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Ghost In The Wires: My Adventures As The World's Most Wanted Hacker (2011)

by Kevin D. Mitnick(Favorite Author)

3.96 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0316037702 (ISBN13: 9780316037709)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Little, Brown and Company

review 1: A very interesting book, no doubt.The first one third of Kevin Mitnick's autobiography actually saddened me, as it reads like a confession of a alcoholic addict: He loves hacking too much, and frankly too good at it, to see how his addiction to hacking can ruin his relationships until it's too late. It's like a cruel circle: The author will start hacking just for fun, only to obsess over it so much he drove people close to him away; then he would lament his addiction, only to return to hacking moments later as a mean of compensation.Came the second and third part of the book though, and things starts to get interesting, as Mitnick was on the run from the FBI, all the while he was still hacking, both for maintaining his fugitive life and for fun (He's an addict, remember?).... more This part of the book was extremely fun to read, as he showed again and again how a little bit of wit and charm and above-average domain knowledge is all it needs to fool people and corporations into giving you classified information. Definitely an eye-opening to many of us.On a whole, I'd still heavily recommend this book to all who are a tiny bit interested in the world of hacking and social engineering. Say what you want about his ego, Kevin Mitnick has led quite an interesting life, and he doesn't mind sharing it with us in this book. Go read it, and happy hacking.
review 2: This was a great read. I listened to this one in the car, and it was so compelling that I would sit with my car on, listening until the end of whatever chapter was playing. It's the autobiography of Kevin Mitnick, a legendary hacker (though to hear him tell it, about half of his exploits were exaggerated by the US Government to keep him in jail). Mitnick is of the generation of hackers that started as phone phreakers, though he was less interested in the audio aspects than conning people (note: he insists on referring to conning people as 'social engineering,' which was my number one complaint for this book. Not much of a complaint, just thought I'd mention it). One of the things that struck me in this book was how often 'hacking' involved some kind of personal interaction, either over the phone or by fax or sometimes even in person.Mitnick's top claim to fame was tracking the FBI tracking him. He tapped the phones of the men tracking him in both the phone company and the FBI. In fact, when he finally knew they were coming, he went out and bought doughnuts, labeled them 'FBI Doughnuts' and left them in his fridge.He spent several years on the run, changing names and cities several times before he was finally captured and held without trail for almost 5 years as the prosecutors struggled to unwind what he had done. He became a bit of a cause celebre, and eventually pled to a deal that amounted to little more than time served. He now works as a security consultant, hacking into companies then showing them how to fix the gaps in their security.A really fun read, and the audiobook is just as fun.Owen Gardner Finnegan less

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