Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen
Written by an editor of Wired in 2010, this is an interesting contemporary crime story about Cybercrime and the people who do it. It is also a reminder for everyone to pay attention to their networks and computers, don’t take them for granted, and be very paranoid about e-commerce.
The technical descriptions are accurate, although they date back several decades, so the details of the technology are mostly out of date—nothing about hacking Androids or iPhones, nothing about Clouds or server farms. But that’s not really the point. The point is the sociotechnical interplay of necessarily flawed technology, relatively clueless users, and plain old human greed.
I’m pretty sure that most of the cops and robbers stuff is out of date as well. Everyone has geared up, with the military and Wall Street definitely in the game, as well as Russian and Chinese “grown ups”, Iranian forces, and jihadists of all religions. Its not kiddie stuff any more, and not about some Valley Girls credit card scamming.
The poignant and mostly sad descriptions of the hackers, how they live and think, is far too real to be comfortable for any of us who were there and doing it. I know these people. Heck, I am these people, or at least I was at that time. How can I not see myself in these guys? What would it have taken for me to go off the rails as far as they did? Not that much.
I guess the best thing about the strange gold rush out of Silicon Valley over the last 20 years is that it has let so many geeks earn a living legally, if not sustainably. There is nothing like having your own company to turn you off to recreational crime.
This story is also a bit of nostalgia for the good old days (all of ten years ago) when things were so much simpler, and ordinary teenagers could be world class hackers. These days the field is full of professionals, dangerous professionals.
- Kevin Poulsen, Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over The Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground, New York, Broadway Paperbacks, 2011.
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