At Large

This book chronicles the exploits of a young computer enthusiast who managed to break into an alarming number of computers, mainly by sheer perseverance. The book is also the story of the people who hunted this early cybercriminal and how he was ultimately caught. One of the remarkable aspects of the story is that the chief antagonist (the "hacker") was not particularly skilled. He was what's called a "script kiddie" in the biz. Another remarkable aspect of the book is that after breaking into dozens of computers, and finally getting caught after dozens of people had invested hundreds of hours tracking him, he was basically let off the hook with very little punishment. I found this to be a fascinating account of an extraordinary series of events. I recommend this book especially for those who are interested in the field of information security as it provides a glimpse of the motivations and methodology of one notorious cracker. For people who are interested in crimes or security, this will be a riveting story. All that said, this is only one side of the story and I wondered how accurate the reporting was. In particular, I wished that there was more on the motivation and thinking of the main antagonist, the super-cracker-slash-script-kiddie pseudo-named Matt Singer. In the book, he is characterized basically as a bad guy. There has been more written about this story and apparently the script kiddie's real name is Tim Bach. You can find his posts in the freebsd.org mailing list archives from 1995 and other on-line traces. These "real-world" glimpses do not seem, IMHO, to jive completely with the character in this putatively non-fiction book. In the same vein, Trent Fisher (no pseudonym for him in the book) has a website and doesn't seem too happy in how he was characterized. And, finally, the events are ancient history. In many ways, information security has taken strides since these events unfolded. Law enforcement and especially forensics are more advanced. And in important ways, modern worms represent the evolution of this breed of attacker. But it's still a fascinating and, I think, important story.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. Mann and Freedman capture the very core of what it means to be a hacker. They also finally tell the world the difference between the term "hacker" and "cracker". I would recommend this book to anyone that loves computers or non-fiction true crime.

If you are a SysAdmin, you'd probably read this book as a simple thriller about internet (always with the idea that the history is true), and if you're just a simple reader, try to learn some stuff from this book and you're gonna like Unix a little bit more.

What's better than cleavage? What's better than denim? Don't be foolish. Nothing's better than cleavage or denim. But "@ Large" comes darn close. The book, besides being a techno-thriller-mystery, offers the raw power of "Naked Lunch" combined with the narrative beauty of "Madame Bovary." It's as if Bill Burroughs and Flaubert went online. As for PhantomD, the featured cracker, he makes the internet seem like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All I can say is, @-a-boy Freedman! @-a-boy Mann!

If you were stupid enough to buy this book return it and get your money back. You can hack a cash register too don't you know. I feel sorry for the guy who bought it with a credit card on-line. Later Gator, The Hackmaster