Trish's Reviews > Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks

I saw this book recommended by Waterstones on Twitter (no, I'll never call it anything else) and despite not being a computer geek, I've always been interested in real-life hacking. You know, as opposed to 99% of what we see in movies. *lol*

As someone born in the 80s, I'm one of those weird in-betweeners who grew up without computers and internet and then sort of grew with them. However, just by how my family lived, I was late to the party and I never learned anything about code etc. Nevertheless, I still remember the early days when people would get excited about the animated avatars AOL offered. *lol*

But that is not what this book is talking about. Instead, it gives us 5 cases of hacking that changed the world (or should have) by showing us the dangers of using something we don't really understand and therefore telling us about the importance of safeguarding. I mean, you don't just drive a car, you also lock it even if you might not know in technical detail how the lock works, right?

Same with the internet, programs or apps as they are called nowadays and more. We use the internet at home and when we work and how some people don't think about their own data security is staggering. I see it at work every year when we have our company-sponsored awareness training. You know, stuff like "how many digits should a strong password have".

Here, we learn of how a college student basically crashed the internet with a worm (the "Morris worm") that was nothing but a science experiment back in the 80s (he was heavily fined, more than he should have been if you ask me, but at least is now a teaching professor at MIT). Fun fact, that boy was the son of the chief scientist for computer security at the National Security Agency. *LOL*
Then we learn about a Bulgarian hacker calling himself "Dark Avenger" who wreaked havoc in the 90s with malware.
The third example is the 2005 hack into Paris Hilton's cellphone that had some nude pictures released (still an up-to-date topic for many celebrities).
Another case is a networked supercomputer developed in 2016 by three teenagers that secretly conscripted so-called smart appliances (I had no idea TOASTERS could qualify as that).
And, of course, the author also talks about the Russian hackers that released Hilalry Clinton's e-mails amongst other things thereby most probably influencing the 2016 election.

There are other examples, such as the ILOVEYOU virus in e-mail attachments in the 2000s (I remember being warned about it in school, it was a big deal). And every one of the examples is well detailed (but not to a degree that it bores or annoys the layman reader) and nicely illustrates that the technological side is only the half of it.

The author actually knows what he's talking about as he was a computer science major in college. He even became an entrepreneur in that field, constructing databases for clients that included Time-Life Books. Then, he kinda fell off the wagon and got back into "the game" in his 50s! For some reason, he seems to have thought that he therefore had to make up for lost time and did so by hacking the Yale Law School website. *cackles* I seriously loved hearing about his dedication to the subject in the introduction and very much appreciated how he always made sure that any layman could understand what he was talking about.

I also loved the connections the author drew to the human side of hacking, such as laws, psychology, behaviorisms and more. And he's absolutely right when saying that the actual tech only gets you so far: the best computer isn't worth shit if you don't have the right cyberhygiene to go with it.

This should be required reading in any school and for any adult, too.