Computer books

[Linton]

Hello.

     I've just finished reading "The Dark Net" by Jamie Bartlett and thoroughly recommend it to anyone that has an interest in Computer Crime. It's shows how the Dark Net came to be and how cyber criminals use it to their advantage to distribute Child pornography and drugs. It's really interesting and I was actually pretty disappointed that it ended so quickly (I couldn't put it down).

     Another good book I highly recommend is "We are anonymous" by Parmy Olson. It describes how "anonymous" came to be from 4chan and other image boards. It's really interesting reading about how White Hat security firms tried to infiltrate the group so many times, causing it to disband into smaller more controlled hacking groups. It mainly focuses on Lulzsec and how they took down websites like SOCA and Sony; along with interesting techniques they used to social engineer each other (no more spoilers!).

     I am now wondering what book to read next. I have been looking at "The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man" by Luke Harding but I have heard the book is very Anti-GCHQ and NSA and I would prefer a more balanced opinion book. Can anyone recommend one?


Thanks,

- Linton

[T!nk3r]

I read "Ghost In The Wires " and "The Art of Intrusion" this days and  I think are  good books ,these two by Kevin Mitnick

[fayesafe]

A good read is always 'Just for Fun', the 'biography' of Linux and/or Linus Torvalds, explaining the development of our all-time-favorite operating system. I really liked the way it's written, because it is almost as if he talks to you.

Another good read - even though it's not strictly computer related - is 'Fermat's last theorem' by Simon Singh which is about the proof of Fermat's conjecture. It is very well written and understandable even with only a little knowledge of number theory / math in general.

[para]

I've enjoyed the following for non-technical:

• The Cuckoos Egg by Cliff Stoll.
• SPAM Nation by Brian Krebs
• Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen
• Ghost in the Wires by Mitnick

[deitier]

My Favorites :

the art of intrusion : kevin mitnick
cuckoos egg          : Cliff Stoll
Ghost in the Wire   : kevin mitnick

[Insanity]

I don't read a lot of books that aren't either Fantasy, or explaining tech,
so the only books I can remember having read that aren't too techy are
The Art Of Deception by Kevin Mitnick and The Art Of Human Hacking by Christopher Hadnagy (I believe).
Both are mainly social engineering books, but they're good reads!
I wouldn't know a book to your specific constraints, though.

Hope you find the book you want!

[felderman]

Recently got The Wikileaks Files, 12/10 would recommend reading