Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#31

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 12:54 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#32

Post by preya2k » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 12:55 PM UTC

GavinMcG wrote: post #3

The Cuckoo's Egg , by Cliff Stoll.

Second this. Fantastic book about true events. If you like the story, there is also a movie which covers the same events as the book. The movie is called "23" and is available in German and English.

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#33

Post by mulletbum » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

amingilani wrote: post #14

Ghost in the Wire by Kevin Mitnick. I can't believe no one recommended this. The guy literally evaded the FBI using technology.

And I don't know if someone helped him write the book, but the story is amazingly good. It is exactly what you look for in a hacking story, someone outwitting people combined will some phone phreaking. Very good book, I would recommend.

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#34

Post by tribeofone » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 12:57 PM UTC

Halting State by Charlie Stross

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#35

Post by Dowwie » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 12:57 PM UTC

"Daemon" or "Kill Decision" by Daniel Suarez

"Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#36

Post by bovermyer » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 12:59 PM UTC

Dowwie wrote: post #35

"Daemon" or "Kill Decision" by Daniel Suarez "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson

I'll second Daemon. It's a really good novel.

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#37

Post by jim_lawless » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 1:00 PM UTC

Out of the Inner Circle (1985) - the autobiographical true story of "The Cracker" Bill Landreth.

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#38

Post by divan » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 1:01 PM UTC

"Stealing the network" series by Ryan Russel is awesome.

  - Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box
  - Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent
  - Stealing the Network: How to Own an Identity
  - Stealing the Network: How to Own a Shadow

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#39

Post by anon-anon » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 1:01 PM UTC

madmax108 wrote: post #27

eps wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Daemon was virtually unreadable. It's a hacker-themed fairtale for computer illiterate, basically. I had a non-techy friend borrow the book and they too couldn't finish it, because it was just way over acceptable believability limits even for them.

Ohh man, for me it was EXACTLY the opposite. Daemon was one of the finest examples of a book in the cybercrime genre. It was one of those "Black Mirror" style entertainment: Take known tech and push it towards dystopia style stories. Daemon was was super-fun, and absolutely un-putdownable (Literally read it in a single sitting IIRC). Almost all the tech (Self driving cars, distributed systems, daemons that can self r…

Completely agree. Everything is possible in it. If there was indeed someone who had a far surpassed genius level of IQ and tech know how, and dedicated hours of their time to developing the stuff with an unlimited budget (which basically is what Matthew Sobol supposedly has) then I could easily understand how a lot of things in that book could become reality.

Either way - a fun read and a good book to re-visit. One of the few that I read every few years or so...

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#40

Post by trampi » Mon, Aug 13, 2018, 1:02 PM UTC

Faaak wrote: post #15

Citing Wikipedia: "Blackout: Tomorrow Will Be Too Late" is a disaster thriller book by the Austrian author Marc Elsberg, described by Penguin Books as "a 21st-century high-concept disaster thriller". The novel is about a European power outage due to a cyberattack. For realism the book is written on the basis of interviews with intelligence and computer security officials.

I read it some weeks ago and can definitely recommend it. It was a departing gift from my university, a very fitting one for computer science students if you ask me.