|
Review by Andrew Novick Summary: Teenage Hackers, also known as Script Kiddies, have been making the news for several years. This book tells the stories of a dozen teenage hackers in depth. In the process it attempts to get at the ethos that drives hackers to spend hours at the keyboard invading other peoples computer systems. It’s an easy read that provides some real insight into what’s going on in the hacker underground. If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. After Mafiaboy brought down eBay, Yahoo, CNN and E-Trade for a day the popular press grabbed hold of the story of hackers, for a while. Like other stories before and since, it quickly fades into the background behind juicier stories of show trials, war or political misconduct. The Hacker Diaries: Confessions of Teenage Hackers goes deep into the stories of about a dozen teenage hackers. In the process it tries to get at the motivations that drove these teenagers to start hacking and the evolution of each hacker’s hacking ethos. It’s an enjoyable book that I recommend for anyone who wanted to gain an understanding of the hacker underground. Verton writes for Computerworld where he covers cybersecuirty, so these kids are on his beat. He’s been able to interview numerous hackers of which he picked a few. Of course, because he’s only been able to interview those who choose to be interviewed, his selection seems skewed towards the ones who turned out OK. Although he discusses a few diehards who haven’t been caught yet, he can’t go into any depth about them. Each story seems to have been written independently, sort of as a magazine article. In fact, that’s how I found this book. The Mafiaboy chapter was excerpted online. The unfortunate side effect of this is that there’s a lot of repetition of some of the technical background. Each chapter doesn't assume that you've read anything earlier in the book. Read this book for the stories, not the technical details. While he gets most of the facts right, Verton has dumbed down the technical material for the general public. In a few places the technical explanations are too simplistic to be correct. For the technical reader, this is a fun book. One that can be quickly read, enjoyed and it’s few salient points easily absorbed. I recommend it for anyone who wants to understand a little about why teenage hackers exist and why they do what they’re doing everyday.
|
|
