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Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

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Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#41

Post by hectorr1 »

r3bl wrote: post #7

Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter. It talks about the Stuxnet and the story behind it, and I got the chance to learn some fairly interesting stuff in the meantime (like the complexity of building a nuclear bomb). I found it much more useful than the American Kingpin, which just mentions that Tor and Bitcoin offer anonymity online, but doesn't get anywhere even close to explaining either of the technologies that are…

Sanger's Confront and Conceal has a great chapter on Stuxnet / Olympic Games as well.

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#42

Post by harel »

Two books come to mind (while excluding the obvious absolute classics like Neuromancer (William Gibson) and Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson):

"Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson. It goes from WW2 to modern time.

"Cyberpunk" by Katie Hafner - Read it aeons ago so working from long term memory. 3 real world stories of famous hackers and their "crimes" (Kevin Mitnick, Pengo, Robert Morris).

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#44

Post by mcrider »

madmax108 wrote: post #24
ovi256 wrote: post #6

Reamde , by Neal Stephenson. Yeah, the big daddy of cyberpunk ("Snowcrash") also wrote a contemporary technothriller set in organized cybercrime organizations.

Heard very mixed reviews of Reamde. Could you please tell me what elements you liked of the book? It's been on my reading list for a while but the mixed reviews always lead to it being left for another day

Its a fun book, and a good intro to Stephenson (it was my first book I read of his, and now I've read four others). But if you've read his other stuff first or are a more hardcore sci-fi nerd, its easy to think that its a little closer to a blockbuster thriller than science fiction.

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#45

Post by superice »

preya2k wrote: post #32
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.

I know the movie as 'The KGB, the computer, and me': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FTac

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#48

Post by thro_awayz_days »

mulletbum wrote: post #33
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.

Can't upvote this comment enough. Incredible story.

Re: Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels?

#50

Post by sdoering »

modernerd wrote: post #30

Lock In by John Scalzi. https://www.tor.com/2014/05/21/lock-in-john-scalzi-excerpt-c... Wil Wheaton's narration is great too. I listened to the audiobook and think about it a lot. It's a techno whodunit — hacking and cracking neural dust/lace, remotely renting and operating physical bodies and committing crimes while “occupying” them, and bio/techno ethics all play a role. In Scalzi's future, locked-in patients recei…

I would throw in the sequel "Head on". Same universe - just some time later. The audiobook is also narrated by Wil Wheaton. And it is great as always.

Offtopic. I would blindly recommend all books in the combination Wheaton narrating Scalzi. But esp. "The Collapsing Empire" (I can't wait for the next part to be released in October).

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