The Hacker Crackdown [Libro de bolsillo]

This is one of three books I trust on hackers and hacking (Levy and Turkle are the other two trusted authors). Bruce, a very distinguished author in WIRED and science fiction circles, went to great lengths to investigate and understand what was happening between hackers exploring corporate systems, corporate security officials that were clueless and seeking scorched earth revenge, and Secret Service investigators that were equally clueless and willing to testify erroneously to judges that the hackers had caused grave damage to national security. Bruce is a true investigative journalist with a deep understanding of both technical and cultural matters, and I consider him superior to anyone in government on the facts of the matter.

Update of 31 May 08 to add links:
The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Information Payoff: The Transformation of Work in the Electronic Age
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (Helix Books)
The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

I bought this book hoping for a little more technical information. Not that I was looking for a "step-by-step" hacking manual, but I had hoped to read a little more about the techniques that were used to commit the "crimes" and those used to catch them.

Having said that, the book was still an interesting read, with plenty of background information. The civil liberties section was particularly interesting, especially when you consider where we are today on that matter; same old questions, even 6 years after this book was published.

In short: a tough read, but some interesting facts.

Bruce Sterling's book The Hacker Crackdown (THC) captures the spirit and history of the "hacker scene" in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Having lived through that period with my C-64 and first 386 PC, I thought the author accurately describes what it was like for computer users during that era. THC is one of my favorite books on hacker activity because it combines a narrative with the author's accounts of interactions with key individuals. THC expertly tells several stories from multiple perspectives -- hacker, law enforcement, security professional, telecom operator, even homeless man-on-the-street! The author also manages to not offend technically-minded readers while describing material for non-technical audiences.

I found the last line of the book to be especially prescient: "It is the End of the Amateurs." This statement applies to offensive as well as defensive players in digital security. Consider the focus of THC: the hunt by law enforcement officials for, essentially, bit players in the digital underground. The offenders were basically joyriders (who no doubt caused plenty of headaches for security professionals) who didn't materially profit from their actions. The offenders also did not serve foreign masters for purposes of espionage. On the other side, many of the defenders were only discovering digital crime and pioneering incident response tradecraft in the heat of battle. In brief, THC is about amateur offenders vs amateur defenders. For the last five to ten years, digital security has been almost strictly a matter of professional offenders (criminal and state-sponsored) vs professional defenders (corporate, military, and improved law enforcement).

The bottom line is that anyone involved with digital security will enjoy reading The Hacker Crackdown.