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

[Kilyin]

Really good book by one of the most misunderstood hackers of the 80s and 90s. I really enjoyed it, and highly recommend it. I grew up when Mitnick was infamous and being crucified in the national media. Anyway, his book is very interesting.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Look for the movie hackers 2 ( although not a sequel from hackers one) or maybe it is called hackers wanted. You can probably find it free on hulu or Youtube. Movies is basically bout him and what he was doing and how he got caught. Not bad for a low budget movie

 

[Kilyin]

Look for the movie hackers 2 ( although not a sequel from hackers one) or maybe it is called hackers wanted. You can probably find it free on hulu or Youtube. Movies is basically bout him and what he was doing and how he got caught. Not bad for a low budget movie

I saw the original Hackers. That was horrible. I'll have to check the other one out.

Minor spoiler - I loved the part where he had setup a HAM radio to pickup any communication from nearby law enforcement or the FBI. He knew they were closing in so he labeled a box of doughnuts "FBI DONUTS" and put them in his refrigerator not long before they showed up.

 

[Reality]

Really good book by one of the most misunderstood hackers of the 80s and 90s. I really enjoyed it, and highly recommend it. I grew up when Mitnick was infamous and being crucified in the national media. Anyway, his book is very interesting.

I have several books about hackers of the 80s and 90s. One of my favorites was The Cuckoo's Egg. It was great was when I got another book a few years later that was about a hacker and half the way through it, I realized it was the same event from the Cuckoo's Egg story, but from the hacker's side.

/reality

 

[Reality]

As for Mitnick, he was a master at social engineering and exploiting people for information was a lot easier than breaking into systems back then.

/reality

 

[Kilyin]

As for Mitnick, he was a master at social engineering and exploiting people for information was a lot easier than breaking into systems back then.

/reality

Have you read the book? He was good at both. He made a few backdoors into popular *nix and VAX/VMS systems by stealing the source code and compiling/recompiling the sploits based on what he knew about the OS. And the things he learned about the Telco back then with zero real training was pretty mind boggling. He definitely knew his stuff.

I'm probably biased, but when I was a kid in the 80s guys like him are what got me interested in IT. He just wanted to break into your system to prove he could.

 

[Reality]

Have you read the book? He was good at both. He made a few backdoors into popular *nix and VAX/VMS systems by stealing the source code and compiling/recompiling the sploits based on what he knew about the OS. And the things he learned about the Telco back then with zero real training was pretty mind boggling. He definitely knew his stuff.

I'm probably biased, but when I was a kid in the 80s guys like him are what got me interested in IT. He just wanted to break into your system to prove he could.

Let's just say I knew about Mitnick before he was wanted. While I have a tremendous amount of respect for what he knew and did, he has always had a tendency to embellish his own stories. I am not surprised that his book would make him out to be a super villain. He was also just the United States' most wanted hacker, not the world's.

/reality

 

[Kilyin]

Let's just say I knew about Mitnick before he was wanted. While I have a tremendous amount of respect for what he knew and did, he has always had a tendency to embellish his own stories. I am not surprised that his book would make him out to be a super villain. He was also just the United States' most wanted hacker, not the world's.

/reality

The book portrays the fact the media tried to make him out to be a super villain, while he argues that it couldn't have been farther from the truth. He brags a bit in the book but by no means does he try to paint himself as anything more than a smart person with some issues and an addiction to hacking.

 

[Reality]

The book portrays the fact the media tried to make him out to be a super villain, while he argues that it couldn't have been farther from the truth. He brags a bit in the book but by no means does he try to paint himself as anything more than a smart person with some issues and an addiction to hacking.

I agree there. There are several books and articles out there about him that try to paint him as the digital devil himself. I have two books about the story of his capture that I never finished because they were either badly written or skewed the facts too much. One of the books even makes the guy that helped chase him down sound like a super hero which is nowhere near the truth.

/reality

 

[Kilyin]

I agree there. There are several books and articles out there about him that try to paint him as the digital devil himself. I have two books about the story of his capture that I never finished because they were either badly written or skewed the facts too much. One of the books even makes the guy that helped chase him down sound like a super hero which is nowhere near the truth.

/reality

I haven't read his other books or ones written about him but I think this one tries to tell the real story. He had a real author help him with this one and it shows.

He mentions the other books including the one Shimomura helped write while he (Mitnick) was locked up and pretty much says... yeah, highly fictional to outright lies.