Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier
Katie Hafner & John Markoff , Simon & Schuster 1991, ISBN 0-671-68322-5
This book gathers narratives about the careers of three notorious crackers into a clear-eyed but sympathetic portrait of hackerdom's dark side. The principals are Kevin Mitnick, "Pengo" and "Hagbard" of the Chaos Computer Club, and Robert T. Morris (see RTM, sense 2) . Markoff and Hafner focus as much on their psychologies and motivations as on the details of their exploits, but don't slight the latter. The result is a balanced and fascinating account, particularly useful when read immediately before or after Cliff Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg. It is especially instructive to compare RTM, a true hacker who blundered, with the sociopathic phone-freak Mitnick and the alienated, drug-addled crackers who made the Chaos Club notorious. The gulf between wizard and wannabee has seldom been made more obvious. (1)
Hackers: Heroes of the computer revolution
Steven Levy, Anchor/Doubleday 1984, ISBN 0-385-19195-2
Levy's book is at its best in describing the early MIT hackers at the Model Railroad Club and the early days of the microcomputer revolution. He never understood UNIX or the networks, though, and his enshrinement of Richard Stallman as "the last true hacker" turns out (thankfully) to have been quite misleading. Numerous minor factual errors also mar the text; for example, Levy's claim that the original Jargon File derived from the TMRC Dictionary (the File originated at Stanford and was brought to MIT in 1976; the co-authors of the first edition had never seen the dictionary in question). There are also numerous misspellings in the book that inflame the passions of old-timers; as Dan Murphy, the author of TECO, once said: "You would have thought he'd take the trouble to spell the name of a winning editor right." Nevertheless, this remains a useful and stimulating book that captures the feel of several important hackish subcultures. (1)
The Tao of Programming
James Geoffrey Infobooks, 1987 ISBN 0-931137-07-1
This gentle, funny spoof of the "Tao Te Ching" contains much that is illuminating about the hacker way of thought. "When you have learned to snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave."(1)
Takedown
Tsutomu Shimomura with John Markoff
This book is about the pursuit and capture of Kevin Mitnick the world's most notorious hacker, to the authors at least. Reviews by others deem the book's content rather biased. (Site: www.takedown.com at yahoos directory)
The Cuckoo's Egg
Clifford Stoll, Pan Books, 1989, ISBN 0330317423
A documentary and dramatized book about a hackers group that appeared to sell data to the KGB
Das Chaos Computer Buch
Juergen Wieckmann, Rowwohlt - Wunderlichj, 1988, ISBN 3805204744 German / 905018-072-8 Dutch
A collection of essays written by hackers themselves. This book describes the hacker's scene and ethics in Germany in the late 1980's, translated in several languages.
Code Breakers
F.H. Hinsley and Alan Stripp editors, Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-19-285304-X
The inside story of bletchley park during the war. In Bletchley, UK, the enigma codes and other encrypted messages were cracked by a amsll army of scientists, cryptologists and operators.
There are many other books to read about Hacking, encryption, cryptography, programming etc. There are also films to watch on the subject. (1)
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Last Update 12 July, 2002 | For suggestions please mail the editors |
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