CAPSULE COMMENTS

January 4, 2007

Computer Espionage

With so many companies and individuals relying on computers and networks for business and personal usage, it is important to be aware of the ways that we become vulnerable. No network is 100% secure and if a hacker wants to access a system badly enough, he will keep at it until the prize is won. The hacker has a lot of tricks up his sleeve, not just including sophisticated computer skills, but often social engineering skills to get passwords or access to facilities and computers from unsuspecting people. The following items can found at Rodman Public Library.

Kevin Mitnick is perhaps the best-known computer hacker in the U.S. His exploits and the story of his capture are detailed in TAKEDOWN, by Tsutomu Shimomura. Since Mitnick’s release from prison, he has become a regarded computer security analyst and has appeared on CNN, CBS, and other television news programs.

This book can be read like short story thrillers or as a guide to hacker prevention. Mitnick tells the stories of hackers who crack the code of Las Vegas poker machines, unknowingly aid terrorists, prisoners who gain free access to the Internet by setting up their own network, and set up accounts with hotels for free lavish vacations. A number of the accounts relay information about "white hat" hackers, those who break in to systems and then report their findings to the companies whose systems they were able to compromise. The stories include analyses in each chapter with words of wisdom on how to avoid the problems described in the story.

Not all computer hacks are the result of purely technical prowess. Often the first access to a computer system is through a technique known as "social engineering." Social engineering is a skill familiar to con artists and can range from gaining the confidence of the system user through friendliness or familiarity to posing as a network service employee and point blank asking for usernames and passwords to access the system. Mitnick describes several of these scenarios in his book. This is also the method used in CATCH ME IF YOU CAN by Frank W. Abagnale as he took on numerous aliases and careers from airline pilot to supervising resident of a hospital to college sociology professor. The library has this title in book, video, and DVD formats starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio.

THE CUCKOO’S EGG: TRACKING A SPY THROUGH THE MAZE OF COMPUTER ESPIONAGE, by Clifford Stoll is one of the best true computer crime stories ever written. Stoll was an astrophysicist turned systems manager at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab when he tracked down a seventy-five cent accounting error to an international spy ring. The group in Hannover, West Germany was using computer networks around the world to gather secrets and sell them to the KGB. The book, like Cliff Stoll in real life, is written in an animated and entertaining style and even includes a love story and some comedy.

MASTERS OF DECEPTION: THE GANG THAT RULED CYBERSPACE, by Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner recants the lives of Phiber Optik, his cyber gang called the Masters of Deception, and their rivals the Legion of Doom. The book takes a look at their exploits as they download confidential credit histories, break in to private computer systems, and rewire phone lines. The rivalry escalated into full-fledged gang warfare before the authorities were able to cut them off.