Kevin D. Mitnick (1963–2023)

Dated but very interesting. I got kind of a brutal creep vibe, not from the social engineering, but from his interpersonal interactions, his explanations of dynamics that didn't seem authentic or maybe are conveniently explained, his enabling family, his simultaneous brutal treatment of "friends" and wounded hurt that they were not his friends. He also seems grandiose and a braggart. However, it is very artful how he did things whether you agree with his actions or enjoy the impression of show more his personality you get. It is hard to fathom the breadth of information he had, how he applied it in high pressure situations, and how like a chess player he often had to plan things in series of moves ahead. For those aspects, it is a very worthy read, and even for the creepy parts, it is informative. show less

Along with Catch Me If You Can, Frank Abagnale Jr.'s autobiography, and the classic The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Clifford Stoll, this is an amazing and exciting tale of pioneering social engineering, identify theft and evasion of the authorities. I really enjoyed this stroy of audacious crime and the author apparently never really trying to outrun his own eagerness to get over, as well as outrun the authorities.

Mitnick seems to accelerate from show more getting phone services unpaid, tapping into phone coversation, stealing proprietary code, other person's identities not to mention the work time and shipping costs of countless gullible marks without a twinge of guilt.

His ability to social engineer is the real skill, along with luck and an amazing memory, that every security administrator and anyone that answers a phone at work should be aware of. This book is a cautionary tale on many levels: not patching systems, trusting anyone that calls especially if they seem to be a colleague in need and the general pointlessness of trying to run from The Man. show less

written in Mitnick’s voice, he lovingly tells us the details on how he “socially engineered” every hack that appears in the book and the technological details as well. i like technically driven narratives like this for the most part but his fervor to explain in what he probably thought of as woefully inadequate detail became repetitive and had me skipping and skimming during the latter third of the book. nothing wrong with the writing, just me avoiding glossing over all the details of show more telephone company jargon, switch boxes, and codes.

the book imparted a sense of quiet thrill in figuring out how to hack systems, social engineer information from people, and the fugitive status of Mitnick for most of the narrative. it also conveyed an unfairness to these games. the things Mitnick admitted to doing - copying operating system codes, using telephone switch information to create call-forwarding and tracing, making free cell phone calls, etc- seem benign and not deserving of the massive amounts of effort by law enforcement to nab him. he makes the point later in the book that stealing software is unlike other theft because the “victim” still has the software - it’s just that someone else has it now, too. so, any monetary value assigned to the theft of that software should align more with unpaid licensing fees than with loss and replacement costs. i think that they hammered Mitnick and other hackers so hard because they were operating within a brand new realm, one which we still have not figured out entirely, that seemed like magic to many people in law enforcement. the other thing was a sardonic certainty that no one in their right mind would possibly be doing these things without some kind of financial motivation or coercion from some foreign or corporate power. the skills and knowledge needed for the kinds of activities engaged in by Mitnick could not possibly be for curiosity sake; it could not possibly be for the thrill of solving puzzles; it could not possibly be for the feeling of power that accompanies out-smarting security systems and bypassing the usual lanes of commerce. nope. Mitnick had to be a spy or some kind of scary cyber wizard with the powers to see through walls and teleport across the country.

all in all, this represents an entertaining and enlightening book into the world of one of the original and most famous of hackers. the completely human dimension this book adds to the life of a near-mythical hacker steals Hollywood’s image of a keyboard jockey with mad coding skills doing everything with code alone, never having to rely on actual reconnaissance of physical locations, special hardware or technology, or handling breathing human beings in-person or over the phone. show less

I grew up in the 80s hacker scene so read this memoir by the periods most infamous hacker with glee. Mitnick's book captures the adrenaline rush of what it's like to be a hacker by describing a string of exciting stories and chases. His exploits were like winning the Superbowl of hackerdom, Mitnick took geek-cred to unheard of heights, and depths. In one case he wire tapped the FBI(!) and had a box of donuts waiting for when they executed a "surprise" raid on his house, the book is full of show more hutzpah like that. What makes Mitnick so heroic is he never did it for money, rather intellectual challenge. He was a modern day explorer in a world of artificial barriers. He was also a psychopath who cared little for consequences indeed reveling in others "stupidity" and bruising the egos of his enemies. Fortunately he wasn't evil and seems to have since grown up. I was one of those who rallied around the "Free Kevin" movement during one of his incarcerations, and this book explains how unfairly he was treated by the press and law. Yet one has to question, has the master of social engineering written this book as a clever attack on his enemies; we may never know, but I like to believe the stories are true. Kevin remains an enigma, which speaks to the truth of his humanity better than white/black hat. show less