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Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace Paperback – December 1, 1995
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- Print length240 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial
- Publication dateDecember 1, 1995
- Dimensions8.05 x 5.32 x 0.59 inches
- ISBN-100060926945
- ISBN-13978-0060926946
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviewed in the United States on August 26, 2018
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The book is written from the perspective of MOD and starts with the founding of MOD by Phiber Optik, Acid Phreak and Scorpion. They together explore the phone system. Phiber Optik was in the Legion of Doom group, but got kicked out and therefore they started the Masters of Deception hacker group. Though it started out as a joke, they grew quite fast and their hacks became quite sophisticated. Not only that, they were also getting more attention from the Secret Service, especially their pranks done to the LOD members who wanted to quit hacking and start a security company. Eventually... well... I'll leave what eventually happens to the reader.
The book is well written and very easy to read. It took me a couple of days on and off reading. The tone of the book is a bit uncomfortable and strange as the authors do take a strong position for the hackers and view them as teenagers playing pranks with a bit too much knowledge. The book is shallow on technical knowledge however, which is most likely because the authors are professional authors and not professional hackers. I think I would have enjoyed it more with a bit more technical information. That said, I did enjoy the book and I think it describes an important timeframe in hacker history. Decided to go with 4 stars. Recommended if you are interested in hacking history, otherwise better not pick it up.
Two things did surprise me about this book (although they did not cause me to lower my rating). There is very little in here to connect these works of art to even the basic principles of visual perception in layman's terms. I was also surprised to see so little attention given to Magritte, who seems to have overtaken Dali in the public's mind as the supreme Surrealist. There is some minor nudity scattered around, but nothing that isn't PG-13.
When I was a teen many years ago, I treasured my Escher calendars and Dali postcards. I would have loved to have seen such a book back then, and I am glad that this book is still in print and reasonably popular.
For a start it is not a coffee book with pictures to be leafed through when bored. The writing is central to the book; explaining that vision itself is deception before considering deception in art (which is all , in turn, deception by definition).
Then the author makes no attempt at an exhaustive history of optical illusions in art. He gives us a delightful cameo of Giuseppe Arcimboldo whose paintings of faces made of fruit can be seen in Vienna, I think. Then its pretty well a leap straight to the 20th century with Dali, Escher and several living artists.
I was never really a fan of Dali , an opinion based on the single big canvas to be seen in most galleries.But some of the Dalis in this book such as hand painted twin stereoscopic images are stunningly clever. And the other artists are often even more clever;just astoundingly so! Just what imagination and skills do you need to make sculptures of impossible 3 dimensional figures?
Theres no attempt to give an exhaustive list of op artists and everyone will quibble about one or two artists covered, but the overall theme of the book is excellent.
By the way, the book is outstanding value on Amazon and has a back-up web site which I must visit soon!
Quibbles? Well some time serious artistic works are going to have to more than tip their caps to Magic Eye programmes for achieving what Psychology text books said was completely impossible: 3D images in colour from one single 'picture'.
Get this book, you won’t regret it!!!
Top reviews from other countries
Artists featured include Salvador Dali, Maurice Escher, Rob Gonsalves, Guiseppe Archimboldo and others from the out-and-out surrealists to those whose tampering with reality is extremely subtle.
Much of the art in the book brilliant, and much is very beautiful, though not all is both.
Perhaps most extraordinary are the photographs of models where artists like Shigeo Fukuda have managed to create something which looks - frton one precise direction - like a real three-dimensional version of impossible buildings or objects like those in the M.C. Escher pictures "Belvedere" and "Waterfall." In some cases they show you the model from other angles too so you can see how the artist did it. The original Escher pictures "Belvedere" and "Waterfall" are also in this book so it is easy to compare them!
A must if your are fascinated by optical puzzles.







