Books on the History of Hacking? 30
heliocentric asks: "I have been asked to speak the upcoming SIGCSE conference of the ACM and I would like to give a presentation on the history of hacking. I'm thinking about security incidents that have altered either Computer Science as a whole or set precedence for legal actions. I have been following this subject for years and I have compiled several useful links, but I'm wondering why a book on this subject hasn't been written? Yes, it would go out of date the moment it hits the press, but wouldn't it stand up better than so-called hacker guides that show how to exploit 1980s telephone systems that are being printed today? I'm not looking for links about this subject (I guess they wouldn't be a bad thing at this point) but information about hold-in-your-hand books covering this subject. I'm looking at this presentation as a college researcher should, you want many and diverse resources - entirely relying on the Internet for sources does not make for good research."
You've been following it for years, eh? (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:You've been following it for years, eh? (Score:2)
Re:You've been following it for years, eh? (Score:1)
Filmography (Score:2, Funny)
:)
- Freed
Re:Filmography (Score:3, Informative)
I take it that you haven't yet come across this [linkage to movie "Hackers"] documentary on the subject.
A) I do have the DVD but I use it to show others how even with input from Emmanuel Goldstein (editor of 2600) people can still get it WAY wrong.
B) A few decent TV shows have appeared on PBS and TLC. Frontline had an episode (taped, appearing again this Thursday, and I have linkage) so did Nova about Bletchley Park (taped and I have linkage) and I think there was a TLC show called "Hackers: Computer Outlaws" of which I only have linkage, not the show.
No Books? (Score:3, Informative)
The Cuckoo's Egg [berkeley.edu] (Cliff Stoll)
and my favorite
Underground [underground-book.com]?
The events in Cuckoo's Egg (according to Stoll) was the first real eye-opener for the US about the threat from international crackers/hackers, and the book made the whole issue understandable to laypeople. Underground documents the legal cases of many prominent figures in the scene (with a focus on Australia).
Re:No Books? (Score:1)
Re:No Books? (Score:1)
That sounds about right...
Hackers - Steven Levy (Score:5, Informative)
I would highly recommend you read the first two parts of: Hackers - Heroes of the Computer Revolution by Steven Levy (ISBN: 0-385-19195-2). This book provides an extremely readable early history of the hacker ethic (with attendant cracker exploits). One of the chapter titles is illustrative: "The Midnight Computer Wiring Society". It has some minor errors (primarily spelling), but it wonderfully captured the spirit of that time. (I started programming in 1972 and it was a real trip to read this book and remember all those names of people and systems from "long ago"!)
There's an extensive bibliography and index, so it would likely prove helpful in locating additional material.
Older Books (Score:3, Informative)
Bill Landreth's Out of the Inner Circle is a first-person account of early-'80s hacking. It's out of print and, unfortunately, my copy has gone missing, but if I recall correctly it complains extensively about how WarGames ruined the hacker scene.
Markoff and Hafner's book Cyberpunk is extremely flawed, but might be useful for discussing Robert Morris's internet worm. (The section on Pengo is far exceeded by Stoll's in The Cuckoo's Egg, and the Mitnick section is hideously biased, for obvious reasons.
Re:Older Books (Score:1)
"The Cracker is cool. The Cracker is good."
If I recall correctly, that is a direct quote!
MoD (Score:1)
Re:MoD (Score:2, Informative)
I just looked it up on amazon.com and it looks like it's been renamed.
Now it's called 'Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace [amazon.com]'
the hacker crackdown (Score:3, Informative)
My Bookshelf (Score:5, Informative)
In no particular order:
Since four of the books revolve around Mitnick and/or Poulsen, I would read them in this order: Cyberpunk, Takedown, Fugitive Game, Watchman. Cyberpunk precedes the Takedown/Fugitive Game by quite a while. Takedown and Fugitive Game cover nearly the same time period from different sides. Watchman takes place prior to Fugitive Game and isn't too closely related, but Justin Peterson (aka Eric) and Mark Tanner appear in both books.
You've got to be careful taking what's written in these books as 100% truth. For the most part they are based solely on interviews of hackers and their friends.
Littman's books (Fugitive Game and Watchman) in particular are nearly autobiographies of Mitnick and Poulsen. There is much criticism of Markoff's books (Cyberpunk and Takedown) and his articles about Kevin Mitnick. The main argument is that he glorified Mitnick and (with Shimomura's help) may have helped make him "America's Most Wanted Computer Outlaw".
As for ignoring the web, I think that's a mistake. For one, Justin Peterson's site [agentsteal.com] has some of his rebuttals to Littman's books and other criticism he's received. Kevin Poulsen has his own site [kevinpoulsen.com] but it's getting a bit out of date now that he's busy with SecurityFocus.com [securityfocus.com]. Mitnick probably won't have much to say online or in print until he completes his probation.
Re:My Bookshelf (Score:2)
If you want a look from the "other side", you can purcahce all 17 years of back issues of 2600 Magazine for $300. I would also seriously suggest walking down to your local 2600 meeting. It's *very* touch and go as to whether or not you'll meet anyone decent, but I've heard that the New York City meeting is generally very nice. emmanuel, the editor of 2600, is very approachable, and makes for a very literate interview, and hate him or love him, he was there for many of the key points of security hacker history.
Check out Steve Jackson (of the publishing company Steve Jackson Games) for an interesting perspective of what happens when a "hacker crackdown" goes wrong. It's all detailed in the book "Hacker Crackdown", but I've always found that going to the source can elicit some interesting quotes... and the ability to say in a presentation "as I spoke to him, I got the impression".
--
Evan
Re:My Bookshelf (Score:2)
Thanks for the tips. What I'm seeing on the literary side are works of specific incidents. While helpful greatly for this talk I'm concerned that there isn't a work on just say the hacks of the 1980s. Pickup a HS history book and there are chapters for decades and centuries and there are many books on the specific incidents in the students' library. Obviously a person reading the generalized book might get insprired to read deeper into particular subjects and that's where the topical books come in handy, but for the subject of hacking I can't name a title that does the job of "over view without being silly." Certainly there will be issues of "why was this left out?" and conversely "why was that put in?" for any historical work but wouldn't a book that spans differing flavors in a general sense and gets the facts straight be beneficial to a class discussing computer security, social sciences, or even just plain history of technology?
If you want a look from the "other side", you can purcahce all 17 years of back issues of 2600 Magazine for $300. I would also seriously suggest walking down to your local 2600 meeting. It's *very* touch and go as to whether or not you'll meet anyone decent, but I've heard that the New York City meeting is generally very nice. emmanuel, the editor of 2600, is very approachable, and makes for a very literate interview, and hate him or love him, he was there for many of the key points of security hacker history.
As for 2600 meetings they are anything but within walking distance and plans are afoot to start a local one, thanks for thinking about it however. I have met Emmanuel and I have seen the spark behind the eyes that you have hinted at, "as I spoke to him I got the impression there is definately something there with that man" and he has been very helpful to me already on this and other projects. But he is just like a specific book - he knows a great deal about this or that and can put things into his own spin, he is however more approaching the general knowledge base that I think I feel the world is lacking. Unfortunitly Emmanuel doesn't come in paper back form and doesn't have an ISBN number or card catalog entry for all those in the globe to "read."
Check out Steve Jackson (of the publishing company Steve Jackson Games) for an interesting perspective of what happens when a "hacker crackdown" goes wrong. It's all detailed in the book "Hacker Crackdown", but I've always found that going to the source can elicit some interesting quotes... and the ability to say in a presentation "as I spoke to him, I got the impression".
I haven't dealt with Mr. Jackson, but I have poked at the website [sjgames.com] and I saw the feedback page - do you have a more direct email address to suggest?
Thanks again for the info...
in UK (Score:4, Informative)
This site contains a good few links about Hacks (& cracks) in the broadest sense.
http://www.hackhull.com/
You should certainly checkout the Prestel royal mail box crack in the UK in about 1979. This incident was often quoted in support of the Data Protection Act and the Computer Misuse Act.
Also checkout the "Real World' Chapter of Bruce Schneier's book Applied Cryptography.
The changes in US Crypto export law was a direct result of PGP. A quick search turned up this:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/06708595
Significant Incidents (Score:3, Informative)
As for significant incidents, RTM's worm of 1988 is one of the most significant, both legally and technically. There really was little to charge Morris with back then. I think he took a plea on wire fraud and served no time. It may have been the driving force behind the revisions to section 1030 of the U.S. Code. It also resulted in the creation of CERT [cert.org].
For all the noise, Mitnick and Poulsen's adventures haven't really had that much impact on the legal world. (Though one of Poulsen or Peterson have some significant decision on appeal about special skill/abuse of trust.) The Bell 911 document case (forget who that was) was probably more significant in that it really highlighted how flawed damage estimates can be ($1+ million vs. $17). Poulsen's most significant contribution was probably the ban on using computers while he was on probation. Mitnick has similar restrictions (if not more severe). Every computer case that comes up now has to consider that idea. Poulsen and especially Mitnick served relatively long and hard sentences compared to those who came before them. With the state of federal law enforcement and the federal sentencing guidelines, any future hackers can look forward to similar sentences if they cause large amounts of damage.
I'm not sure what spawned the EFF [eff.org], but the Steve Jackson Games case was pretty significant and probably resulted in a new law. I forget the name of it, but it essentially provides more search & seizure protection for computers owned by publishers.
Book about hacking (Score:2, Interesting)
In the preface, he explains why this book is published on the Internet and not through a publisher. Basically, it's because he is a hacker and thus, making money on the book would be double standards. Maybe that is why so few books on the subject exist?
Woz (Score:1)
Woz probably had the biggest impact on the computer industry via hacking. Err phreaking... But anyway, a history of Apple cannot leave out Woz and his blue box. Dont know of any book about apple but thats the most major "hacking" event in computer science I know if.
Re:Woz (Score:2)
Bright people do bright things. How did Woz getting free phone calls alter computer science? Did he work on the apple hardware to further his blue boxing? As I recall, No. I'll grant you a history of Apple cannot leave out Woz and his blue box and maybe a history of hacking should discuss such a notable person, but how did his phreaking alone alter computer science?
Re:Woz (Score:2)