Customer Reviews

The Hacker Diaries : Confessions of Teenage Hackers

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

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.

"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?

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".

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.

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.

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.

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!

This may be the worst book I have read in years and I would like to get my money back. These kids are only interesting inwhat they do and how they do it. They are very accomplished in that regard but the author didn't or probably couldn't explain that. There are far better books about hackers and these kids deserved a better author.

They make international headlines for all the wrong reasons and everyday we read about the increasingly large-scale havoc they cause: the hacking into corporate computer systems, the theft of credit card numbers, and the defacement of Web sites with vulgar, disturbing and sometimes hate-filled messages. But still - teenage hackers - who are they?

Social misfits? Loners? Pimpled face geeks? Dangerous and deceptive brainiac-villains? That is in fact the public's perception and how the media stereotype them. Yet real teenage hacker culture is a patchwork of different personalities, backgrounds, motivations and experiences. In other words, there is no one picture of the average teenage hacker.

Dan Verton, the author of The Hacker Diaries: Confessions of Teenage Hackers is a former intelligence officer in the U.S. Marine Corps who currently writes for Computerworld and CNN.com, covering national cyber-security issues and critical infrastructure protection.

For his Hacker Diaries, he interviewed well over a dozen real life hackers and explored beyond the myths and stereotypes surrounding these teenagers.

Talk about getting to know your hacker. Verton does a great job at that. We see them with different lifestyles, different motives, different goals, and different stages of maturity.

He describes many of them as being the kids bagging your groceries at the supermarket; working in the community service on the weekends; playing in the school orchestra or singing in the choir; struggling with their grades in math, science and English; getting good grades and planning for a bright future; hanging out with their friends after school and sometimes getting into trouble; and almost always feeding their obsession with computers and the Internet late at night.

[+] Verton gives an exclusive, detailed account of the massive distributed-denial-of-service attacks against Yahoo!, ZDNet, EBay, CNN and Amazon in 2000, and the days of ordeal the FBI had in tracking down the culprit, MafiaBoy. The chapter runs like a thriller.

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.