CUCKOO'S EGG

CUCKOO'S EGG PDF

Author: Clifford Stoll

Publisher: Doubleday

Published: 2012-05-23

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 0307819426

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Before the Internet became widely known as a global tool for terrorists, one perceptive U.S. citizen recognized its ominous potential. Armed with clear evidence of computer espionage, he began a highly personal quest to expose a hidden network of spies that threatened national security. But would the authorities back him up? Cliff Stoll's dramatic firsthand account is "a computer-age detective story, instantly fascinating [and] astonishingly gripping" (Smithsonian). Cliff Stoll was an astronomer turned systems manager at Lawrence Berkeley Lab when a 75-cent accounting error alerted him to the presence of an unauthorized user on his system. The hacker's code name was "Hunter"—a mysterious invader who managed to break into U.S. computer systems and steal sensitive military and security information. Stoll began a one-man hunt of his own: spying on the spy. It was a dangerous game of deception, broken codes, satellites, and missile bases—a one-man sting operation that finally gained the attention of the CIA . . . and ultimately trapped an international spy ring fueled by cash, cocaine, and the KGB.

High-Tech Heretic

High-Tech Heretic PDF

Author: Clifford Stoll

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 2000-09-12

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0385489765

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The cry for and against computers in the classroom is a topic of concern to parents, educators, and communities everywhere. Now, from a Silicon Valley hero and bestselling technology writer comes a pointed critique of the hype surrounding computers and their real benefits, especially in education. In High-Tech Heretic, Clifford Stoll questions the relentless drumbeat for "computer literacy" by educators and the computer industry, particularly since most people just use computers for word processing and games--and computers become outmoded or obsolete much sooner than new textbooks or a good teacher. As one who loves computers as much as he disdains the inflated promises made on their behalf, Stoll offers a commonsense look at how we can make a technological world better suited for people, instead of making people better suited to using machines.

Silicon Snake Oil

Silicon Snake Oil PDF

Author: Clifford Stoll

Publisher: Anchor

Published: 1996-03-01

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0385419945

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In Silicon Snake Oil, Clifford Stoll, the best-selling author of The Cuckoo's Egg and one of the pioneers of the Internet, turns his attention to the much-heralded information highway, revealing that it is not all it's cracked up to be. Yes, the Internet provides access to plenty of services, but useful information is virtually impossible to find and difficult to access. Is being on-line truly useful? "Few aspects of daily life require computers...They're irrelevant to cooking, driving, visiting, negotiating, eating, hiking, dancing, speaking, and gossiping. You don't need a computer to...recite a poem or say a prayer." Computers can't, Stoll claims, provide a richer or better life. A cautionary tale about today's media darling, Silicon Snake Oil has sparked intense debate across the country about the merits--and foibles--of what's been touted as the entranceway to our future.

Underground

Underground PDF

Author: Suelette Dreyfus

Publisher: Canongate Books

Published: 2012-01-05

Total Pages: 517

ISBN-13: 085786260X

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Suelette Dreyfus and her co-author, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, tell the extraordinary true story of the computer underground, and the bizarre lives and crimes of an elite ring of international hackers who took on the establishment. Spanning three continents and a decade of high level infiltration, they created chaos amongst some of the world's biggest and most powerful organisations, including NASA and the US military. Brilliant and obsessed, many of them found themselves addicted to hacking and phreaking. Some descended into drugs and madness, others ended up in jail. As riveting as the finest detective novel and meticulously researched, Underground follows the hackers through their crimes, their betrayals, the hunt, raids and investigations. It is a gripping tale of the digital underground.

Cuckoo

Cuckoo PDF

Author: Nick Davies

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2015-04-07

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1620409534

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A gifted biologist's careful and beguiling study of why cuckoos have got away with tricking other birds into hatching and raising their young for thousands of years. The familiar call of the common cuckoo, "cuck-oo,†? has been a harbinger of spring ever since our ancestors walked out of Africa many thousands of years ago. However, for naturalist and scientist Nick Davies, the call is an invitation to solve an enduring puzzle: how does the cuckoo get away with laying its eggs in the nests of other birds and tricking them into raising young cuckoos rather than their own offspring? Early observers who noticed a little warbler feeding a monstrously large cuckoo chick concluded the cuckoo's lack of parental care was the result of faulty design by the Creator, and that the hosts chose to help the poor cuckoo. These quaint views of bad design and benevolence were banished after Charles Darwin proposed that the cuckoo tricks the hosts in an evolutionary battle, where hosts evolve better defenses against cuckoos and cuckoos, in turn, evolve better trickery to outwit the hosts. For the last three decades, Davies has employed observation and field experiments to unravel the details of this evolutionary "arms race†? between cuckoos and their hosts. Like a detective, Davies and his colleagues studied adult cuckoo behavior, cuckoo egg markings, and cuckoo chick begging calls to discover exactly how cuckoos trick their hosts. For birding and evolution aficionados, The Cuckoo is a lyrical and scientifically satisfying exploration of one of nature's most astonishing and beautiful adaptations.

One Flew into the Cuckoo's Egg

One Flew into the Cuckoo's Egg PDF

Author: Bill Oddie

Publisher: Hachette UK

Published: 2008-09-04

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 1844568717

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Whose first records were produced by George Martin, and who had two singles banned by the BBC? Who earned rare reviews on Broadway for his dancing? Who rode on the back seat of the Goodies’ trandem? Who has been called ‘Britain’s best-known birdwatcher’? Who had his first clinical depression in his 60th year, and has only just discovered why? Who has written an autobiography that is as witty, candid and unconventional as the man himself? Answer to all of the above – Bill Oddie Bill Oddie is best known for the wacky humour of the Goodies, and the irrepressible enthusiasm of his nature programmes, off screen there has been a darker side. Bill has suffered from bouts of depression which have more than once taken him to the brink. Now he is back in control and wiser about the causes and the cure. Here he describes the childhood blighted by the absence of his mother who had been committed to a mental asylum when he was small. It was a lonely and difficult start to life, but there were to be happier times. Touring with the Cambridge Footlights in the l960s saw him alongside the greatest comic talents of his generation – John Cleese and of course fellow Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor and Graeme Garden. Soon the Goodies were to become on of the biggest comedy hits of the 70s – bringing a new brand of surreal humour to our screens. Now as Britain’s favourite birdwatcher Bill has turned his private passion into his most public role and presented more than 20 nature programmes for the BBC. He has also become a fervent and outspoken campaigner for the environment. It has been an extraordinary and far from straightforward journey. Bill Oddie takes us along with him in a memoir which is as witty, candid, curious and unconventional as the man himself.

Cybersecurity for Executives in the Age of Cloud

Cybersecurity for Executives in the Age of Cloud PDF

Author: Teri Radichel

Publisher:

Published: 2020-03-08

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 9781652474814

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With the rising cost of data breaches, executives need to understand the basics of cybersecurity so they can make strategic decisions that keep companies out of headlines and legal battles. Although top executives do not make the day-to-day technical decisions related to cybersecurity, they can direct the company from the top down to have a security mindset. As this book explains, executives can build systems and processes that track gaps and security problems while still allowing for innovation and achievement of business objectives. Many of the data breaches occurring today are the result of fundamental security problems, not crafty attacks by insidious malware. The way many companies are moving to cloud environments exacerbates these problems. However, cloud platforms can also help organizations reduce risk if organizations understand how to leverage their benefits. If and when a breach does happen, a company that has the appropriate metrics can more quickly pinpoint and correct the root cause. Over time, as organizations mature, they can fend off and identify advanced threats more effectively. The book covers cybersecurity fundamentals such as encryption, networking, data breaches, cyber-attacks, malware, viruses, incident handling, governance, risk management, security automation, vendor assessments, and cloud security. RECOMMENDATION: As a former senior military leader, I learned early on that my personal expertise of a subject was less important than my ability to ask better questions of the experts. Often, I had no expertise at all but was required to make critical high risk decisions under very tight time constraints. In this book Teri helps us understand the better questions we should be asking about our data, data systems, networks, architecture development, vendors and cybersecurity writ large and why the answers to these questions matter to our organizations bottom line as well as our personal liability. Teri writes in a conversational tone adding personal experiences that bring life and ease of understanding to an otherwise very technical, complex and sometimes overwhelming subject. Each chapter breaks down a critical component that lends to a comprehensive understanding or can be taken individually. I am not steeped in cyber, but Teri's advice and recommendations have proven critical to my own work on Boards of Directors as well as my leadership work with corporate CISOs, cybersecurity teams, and C-Suite executives. In a time-constrained world this is a worthy read. - Stephen A. Clark, Maj Gen, USAF (Ret) AUTHOR: Teri Radichel (@teriradichel) is the CEO of 2nd Sight Lab, a cloud and cybersecurity training and consulting company. She has a Master of Software Engineering, a Master of Information Security Engineering, and over 25 years of technology, security, and business experience. Her certifications include GSE, GXPN, GCIH, GPEN, GCIA, GCPM, GCCC, and GREM. SANS Institute gave her the 2017 Difference Makers Award for cybersecurity innovation. She is on the IANS (Institute for Applied Network Security) faculty and formerly taught and helped with curriculum for cloud security classes at SANS Institute. She is an AWS hero and runs the Seattle AWS Architects and Engineers Meetup which has over 3000 members. Teri was on the original Capital One cloud team helping with cloud engineering, operations, and security operations. She wrote a paper called Balancing Security and Innovation With Event Driven Automation based on lessons learned from that experience. It explains how companies can leverage automation to improve cybersecurity. She went on to help a security vendor move a product to AWS as a cloud architect and later Director of SaaS Engineering, where she led a team that implemented the concepts described in her paper. She now helps companies around the world with cloud and cyber security as a sought-after speaker, trainer, security researcher, and pentester.

Worm

Worm PDF

Author: Mark Bowden

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Published: 2011-09-27

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0802195121

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From the bestselling author of Black Hawk Down, the gripping story of the Conficker worm—the cyberattack that nearly toppled the world. The Conficker worm infected its first computer in November 2008, and within a month had infiltrated 1.5 million computers in 195 countries. Banks, telecommunications companies, and critical government networks—including British Parliament and the French and German military—became infected almost instantaneously. No one had ever seen anything like it. By January 2009, the worm lay hidden in at least eight million computers, and the botnet of linked computers it had created was big enough that an attack might crash the world. In this “masterpiece” (The Philadelphia Inquirer), Mark Bowden expertly lays out a spellbinding tale of how hackers, researchers, millionaire Internet entrepreneurs, and computer security experts found themselves drawn into a battle between those determined to exploit the Internet and those committed to protecting it.

Kingpin

Kingpin PDF

Author: Kevin Poulsen

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2012-02-07

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0307588696

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Former hacker Kevin Poulsen has, over the past decade, built a reputation as one of the top investigative reporters on the cybercrime beat. In Kingpin, he pours his unmatched access and expertise into book form for the first time, delivering a gripping cat-and-mouse narrative—and an unprecedented view into the twenty-first century’s signature form of organized crime. The word spread through the hacking underground like some unstoppable new virus: Someone—some brilliant, audacious crook—had just staged a hostile takeover of an online criminal network that siphoned billions of dollars from the US economy. The FBI rushed to launch an ambitious undercover operation aimed at tracking down this new kingpin; other agencies around the world deployed dozens of moles and double agents. Together, the cybercops lured numerous unsuspecting hackers into their clutches. . . . Yet at every turn, their main quarry displayed an uncanny ability to sniff out their snitches and see through their plots. The culprit they sought was the most unlikely of criminals: a brilliant programmer with a hippie ethic and a supervillain’s double identity. As prominent “white-hat” hacker Max “Vision” Butler, he was a celebrity throughout the programming world, even serving as a consultant to the FBI. But as the black-hat “Iceman,” he found in the world of data theft an irresistible opportunity to test his outsized abilities. He infiltrated thousands of computers around the country, sucking down millions of credit card numbers at will. He effortlessly hacked his fellow hackers, stealing their ill-gotten gains from under their noses. Together with a smooth-talking con artist, he ran a massive real-world crime ring. And for years, he did it all with seeming impunity, even as countless rivals ran afoul of police. Yet as he watched the fraudsters around him squabble, their ranks riddled with infiltrators, their methods inefficient, he began to see in their dysfunction the ultimate challenge: He would stage his coup and fix what was broken, run things as they should be run—even if it meant painting a bull’s-eye on his forehead. Through the story of this criminal’s remarkable rise, and of law enforcement’s quest to track him down, Kingpin lays bare the workings of a silent crime wave still affecting millions of Americans. In these pages, we are ushered into vast online-fraud supermarkets stocked with credit card numbers, counterfeit checks, hacked bank accounts, dead drops, and fake passports. We learn the workings of the numerous hacks—browser exploits, phishing attacks, Trojan horses, and much more—these fraudsters use to ply their trade, and trace the complex routes by which they turn stolen data into millions of dollars. And thanks to Poulsen’s remarkable access to both cops and criminals, we step inside the quiet, desperate arms race that law enforcement continues to fight with these scammers today. Ultimately, Kingpin is a journey into an underworld of startling scope and power, one in which ordinary American teenagers work hand in hand with murderous Russian mobsters and where a simple Wi-Fi connection can unleash a torrent of gold worth millions.