Stealing the Network: The Complete Series Collector's Edition, Final Chapter, and DVD Review

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Stealing the Network: The Complete Series Collector's Edition, Final Chapter, and DVD ReviewI have just finished a marathon session of reading "Stealing the Network: The Complete Series Collector's Edition" and I have a very conditional review of it: It's a must-have if you don't already own the previous editions of these guilty pleasures. If you are already a fan, however, prepare to be let-down by the compilation.
The stories of the Stealing the Network series entertain in the same way that "war stories" from fellow hackers and security professionals often keeps a more intimate audience's interest: by mixing intriguing situations with juicy technical detail that can serve as a useful take-away. No one will accuse these books of containing fine literature, but that's not really the point. The stories are well written enough to keep you wanting to know what will happen next, while the technical information is as accurate as you're likely to see in fiction. Segments involving hacking are written and illustrated with enough attention to detail and length to serve as introductory educational tutorials for the topics (including web application hacking, reverse engineering, and wireless security). Most of these scenarios are believable as parts of larger-scale operations.
The first book of the series consists of independent short-stories based around characters of the authors' creation. The other three books in the compilation tell an over-arching story of a larger "operation", which involves many characters and their independent stories. The second book, "How to Own a Continent", is probably my favorite, along with the first ("How to Own a Box"), for keeping things simple, technical, and focusing on the individual stories. The third book, "How to Own an Identity" suffers from having worse editing then the rest of the series, and may lose some readers' interest. The fourth book ("How to Own a Shadow") reads a lot better, and wraps the overall story up well, however it focuses only on a relative handful of the series' characters.
As a compilation, this Collector's Edition leaves much to be desired. While the original description for this edition described the books contained within as being "author-annotated", this is not the case. The individual books are reproduced exactly as they were in their original editions, with no additional commentary from the authors, and with all the same problems as the originals. For example, screenshots in the first chapter of the first book are the same illegible black squares that were in the original edition of the book published 7 years ago. The annotations along with other features described in the original description (emails, photographs) that would provide a lot of interesting background material, would have made this compilation a must-buy.
The extra content that you are receiving is a brief new forward by Jeff Moss, and a "Final Chapter" by Ryan Russell. The new chapter is about 20 pages long, and gives the story-line a proper ending. I won't ruin anything about it, but I will say that I enjoyed it. Syngress has promised in the description of the book to make this content available separately in electronic form in six months.
The included DVD is described on the back-cover copy as being "full" of behind-the-scenes stories. In reality, you will only find 20 minutes of interviews with a few of the authors. I enjoyed these interviews, however, much like the print companion, I felt like more should have been done. Also beware that there are problems with the audio on the DVD. When played on my MacBook, there was noticeable crackling/popping in the audio of the DVD. The same noise was present, but less noticeable when played through a stand-alone DVD player through a television.
To summarize, I like the books, and find them as entertaining as I did when they were originally published, and I like the new hardcover binding. I do think that it is unfortunate that the "Stealing the Network: The Complete Series Collector's Edition" does not meet its potential to be more than the sum of its parts. There seems to have been intent at some point to add value to the set, but it wound up simply being a rough concatenation of the individual books.
If you haven't read these books, then I very much recommend picking up this set. It's 1,000 pages of interesting stories and technical material. If you already have the previous editions of the Stealing the Network Series, however, you might find it hard to justify paying for them again.Stealing the Network: The Complete Series Collector's Edition, Final Chapter, and DVD Overview
"Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box is a unique book in the fiction department. It combines stories that are fictional, with technology that is real. While none of the stories have happened, there is no reason why they could not. You could argue it provides a road map for criminal hackers, but I say it does something else: it provides a glimpse into the creative minds of some of today's best hackers, and even the best hackers will tell you that the game is a mental one." - from the Foreword to the first Stealing the Network book, How to Own the Box, Jeff Moss, Founder & Director, Black Hat, Inc. and Founder of DEFCON

For the very first time the complete Stealing the Network epic is available in an enormous, over 1000 page volume complete with the final chapter of the saga and a DVD filled with behind the scenes video footage!

These groundbreaking books created a fictional world of hacker superheroes and villains based on real world technology, tools, and tactics. It is almost as if the authors peered into the future as many of the techniques and scenarios in these books have come to pass.

This book contains all of the material from each of the four books in the Stealing the Network series.

All of the stories and tech from:


How to Own the Box

How to Own a Continent

How to Own an Identity

How to Own a Shadow

Plus:


Finally - find out how the story ends! The final chapter is here!

A DVD full of behind the scenes stories and insider info about the making of these cult classics!
* Now for the first time the entire series is one 1000+ page book* The DVD contains 20 minutes of behind the scenes footage* Readers will finally learn the fate of "Knuth" in the much anticipated Final Chapter

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No Place to Hide Review

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No Place to Hide ReviewYou've rented a car to drive from Connecticut to Virginia. You head south on I-95, but at times, your speed creeps up to 80 mph like many of the drivers around you. Finally, you stop to buy gas but your credit card is rejected at the pump. The reason? The company who rented you the car has been monitoring your driving in real time. Not only that, they've fined you three times, at $150 per violation, for speeding, and already deducted it from your credit card. Sound impossible? It's not, and Robert O'Harrow's NO PLACE TO HIDE describes how car rental companies can do it, and have already done it.
Perhaps you have never heard of Acxiom, Seisint, ChoicePoint, HNC Software, TransCore, Searchspace, and Verint? Well, that's just the way those companies want it. And they are just some of the companies who know all about you - your name, address, and social security number, every place you've ever lived, your credit histories, who your friends are, what you say and do on the Internet, where you travel, even your faces, fingerprints, and DNA. In the interest of catching terrorists and preventing terrorism, federal and local law enforcement agencies have increasingly turned to these companies for help - all conveniently situated outside the privacy laws and Patriot Act restrictions and free to collect virtually any information they can lay their hands on. The result is a boom in the "total information awareness" business that is creating a world of commercial "big brothers." It is a world about which most Americans are blissfully, and foolishly, unaware.
Faster machines, bigger databases, more networking, and microminiaturization to the level of flea-sized RFID chips and "smart dust" will only make these systems more and more pervasive. But as O'Harrow repeatedly demonstrates, mistakes get made and innocent people's lives are ruined without recourse. One of the strengths of NO PLACE TO HIDE is the author's retelling of nightmarish occurrences that victimized innocent American citizens, stories that resound with the eerie randomness and facelessness of Kafka's THE TRIAL. The author points out as well that system missions creep from anti-terrorism to criminal behavior to ... what? Furthermore, he demonstrates that these systems are so uncontrolled an open-ended in their use, law enforcement personnel can use them for any reason whatsoever, even for personal reasons or for personal gain. As O'Harrow quotes one sheriff's deputy from Michigan, "There isn't anybody, anywhere in law enforcement, that doesn't check people out. If they say they don't I'd stake you a hundred that they're lying."
NO PLACE TO HIDE is not without shortcomings that render it a 4-star rating rather than 5 stars. To begin with, O'Harrow's writing style is a bit tedious, employing more or less the same dramatic and illustrative devices in each chapter. As a result, the book feels longer and more repetitive than it really is. Second, by striving mightily to stay even-handed, the author creates an odd distance to subject matter that should be raising his hackles and creating a greater sense of outrage or dread. Third, the book is so full of little-known company names, products and services, and governmental agencies, they tend to blend into a sort of surveillance industry soup. A few well-conceived charts or diagrams would have been invaluable in sorting out the players. Finally, the book ends without so much as a word on what should be done to bring the post-9/11, Patriot Act-inspired information and surveillance crusade back under some semblance of citizen control.
Nevertheless, it's fair to say that O'Harrow's book is indeed a harrowing look into a 1984-ish, MINORITY REPORT future. Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, you're likely to find much to disturb you in this eye-opening book. NO PLACE TO HIDE outlines the framework for an America few of us would knowingly choose, evidence (if any more was needed) that Osama bin Laden's 9/11 plan succeeded far beyond anything he could possibly have dreamed. After all, could he ever have imagined being able to turn us so aggressively against ourselves? Or, to quote Ben Franklin in what is probably the best sentence in the book, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." When are we finally going to wake up from our 9/11 stupor and heed Mr. Franklin? Perhaps NO PLACE TO HIDE is the alarm we need.
No Place to Hide Overview

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How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition) Review

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How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition) ReviewI'll review the book briefly before responding to some of the criticism of the work. I initially read this book nearly one year ago, and have since then put into practice many of the suggestions in the book.
For example, I don't carry my drivers license around anymore. The entertainment factor of pulling a passport out is almost as beneficial as the privacy factor. Bank employees, concert security, bouncers, etc. usually look quite strangely at the passport, since most of them are used to reading everyone's drivers license all day. The cost of this small protection was minimal, and now I never have to give anyone my home address unless they deserve it, or I want to give it to them. Anyone who ever steals my wallet or gets ahold of it if I drop it won't find anything except a small amount of cash and useless items.
The book contains many other examples of protecting privacy, such as setting up ghost addresses, titling vehicles in LLCs, and not relying on borrowing money to live.
The small information on using credit is potentially the most important part of the book. In my work, I daily talk to people who have relied on credit to get them through life. When they come upon a hardship, they lean even heavier on credit to get through the hardship, while waiting for the future to get better. Unfortunately, hardships last longer than a few days or weeks, usually, and continuous leaning on credit will eventually cause the crutch to break.
In actuality, this could turn out to be a very long review, if I let it, because the ideas that are presented in the book are all a cause of conversation and reflection. However, for some readers, they will merely read the ideas and develop a thought pattern of saying "I can't do that, it's a lot of work." They will then deem the book impractical, outdated, or useless.
It's amazing to me, reading some of the low-star reviews, how misguided most of these reviewers are when reading this book. I assume they have read the book, or else they would presume to review it it, but their arguments sound like they read the concepts and assumed the practice would be too difficult, or they read the practical suggestions and did not have the creativity to use the examples as a starting point, not an ending point.
Apparently, one of the most visual and easily rememberable examples in the book is renting an empty broom closet for a ghost mail address. The argument that using an unoccupied broom closet as a mailbox is outdated is absurd. I honestly have not found a broom closet as a mailbox, but I'm sure one could be tracked down and rented. And renting a closet as a mailbox is an example of creativity in protecting your privacy, not a direct order from the author. Step One is not "Rent a broom closet and receive mail there," it's "Stop receiving mail at home." The broom closet and other examples are suggestions to get you thinking of uncommon ideas.
(If you don't like the broom closet idea, track down the guy using that as his address, and let him know you do not appreciate his creativity in protecting his privacy.)
In fact, that's the point most low-star reviewers seem to miss: the examples are examples of creativity in making a difficult activity (protecting your privacy) slightly easier. Of course it would be easier just to rent a box from a local UPS Store, but then you have to show ID, give them your actual address, and your name goes into the company database, to be sold or rented to anyone.
It would be even easier to continue using your own home address to receive mail. But again, the book was not written to tell you how to do what you are already doing.
And the argument that you can't see any way around giving out your SS#, etc., to employers or for a background check for a job is just as absurd. You may as well argue that you're no better than a cow being herded for slaughter, to be cut up, creatively packaged, and sold off piece by piece. Actually, I might prefer that to working some of my old jobs, which I only took because I felt I didn't have any other option than finding a good company to work for.
It's because I read this book that I decided to get out of being employed and opened my own business. Almost a year later, I haven't been forced to find even a part time job to supplement my self-employment income.
More than just becoming invisible, maybe the major theme of the book is Creativity, and the book is targeted to creative people who are willing to work to change their lives.
For the uncreative, who are stuck with no other options than working for an employer and lacking the skills and motivation to protect their privacy, maybe the government will pass a law allowing people to become "invisble" by filing a simple form at the post office. Just give them your SS#, home address, phone number, and two pieces of picture ID every few months, and they will put you in a database to keep you invisible. That'll be easy enough for everyone to do, right?
One last point about the "extreme" newspaper exceprts in the book: you can consider those quite dated because since those stories appeared, hundreds of stories just like them have been published with the same results. Search Google, Yahoo, your local library's stock of newspapers, or any other source and you'll see more "extreme" cases of stalkers, scam artists, criminals, and frivolous lawsuits.
In conclusion, this is a great book if you want to protect your privacy. Use it as a starting point and as a reference for future ideas. But if you're expecting the book itself to protect you, then you are making a dangerous assumption. Only you can protect yourself.
Hopefully this wasn't an overly long review, and if you enjoyed reading any part of it, then thanks! And if you disagree with any part, then I'd be happy to mail you a personal note asking for forgiveness. Just email me your name, home address, and social security number. :-) Just kidding.How to Be Invisible: The Essential Guide to Protecting Your Personal Privacy, Your Assets, and Your Life (Revised Edition) OverviewFrom cyberspace to crawl spaces, new innovations in information gathering have left the private life of the average person open to scrutiny, and worse, exploitation. In this thoroughly revised update of his immensely popular guide How to Be Invisible, J.J. Luna shows you how to protect yourself from these information predators by securing your vehicle and real estate ownership, your bank accounts, your business dealings, your computer files, your home address, and more.J.J. Luna, a highly trained and experienced security consultant, shows you how to achieve the privacy you crave and deserve, whether you just want to shield yourself from casual scrutiny or take your life savings with you and disappearing without a trace. Whatever your needs, Luna reveals the shocking secrets that private detectives and other seekers of personal information use to uncover information and then shows how to make a serious commitment to safeguarding yourself.There is a prevailing sense in our society that true privacy is a thing of the past. Filled with vivid real life stories drawn from the headlines and from Luna's own consulting experience, How to Be Invisible, Revised Edition is a critical antidote to the privacy concerns that continue only to grow in magnitude as new and more efficient ways of undermining our personal security are made available. Privacy is a commonly-lamented casualty of the Information Age and of the world's changing climate-but that doesn't mean you have to stand for it.

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