Ghost In The Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker (2011)
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Ghost In The Wires is about one of the craziest, insane reads I have ever come across. Boy, was this a fun ride from start to finish. I originally came across this book while watching The Colbert Report and Kevin Mitnick was on the show promoting the book and when Stephen Colbert ask him about why he was thrown into solitary confinement when he went to prison and Kevin responded with "...the defense argued with the Court Judge that I could start a nuclear war simply by calling into NORAD and whistling the code." I KNEW I had to read this.
So, did it live up to what I was expecting? Oh hell yeah! It's everything and more, plus the kitchen sink too. I swear, I was reading this fast and furious and I could not put the book down at all. At 400 pages, I went through this pretty fast. The entire time I was reading it, I was picturing this as a thriller, a movie that is sure to happen. I can guarantee you that it will become a feature length film down the road. Contrary to popular belief, WarGames (http://pennycan.createaforum.com/dvd's-blu-rays/wargames-(1983)/) was not based on his life as a hacker, even though the similarities are there and that was the first thing that kept coming to my mind as I read the book.
There as some pretty wild stuff inside, like how Mitnick was able to elude the FBI, CIA and every known Government Agency simply by hacking into their phone lines and frequencies and setting up an alert for when they were closing in on him and it worked....for 3 years. Crazy.
One of the best cat and mouse games in the book occurs when he meets up with a "world renowned" hacker by the name of "Eric Heinz", only to find out that he is in fact an FBI Snitch looking to take down Kevin. But it's the ensuing invesigation into Eric's background that truly leaves you spellbound in the ease in which he takes apart everything the FBI worked so hard to put together. He literally makes it look like a hot knife through butter. That easy. Just...wow.
Along with all this high octane thrill rides, there were some pretty funny pranks that he pulled like the McDonald Hack where Kevin is able to hack into the Drive-In Speaker box from across the street and watch the hilarity ensue with drivers pulling up to place their orders. Love the scene when a Cop drove up to the speaker box to place his order and Kevin at the other end of the radio frequency tells him they "don't serve cops and he will have to go to Jack In The Box"
The other funny one was when he tells this chick that if she shows her titties, her Big Mac was free, only to enrage her to the point of turning off her car, grabbing a baseball bat from the car trunk and heading inside the resturant. Priceless!! The rumor about Kristy McNichol was pretty funny too.
This is a definite Buy. I can't wait to read this again....and see the movie when it happens.
Kevin Mitnick Interview (60 Minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_VYWefmy34