if you are on the other hand looking for an interesting and entertaining read on today's hacking culture, The Hacker Diaries makes for a good read.
Rating: 
Summary: An OK Hacker Book
Review: Having read a number of books on this subject, this was an just ok read. From the explanation the author gave of the kids, I came away thinking they were just script kiddies and nothing more. The author does not go into detail of the hacks and mostly covered just dos attacks and defacing websites. I wish the author had talked about more old-school hackers like lod/mod war, capn crunch, kevin poulsen (my favorite read: the watchman). However it was interesting to hear how the kids got involved with hacking and what each hackers personality and lifestyle was.
Rating: 
Summary: No whiz at gathering information.
Review: How can you trust an author who can not even get his information correct? The pages available for review talked about a boy growing up on the treeless tundra of Fairbanks, Alaska. Well I live in Fairbanks and it is a green leafy town that is surrounded and filled by millions of trees, birch, chokecherry, willow, black and blue spruces as well as cottonwood trees. and several rivers and hot springs. Those are surrounded by hills and then mountains. He was writing totally away from reality! I then went to the library and found other erroneous parts of the book. With this type of sloppy writing, how can you treat it as anything more then hearsay?
Rating:
Summary: The best non-hacking book ever
Review: I can not put it down. It's not a Hackers How-to book AT ALL. The author of the book, Dan Verton, followed around about 9 different teenage hackers and profiles their lives and what/why they hack. I think it's a GREAT book. It's well worth every penny. I think it's a great concept to know what goes on "behind the scenes".
Rating: 
Summary: pretty interesting
Review: I didn't know much about hacking or the hacking community before I read this book, but I have a better understanding of it now. The basic message of the book is that not all hackers are geeky teenagers with destruction in mind. If you're not a hacker, you probably can't completely understand their world, but this book is still an interesting insight into the lives and activities of some well-known hackers.
Rating:
Summary: Not Much New Here, Hardly a Breakthrough Title.
Review: I have read plenty of books on this topic and this one contains nothing that hasn't been regurgitated in the countless other titles. Hackers are an interesting breed and this title does not adequately explore why they do what they do. It isn't as simple as the author makes it out to be.
If you are looking for a breakthrough title that presents some new, startling information, keep looking because you haven't found it here. Aside from that, the book is of average quality. It isn't poor, but at the same time there isn't anything exceptional about it.
Rating:
Summary: An absolute great read about the world of Hackers
Review: I really liked this book and learned a lot about the hacker scene. Verton does not portray all hackers as bad, that's what surprised me so much. Many have had good intentions and ethics from the beginnings, others have become aware of the negative effects of what they were doing and many are now valuable security officers at respected companies. Hey, what about Starla Pureheart, who won the Defcon ethical hacking contest! The book truly presents an insight!
Rating:
Summary: Fun and Informative
Review: I really liked this book. Even though there were a few things I disagreed with and what I would call a few minor errors, overall this is a great read and a valuable insight into how hackers grow up. It also doesn't get lost in stereotypes like almost every other book on hackers out there. And it doesn't strike me as a book for technical geeks, most of whom would probably not want to read this anyway since they all think they are the experts and the "real hackers." Anyway, if you're a parent or a teacher or just somebody who is interested in learning about how some young kids get involved in hacking and how different they all REALLY are as PEOPLE, this is a good book for you. The Chapter on Mafiaboy, a 15-year-old Canadian, is really strong and provides never before published details about one of the most notorious teen hackers in recent years -- even if he wasn't a very good "hacker" -- as well as the behind-the-scenes look at the FBI investigation. I also liked the fictional "hacker diaries" that open and close the book. They are very interesting and fun to read. The bottom line is that the author picked interesting people to interview --not just techno geeks. He showed them as real people. Nobody wants to read about techno geeks or the history of computer hacking. And this book avoids that. I recommend this one.
|
