The Hacker Diaries: Confessions of Teenage Hackers Book

The Hacker Diaries is well written, racy and an entertaining read. Dan Verton takes a seat way back in the bus and lets the characters he's writing about drive. These include the hackers themselves--complete with silly sounding nomme de geurres including the most famous of them all: Mafiaboy--along with those whose job it is to hunt them down. He even takes in a few who suffered the hackers' attentions. Some facts shine out. One: high class teenage hackers usually have a better grasp of Net technologies than those paid to run them, and they're motivated by intellectual curiosity and peer respect rather than criminal or terrorist ends. Two: most "hackers" are script kiddies; vandals who would be slashing car tires or burgling homes if they had more get up and go. Three: technology is more fragile than people like to believe. Dan Verton does a good job of showing us the people behind the hacking handles and sets the activity in a social as well as technical context, but he sensibly stops short of suggesting solutions. Just as well--Steve Wozniak was a hacker and went on to co-found Apple. Hackers, as The Hacker Diaries show, grow up and move on. --Steve PatientRead More