Customer Reviews

At Large: the Strange Case of the World's Biggest Internet Invasion

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This book chronicles the exploits of a young computer enthusiast who managed to break into an alarming number of computers, mainly by sheer perseverance. The book is also the story of the people who hunted this early cybercriminal and how he was ultimately caught.

One of the remarkable aspects of the story is that the chief antagonist (the "hacker") was not particularly skilled. He was what's called a "script kiddie" in the biz. Another remarkable aspect of the book is that after breaking into dozens of computers, and finally getting caught after dozens of people had invested hundreds of hours tracking him, he was basically let off the hook with very little punishment.

I found this to be a fascinating account of an extraordinary series of events. I recommend this book especially for those who are interested in the field of information security as it provides a glimpse of the motivations and methodology of one notorious cracker. For people who are interested in crimes or security, this will be a riveting story.

All that said, this is only one side of the story and I wondered how accurate the reporting was. In particular, I wished that there was more on the motivation and thinking of the main antagonist, the super-cracker-slash-script-kiddie pseudo-named Matt Singer. In the book, he is characterized basically as a bad guy. There has been more written about this story and apparently the script kiddie's real name is Tim Bach. You can find his posts in the freebsd.org mailing list archives from 1995 and other on-line traces. These "real-world" glimpses do not seem, IMHO, to jive completely with the character in this putatively non-fiction book.

In the same vein, Trent Fisher (no pseudonym for him in the book) has a website and doesn't seem too happy in how he was characterized.

And, finally, the events are ancient history. In many ways, information security has taken strides since these events unfolded. Law enforcement and especially forensics are more advanced. And in important ways, modern worms represent the evolution of this breed of attacker.

But it's still a fascinating and, I think, important story.

In the spirit of Clifford Stoll's "The Cuckoo Egg," that detailed the hacking episodes of the German Chaos Computer Club in the late 80's, At Large is the true story of a computer hacker. The book, a fast-paced thriller, tells the real-life story of how a young man, with marginal intellectual capabilities, yet extremely tenacious and resolute, was able to penetrate hundreds of academic, financial, government, commercial and military computer networks.

The hacker who became known as "Phantom Dialer," started his two year hacking escapade by reeking havoc on the network at the Portland State University in Oregon in 1991. Once into the Portland State network, his used that site as a stepping stone to networks across the globe.

At around the same time that Phantom Dialer was causing damage, the FBI was starting its computer crime squad. While almost as persistent in catching Phantom Dialer as the Phantom Dialer was anonymous, the dedicated members of the computer crime squad felt that while their efforts were valiant, it was nonetheless just a drop in the water, compared to the thousands of other hackers out there.

After a wire tap where the squad was able to determine who Phantom Dialer was, and where his base location was, the squad decided to raid Phantom Dialer's house, arrest him, and seize his computer equipment.

Once inside the house with a warrant, a rather humorous incident occurred. The squad members went to Phantom Dialer's room and announced "Open up -- FBI!", Phantom Dialer replied "Shut up Steve (his brother), Do you think that I'm going to fall for that trick again?".

Phantom Dialer was arrested and jailed. But due to his mental condition (borderline schizophrenic), prosecutors decided that they would not attempt to indict him since they felt that he could not truly understand the implications of his action. Given that, prosecutors felt that no jury would have convicted him.

At Large is a good starting point for anyone interested in understanding how hackers operate. Written in a clear fashion, using technical jargon only when necessary, At Large makes for some interesting reading.

A good story though not very technical. This book does not go into any indepth details on how InfoMaster got into systems. All in all, it's a good book. Much, much (a thousand times) better than "TAKEDOWN" written by Tsutomu Shimomura & John Markoff.

This book was very entertaining, and also very difficult to put down, partly because of the odd nature of the hacker and the things he was able to accomplish despite obvious handicaps, and partly because of the writing style.

Accomplishments: Determination really can trump weak technical skills. How else can I describe a young man with apparent physical and mental problems who was able to pluck logins directly from Internet backbones?

Writing style: The writing is fairly ordinary and bland -- that is, the content is the story, not flowery writing. But there is something else here that I found very pleasant. The curiosity and frustration experienced by the technical people hunting the hacker made it into the writing in an exceptional way.

I have not done the book justice here. I would recommend visiting the library and reading the first 20 pages. After that, you'll want to own a copy.

I've read many (okay, most) of the well known books on hackers and hacker culture, and I would put @large in the top three, alongside The Watchman, by Jonathan Littman, and Kingpin, by Kevin Poulsen.

I really enjoyed reading this book. If you're into computers and networks or simply like a chase, you'll definitely want to read this one. It has some strange twists and an even stranger ending.

this book is an easy read about a mentally challenged kid who, thru sheer will power, hacks different internet sites. if you're looking for a lot of technical information this isn't the book. if you're looking for an easy weekend read, this is it.

At Large is essentially the tale of a cracker who was bright enough to electronically steal the source code of Solaris - described in the book as "over 100 Mb of corporate lifeblood" - but then, after the theft, wasn't smart enough to realise that his own hard drive wasn't large enough to store the pilfered material. This book is subtitled 'The Strange Case of the World's Biggest Internet Inavsion', but there are more appropriate adjectives than strange. Crazy, astonishing, mind-boggling and unbelieveable would be more apt. This is a compelling account of cracked computers and confounded cops - with the cracker and confounder being not an evil consortium of hacking dudez, but ONE mentally retarded loner cooped up in his bedroom. Basically, one Matthew Singer of Portland, Oregon roamed the Internet almost at will during 1991 and 1992, taking over whole networks and inspecting their contents. No-one was immune from his wandering - he invaded commercial, government and educational networks. Through dogged persistence and nifty cracking techniques Singer (who went by the handles of Phantomd and Infomaster) did whatever he wanted, from reading other people's email to penetrating supercomputers. The most amazing thing is that Phantomd did almost no damage. His opportunities to cause havoc were vast. He seemed more interested in cracking for the sake of it, instead of trashing files. This was just as well - one of the networks he conquered, for example, controlled a huge dam in California. The message of At Large is clear: if Internet security is so bad, what's to stop real damage being done by a malicious cracker? There are numerous sobering quotes throughout the book, like 'Internet security isn't lousy. There just isn't any,' and 'The typical computer network...is more like a gauze tent encircled by a band of drunk teenagers with lit matches.' Systems administrators had a hard time keeping up with Phantomd. They also had great difficulty in convincing the FBI that real crime was being commi! tted - especially when there was no blood or outraged victim at the scenes of the crimes. No special computing knowledge is required to enjoy this book. Like all good science books, it imparts the necessary information needed to understand the sometimes-bizarre world of hackers and crackers. The explanation of TCP/IP is the best I've seen, and they are mostly dependable on other technical points - except when they say DOS stands for Digital Operating System - it's actually Display Only System. One of the best features of At Large is their descriptions of how some of the key characters in the book became so enraptured with computers and coding. Whether it was being entranced from learning Basic in a weekend, or wrestling with the Zen-like possibilities of Unix, they relate many instances of how otherwise-normal people are seduced by the digital. The authors show real narrative skill in pacing their account of the invasion, as the book switches from one location to another.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. Mann and Freedman capture the very core of what it means to be a hacker. They also finally tell the world the difference between the term "hacker" and "cracker". I would recommend this book to anyone that loves computers or non-fiction true crime.

This book was okay--but you have to wonder about the correctness of the facts when they make such glaring mistakes as referring to DOS as standing for Digital Operating System (it actually stands for Disk Operating System--see the Microsoft Museum Timeline, or any Cyber-dictionary for verification) (Note to David Cohen, another reviewer--it does NOT stand for Display Only System either!)

Editors and the authors themselves could have confirmed this easily enough--makes you wonder what other "facts" didn't they check?

This is a book about Asperger's Disorder and the only hacker with that profile is Adrian Lamo.

When Lamo was finally discharged to his parents' house on May 7, he left the hospital with a new diagnosis. At 29 years old Lamo learned he has Asperger's Disorder.

If I was the CIA I would try and weaponized these guys. A weaponized Asperger hacker set on killing the world to bring Jesus back. Sick and its in the bible.. Now that's a monster movie.

For now banks of weaponized Asperger killers think up things like 9/11.