Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker [Paperback]

If I wouldn't have started to halucinate at 2am from being so tired after reading for 8 hours, I would have read this entire book through in one sitting. The book isn't overly technical yet is a huge eye opener for anyone who isn't intimately familiar with the details of Kevin Mitnick as the most wanted hacker of the 90's. If you have a moderate interest in computing, you'll encounter many jaw dropping moments in reaction to the clever, often brazen and sometimes paranoid escapades captured in the book. Towards the 3/4 mark in the book, the story gets a bit drawn out, but was completely well worth the read.

When it comes to true crime, I'm pretty squeamish. Nothing violent, please. Clever and devious are what I'm looking for. Frank Abagnale's Catch Me If You Can: The True Story of a Real Fake is one of the best, and it's hard not to compare any subsequent caper story with it.

Ghost in the Wires doesn't reach the level of audacity of Catch Me if You Can - impersonating technicians over the phone doesn't rise to the sheer nerve of a teenager impersonating an airline pilot or a doctor, as Abagnale did, and getting away with it. But Ghost in the Wires goes well beyond the adolescent bragfest of phone hacks that it could have been.

I think this is largely due to the co-writer, William L. Simon. Kevin Mitnick describes in his acknowledgments, how he and Simon argued over how detailed and technical the book should be, and apparently Simon prevailed. There's enough detail to explain how the scams were possible, but not so specific as to send the non-programmer into a hexadecimal stupor.

Another big plus is that many of the hacks depended as much on what Mitnick calls "social engineering" as on specialist knowledge. Unlike the stereotypical computer nerd, Mitnick was as comfortable and proficient at schmoozing people as he was writing code - he could talk his way into places that were restricted and convince people he was entitled to classified information. These were scams anyone can understand.

Mitnick also succeeds at not crossing the line from confident to insufferable, which is another pitfall of true crime tell-alls. Perhaps we can once again thank William Simon for this achievement.

I expected to skim this 400-page book but ended up reading every word. Mitnick was unbelievably audacious, and he says he never profited from his exploits. Knowing the risks (especially after he had already spent an unpleasant stretch in jail), how could he continue to risk getting caught again? He claims he was addicted to hacking, and while that seemed to me a sorry excuse for criminal behavior, it started to seem like the only possible explanation.

Whatever Mitnick's reasons, Ghost in the Wires is as much fun to read as any summer thriller.

A fascination with hacking goes back pretty far for me (I'm an old bat). I loved my experiences reading about Kevin Mitnick, even when he made the papers while on the go. The papers were full of hyperbole even then. I knew to reserve my excitement and hold out for Kevin's own words. My patience is rewarded with this book.

I can't help but enjoy reading about someone who has the adept social engineering of a film noir gumshoe, or the undercover detective, who applied it growing up and getting into trouble. Like Kevin, I knew The Three Days of the Condor. I learned it was a favorite of his, and I clung to this fact which fell through the sieve of newspaper myth. Free Kevin!

Now read Kevin's story, where you'll find enough detail to keep any heart racing. Whether or not you have enough awareness for some of the bits, or rely on the plain language, the story can strike sheer terror in the hearts of those who don't know much of anything about bits and bytes. For those who do, this book contains updated method nomenclature and references to security protocol that it's valuable from that perspective.

Kevin possesses the kind of curiosity to dig and uncover gems of hidden info for esoteric purposes in order to unlock a power only a successful hacker knows about. Social engineering is akin to the confidence game, but different all the same when it involves computer networks. The best hackers are never caught, never known about. Kevin has a different distinction: The first and the grandest adventure story, ever.

You don't need to be a hacker or security professional to appreciate and learn from it. Today, security is serious business and hackers typically have bad or misguided intent. Kevin's motivation was harmless fun at the expense of a system, and honest curiosity which was not rewarded with a government security detail. Fear prevailed then, as hacking was an unknown phenomenon. An innocent motive seemed totally suspect in a court setting.

One frequent result of being a trail blazer is its potential costs. When playing around with the law, this can end in time set aside from society. The NYTimes columnist ironically exercised his own opportunistic free market exploit to establish a mythology around Kevin that ruined any chance for freedom. Kevin emerged from lock down to write the correction that I hold in my hands. The highest adventure possible for any security professional.