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

As of the time I am writing this review, there are 146 reviews, with most of them being overly positive (4-5 stars). The short summary is that this book is well worth the money and is a fascinating look into the world of arguably the most well known hacker. Just buy it, as it really is a no-brainer that there is very little risk. Now, I was on the skeptical side of the coin on whether I wanted to invest in what I anticipated would be a 400-page ego stroke of how good Kevin Mitnick was and/or is. I typically have a number of books in progress at a time, and it happened that when I purchased the Kindle version of Ghost in the Wires, I was trying to break a cycle of highly complex academic books. This has proved to be a fantastic decision on my part. From the first chapter, Kevin's ability to connect with me as a reader nearly immediately made me challenge my own assumptions about Kevin. The book is a memoir of his life, told by Kevin himself. I was taken aback by the honesty and vulnerability that he shares with his readers. Rather than the anticipated ego stroke, I found that Kevin's life has been littered with betrayal from misplaced trust and unfortunate circumstances fueled by the same curiosity that many security researchers innately have within themselves. Sure, there are accounts of his ability to infiltrate and social engineer others into getting information; however, these in my opinion were there to supplement and stay true to the story. In fact, in many cases the details were minimized in favor of keeping the story focused on his life, not his 'conquests'. From a storytelling perspective, Kevin's life and account has a very logical and symbolic flow to it. I loved how the storytelling of his youth with magic lays the foundation for the rest of the book. As you no doubt know by reading other reviews, each chapter contains a crypto code to solve. Maybe someday I will go back and figure the rest of them out, but I enjoyed the added personal touch to try to appease like-minded individuals and appeal to a wider audience. Yet another example of how Kevin is more like me than different. As I was reading the book, which took about 10 nights off and on, I began listening to his interviews in a different light. His interview with The Social Engineer dot org crew was phenomenal, and validated that Kevin is a very humble, thoughtful person. Kevin and his co-author deserve a tremendous amount of credit for staying true to the purpose of a memoir and providing an insightful look into this enigmatic person.

Ghost in the Wires is the story of Kevin Mitnick, self proclaimed computer hacker. Mitnick takes us through most of his hacking career, and also explores some of his personal and family relationships and conflicts during his career. === The Good Stuff === * Mitnick writes very well, and the book moves quickly. I ended up reading it in a single evening, and was actually sad when it came to the end. * While the book describes some of the technical details of his exploits, anyone with even an inkling of how computers work will have no trouble understanding 95% of what happens in the book. Most of his more interesting exploits seem to be of the "social engineering" variety, namely talking people into doing him "favors" which compromise their own security. * Mitnick is reasonable, for the most part, about his exploits. He admits to his exploits, and at least claims remorse for the trouble his hacking caused for his family. * The book includes his attempts to flee law enforcement, including fleeing to different states and attempting to set up new identities for himself. It was quite interesting to hear the things that he found easy versus the things that caused him difficulties in his attempts to establish his new credentials. === The Not-So-Good Stuff === * By definition, Mitnick is the only source for much of the material in this book. It is therefore difficult to judge just how accurate a picture of his exploits he presents, and I got the feeling he carefully screened which parts of his biography he included. I am an engineer, and much of his discussion at least passed the "sniff" test for being at least plausible. * The end of the book becomes somewhat self-serving. Mitnick claims to not understand why large companies would put very high values on some of the intellectual property he "just borrowed". I thought he was just being naive, until you realize that he now makes an excellent income because those companies are willing to pay him money to protect those very same assets. Clearly he has some understanding of their value. === Summary === I enjoyed the book, and enjoyed reading it. While some of the exploits seemed to stretch what I was wiling to believe, it almost doesn't matter. The book was an enjoyable and fun read whether it was fiction or not. One thing that did stick out was that some of Mitnick's greatest successes were not done at a computer, but rather with a telephone talking some lowly employee into bypassing carefully developed security procedures. Finally, I can't help but wonder with the billions we have spent on "security" since 2001, how many of Mitnick's exploits would still work today. I have the awful feeling that I don't really want to know.

This book is an easy read, if somewhat tedious at times. The actual technical details of how Mr. Mitnick managed to extract credit card information and cell phone "source code" is, fortunately, limited so nearly anyone can read this book and understand how he managed to avoid detection and capture as long as he did. The reader very quickly begins to understand that it takes a certain type of criminal mind to be able to react as fast as Mr. Mitnick does when he uses "social engineering" to con his victims into releasing security information or helping him gain entry into critical computer systems. I'm sure that many of these techniques might work today on unsuspecting individuals, a very scary thought. Speaking of scary, if Mr. Mitnick is to believed, (remember he is really good at lying) one has to question many of the newspaper stories about what alledged criminals have actually been able to accomplish. Mr. Mitnick, on numerous occasions, states that he did not break into national defense systems computers, yet the justice system and respected newspapers thought he did based on reports from people who were obviously not very reliable. In the end he was never charged with these crimes. So in addition to wondering just how secure my information available throught the internet is today I must also wonder how reliable anything I read is also. (Actually this is not a new revelation to me, just a reinforcement). Mr. Mitnick also provides some additional insight into prison life, especially solitary confinement and how it can effect the mind. As I read the book, I could only wonder how much better the world might have been if he had directed his attention and energies to developing software and gadgets that would benefit society rather than satisfying his curiosity. Fortunately for us, he never really profited from his misadventures, and claims that he just "hacked" into computers and phone company switches for the intellectual pleasure of the whole thing, something that many technical geeks can well understand. Of course, in Mr. Mitnick's case it was more like an addiction, something it seems that he could not control. Fortunately, after spending a nice chunk of time in prison Mr. Mitnick found salvation in teaching others how to prevent security breaches and in running validation tests to insure that systems are as secure as possible. And as the book ends, Mr. Mitnick reports that at last he has reached the promised land; he can hack away legally and be respected for his skills, running a company that advises others on security issues. A Contributing member of society at last! This is a great book to give someone some insight into the computer geek and how dedicated they sometimes are to performing tasks that might seem impossible at first thought. I can only wonder what socially accepted miracles he might have been able to perform had his earlier opportunities been better. We need only look to this book's foreward author, Steve Wozniak, cofounder of Apple, (and less successfully of Dancing with the Stars), to understand what computer geeks, with socially accepted goals, can contribute.

As a fan of cyber thriller and crime books I could not wait to get my hands on the Kindle version of Ghost in the Wires written by Kevin Mitnick. I have followed Kevin's story for some years and this book filled in some of the blanks and or questions I could not find answers for. Reading though this book I could see many traits and tendencies of many systems admins and programmers including myself, those traits being a keen and sometime overwhelming need to understand how things work and function down to a fundamental level. Kevin's need to gain this knowledge drove him to use is already vast knowledge of phone and computer systems as well as his superior social engineering to gain access to some of the world's largest telecommunications and computer companies. This hacking garnered him the attention of the US government and other agencies making him at the time the worlds most wanted computer hacker. This book follows Kevin from the start of his hacking days all the way through his run from federal agents, incarceration and release, the technical information contained is easy for the average user to understand as the author made good effort to describe the systems and processes thoroughly but not over complicate the book. One down side to this book is the multitude of characters listed; some may have a hard time following it at times. If anyone reading this story could take anything out of this book is that some of the hacks that Kevin did were not the most technically advance or sophisticated, they were basis social engineering attacks. These were targeted at some of the largest corporation's in America and Kevin simply "walked right in at times"; Again the weakest link in you security will always be the user. I found this book hard to put down, blasting though within a week and a half, it was intriguing and insightful and dispelled some of the myths of Kevin Mitnick. The book at times seems promote and nullify the legal repercussions of Kevin's actions and may come across to some readers as one sided. This is a must read for anyone interested in computer security or crime based book's.

Good story to read while waiting for a flight. Helps understand the meaning of becoming a hacker life story.

I have a technical and security background, so I understood a good deal of what was either being explained or hinted at, but for anyone without such a background the book might seem a little slow or ponderous. The same social engineering techniques were employed multiple times, and from a hacker stand point, if it works, why stop, and from a technical standpoint it's interesting to see how effective it was and how easy by modern standards it was for Kevin to gain access to proprietary information. For the non-technical reader, this reading and repetition might make the book seem like sections are just repeating themselves and interrupting any meaningful action. Being a book about man's life and supposedly written in truth, it should be assumed when reading that this is not a Hollywood action drama and you shouldn't read it expecting such. On the action point, the book's marketing makes it a little misleading. I first heard about the book after seeing a chapter posted on wired or Ars, can't remember which. The sample chapter made the book seem as if it was a cat and mouse game between the then luddite/technophobe US agencies like the FBI and Kevin; kind of like the movie adaptation of `Catch Me If You Can', except about early computer hacking and social engineering instead of bank fraud and con artistry. This is partly what the book is about, and it does illustrate Kevin's flight and paranoia, as well as the US Department of Justice's misunderstandings about his hacking and how he `wasn't doing it for monetary gain'... but at the same time there is an undertone to the book that easily becomes apparent. Another reviewer said it best by noting that the book has a `pity me' tone to it. There are whole chapters devoted to explaining how he was a victim of the system, and how the judicial system before 2000 didn't understand computers and information systems well enough to prosecute him fairly. Maybe I didn't read close enough, but I never once read an apology for his actions. He lists numerous intrusions, and electronics crimes, but then writes them off as `I did it simply for the challenge, source-code-XXX was my trophy'. Even while on the run he continued to do the very thing that kept him on the run and makes note of that fact. While hacking is not drugs, he speaks of it in the same light as an addict saying something along the lines of `so what if it's illegal? It's what gives me pleasure.' I am not entirely sure if the author wrote this book to get the facts straight, or some sort of vindication, or if he simply likes spreading the myth that he himself describes multiple times as having grown beyond his control and causing him harm. He paints a portrait of friends who double cross him, police and investigators who don't understand computers, and corporations unfairly upset that they were hacked by him. I gave it three stars because the story is an interesting read with social engineering and an intriguing run from federal authorities, but its written with a notable bias that the author is a victim, a good-looking-genius-hacker victim by his own description, but a victim none the less who almost had to serve a life in jail for his 'misunderstood' crimes.

Ghost in the Wires is Kevin Mitnick's memoir of his time as a hacker and fugitive from the law. It's great reading and very entertaining, not least because it can be read at several levels. As a thriller, it's every bit as much fun to read as it was for me to watch Catch Me If You Can. Mitnick (or at least, his co-author) brings in entertaining details about how he socially engineered Novell, Sun, DEC, the various phone companies, and security expert Tsutomu Shimomura. The book's very light on technical details, and it's not clear if Mitnick actually did anything with the gigabytes of source code he downloaded from the various companies he hacked except for VMS, which he did write a number of exploits for. What's clear, however, is that no amount of computer security is going to help if you fall for social engineering, which would be very difficult to inoculate against in any organization with any semblance of cooperation between departments. Now, if you treat this book as a work of fiction, it's also fascinating because Mitnick's clearly an unreliable narrator with a singular goal: to make you believe that he was doing what he was doing for fun. It's quite clear that he enjoyed duping people (social engineering is just another term for "lying," as he admits in this book), and hacking into police chatter, and his consistent attacks on certain individuals clearly violate their privacy in a way that would repulse most people who stopped to think about it. Given his personality, it's not surprising that it took about 8 years in prison for him to change his ways. What's amusing to me is that Mitnick himself was socially engineered on numerous occasions, by "friends" and people otherwise close to him. He called these people "betrayers", but the fact that he went back to these "friends" several times after being betrayed showed that he himself was a poor judge of character, largely because lying was so much a part of his personality that he couldn't fault his friends for doing it to him! Are there any useful bits in the book? Yes. The last section includes a list of tips on improving your personal security. Again, it's pretty amusing, since he claims that Windows is actually more secure than OS X, it's just that Windows is far more popular so there are more people trying to exploit its vulnerabilities. (It's notable that Mitnick never hacked any Windows systems himself, nor does he runs Windows personality) He does note that ChromeOS is very secure by virtue of not having anything to attack. In any case, I'll recommend this book for anyone interested in any of the topics he discusses, as well as anyone who loves heist movies.

I had the opportunity of having Kevin deliver the keynote address at our II Information Security and Business Continuity Conference held in San José, Costa Rica on October 2003. I had heard about the "Free Kevin" movement and how this guy had been held without bail nor trial for years. I'd read "Shimmy's " version of how Kevin had been caught, but felt it was too tainted and did not paint an accurate image of who Kevin really was. Back in 2003, Kevin couldn't really talk about the places he'd hacked, nor how he'd done it, but he could explain how social engineering worked and what made companies (and people) vulnerable. His keynote proved to be an eye opener to those in attendance, but nevertheless left me curious about his time on the run, who he'd hacked and how. "Ghost in the Wires", is the answer to those exact questions, given directly by Kevin. The book reads pretty much as if you're right there chatting with Kevin. For the technically inclined, there are enough references and 'pointers' that one can quickly deduce (or come up with) the rest; for those who are not into hacking or even computers, the technical references are minimal and help show that his exploits were not an easy feat. For all readers, however, the book portrays a person full of 'humanity', in the good sense of the word; a person capable of real love, full of curiosity and willingness to learn and explore, and what would prove his downfall, a belief in that friends are ultimately good, loyal and trustworthy. And as Kevin frequently points out, his mother and grandmother are his unconditional go-to support during every one of his difficult times, becoming a beacon of trust which proves to be Kevin's literal lifeline. However, if you look at what drove Kevin to hacking, it also portrays an utter failure of society in dealing with gifted individuals; from his high-school days, to his stints at college, to even the telcos, and justice system. It is very easy to understand that had 'the system' discovered Kevin and provided him with the appropriate training, learning experiences and outlets, he would have become then one of the security experts he was trying to out-fox at the time. Even in the book, we see that one of his pastimes with a hacking buddy was trying to see who could protect their systems better from the other's hacking... isn't this what a security professional does? Kevin's life is both interesting and emotional and his mesmerizing voice comes through in the book. It is a worthwhile read and a must read for security professionals and even parents with gifted children (and hyper-active, compulsive or ADD children). Although it is said that there is no honor among thieves, and this is a recurring theme throughout the book as Kevin recounts all the times fellow hackers and so-called friends and family turned on him, I am happy to call myself his friend and believe in well placed trust.

The book is good. It tells you about the life of Kevin mitnick. It’s better for social engineering people rather than hackers. It can be easily completed within a week or before that. Happy reading 👍

Livre en anglais, mais je le savais en achetant. Plutot facile à lire mis à part quelques termes techniques. L'histoire est plutot sympa même si l'auteur fait preuve d'un égocentrisme insupportable : "tout petit déjà, j'étais plus intelligent que la moyenne"... Côté livraison / prix / état du livre, vous pouvez y aller les yeux fermés !

I found this book very interesting. however the paper quality could be a little better

Çok keyifli ve akıcı üslubuyla nefis yazılmış bir eser.

One of my favourite books that I read in 2017, partly because I really enjoy autobiographies and memoirs. Getting inside a person's head, as much as they and their publishing team allow, fascinates me. The story may or may not have been 100% honest but it was a good read. I like psychology and so descriptions of executing social engineering and the concept of hacking as an addiction satisfied me. There's a bit of computer history in there too. I'm part of Generation X, but those in generations younger wouldn't remember a time when the internet wasn't yet mainstream, few people had cell phones, and payphones were everywhere. If I had to draw an analogy I'd say "Catch Me If You Can" (books and movie) meets "Hackers" (movie).