Sunday Geek: Hackers who write books

by Steve Ragan - Oct 5 2008, 20:56

There are lots of books related to security and the exploits of various famous hackers. One example is the news that Mafiaboy is going to release his memoirs. Should Mafiaboy really want to write a book about how to be a script kiddie?

According to Canada’s National Post, Mafiaboy, a.k.a. Michael Calce, is going to write a tell-all book about his exploits as a teenager, centering on his attacks in 2000. You might remember Mafiaboy mentioned once or twice in the news around this time, maybe a few thousand times more as he earned a bit of press.

In April of 2000, the RCMP arrested Mafiaboy in relation to a series of Denial-of-Service attacks on sites such as CNN.com, eBay, Dell, Yahoo, Amazon, and E*Trade. In total, the juvenile Mr. Calce was charged with 64 counts, and pled guilty to 56 of them.

“On September 12, 2001, Mafiaboy appeared before the Montreal Youth Court in Canada and was sentenced to eight months “open custody,” one year probation, and restricted use of the Internet,” the FBI reported.

Now, Mafiaboy is going to publish his book, How I Cracked the Internet and Why It's Still Broken, within the coming week or so. The book is reported to detail the 23-year-old’s exploits as a kid

“In early 2000, the websites of CNN, Yahoo, E*Trade, Dell, Amazon, and eBay ground to a halt for several hours, causing panic everywhere from the White House to suburbia and around the world,” the book description explains.

“After 2 months and hundreds of hours of wiretapping, the FBI and RCMP staged a late-night raid to apprehend the most wanted man in cyberspace--a 15-year-old kid,Mafiaboy. 8 years later, Mafiaboy, a.k.a.Michael Calce, has ignored requests from every major media outlet in North America and has not told a word of his story--until now. Using his experience as a cautionary tale, Calce takes the reader through the history of hacking and how it has helped make the internet the new frontier for crime in the 21st century.”

The book is to be published by Viking Canada, and co-authored by Craig Silverman, a journalist and the founder of RegretTheError.com.

Now, as an example, Kevin Mitnick authoring books on his exploits is all fine and good, as Kevin actually did his own work. Mafiaboy, on the other hand, is a script kiddie. While Kevin used other tools and had lots of help, he is a professional Social Engineer, Mafiaboy is simply a script kiddie who went on IRC and used the work of others to attack various websites. Is this really best seller material?

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