Read For Free Masters Of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace Composed By Michelle Slatalla Ready In Hardcover

fascinating review of "The Great Hacker War" which some debate ever happened and the Masters of Deception, a rather big name in the world of hacking.


The book is straight forward enough to provide a detailed and riviting account of events, At no point do you feel like you are getting bogged down in technical jargon, While you can't understand the intricate details of what they are doing, you at least comprehend the basics,

At the same time, it makes a legitimate attempt to explain the specifics of the technology and what was taking place, to make it a worthwhile read for those 'in the know'.


I'm not 'in the know' but I find books on the subject to be absolutely fascinating, While individuals like these kids or Mitnick have gone to jail and established reputations as the first cyberterrorists, it is important to remember that the pursuit of knowledge was the core motivation behind their activities.
There are so many circumstances when things could have been destroyed or made much worse at the hands of these 'hackers', This book was wellwritten in the journalistic style, interesting throughout, but probably tries to represent too much of what hacking was through a single incident.
It also betrays an East Coast bias, which is somewhat fatal, Otherwise, there's a lot of good information here on the old school days of dialup and network hacking, It introduces the major personalities, reveals the presence of the bulletin board and other hacker hangouts, and shows us some insights into hacker "culture" which was formed of the demands of hacking itself.
Most people will say this is a bit sensationalized, but if you read between the lines, that's what "journalistic" has meant for a half century or longer.
As a result, I give this a positive endorsement for the information inside, but with caveats that you're not getting the whole story.
Its, and while personal computers have been around for a few years, their full potential is still largely untapped, Only about one household in three owns a computer, and most that do own them, dont really know what to do with them.
But there are an elite few who understand instinctively that mastery of the computer means power, These few are almost always teenage boys, are highly intelligent, and are bored, It was fun at first, like a game, but when a couple of hackers gain access to New York Telephones computer system, the stakes are suddenly much higher.


In hacker circles, everyone knows that the Legion of Doom, or L O D, is at the top of the game.
Best friends Paul Stira and Eli Ladopoulos, have dreamed of joining the upper echelon of computer hackers for as long as they can remember, but so far they havent been able to catch the eyes of the L O D.
After a latenight session of “trashing”, Paul and Eli believe that their time has finally come, Trashing is just what it sounds like, literally picking through the trash of a business, hoping to find computer printouts that contain a password or access code.
Paul and Eli just hit the mother lode, a password that gets them into the computer system of New York Telephone,

During the next several months, Paul and Eli explore the telephone system until they know it like their own bedrooms, Of course, mastery over the phone lines is a little like being God in cyberspace, They can now call anywhere in the world for free, give themselves conference calling or call waiting, not to mention what they can do to the phone lines of their rival hackers.
Suddenly, Paul and Eli realize that they dont need to join the L O D, now they have people who want to join THEM, including Mark Abene, also known as Fiber Optic, the most famous hacker of all.
The new group starts calling itself the M O D, in mockery of rival gang L O D, M O D is a way to identify themselves, while also retaining some anonymity, M O D could stand for just about anything after all, Its all out war in cyberspace, but with the M O D controlling the phone lines, the L O D never really had a chance.


On January,, ATampTs computer system crashes, leaving millions of subscribers without telephone service, and just like that, hacking is not just a game anymore.
The boys didnt know it, but someone was watching, Someone in the security office at the phone company noticed their excursions into the system, and has been quietly collecting evidence for several months.
That man has been in touch with the secret service, and they have been watching too, Shortly after the ATampT crash, the raids begin,

Reading this audiobook was like taking a trip down memory lane, In the lates, I was a pretty big fan of the new fad, personal computers, although I never took it quite as far as these guys.
Hearing some of the language from those days really brought back some memories though: Commodores, Apples, TRSs, and Vics.
Those were the good old days,

Husband and wife team, Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner were both reporters during this time, and covered the story for five years before writing

Masters of Deception.
Their dedication to the story shows, They display an intimate knowledge, not only on the home computer setups, but also on the corporate side, mainframe supercomputers and the like, and especially with the inner workings of a major telephone company, with its gigantic computers that process and route millions of calls per day.
The hard work and research paid off they gave a lot of technical detail without sounding like an instruction manual, Everything is in laymans terms that almost anyone can understand,

The legalities of this case, also thoroughly explored by the authors, were interesting, It was the beginning of the information age, and our judicial system was woefully unequipped to handle this type of futuristic crime, The experts from the phone company had a pretty hard time explaining what the hackers had done, and why it was so dangerous.
Whole new branches of law enforcement had to be created, and had a lot of catching up to do, Who were the crimes committed against: the phone company or the customers Who had jurisdiction: FBI or Secret Service It was the dawning of a whole new age, and this was a fascinating account of some of that ages pioneers.


Colby Elliott, who also happens to be the founder of Last Word Audio, has been working as a voiceover artist for several years, but is relatively new to the world of audiobook narration.
I think he has a lot of potential in the field his speaking voice is pleasant enough, and his inflection and intonation are good.
A bad narrator can make it pretty hard to focus on an audiobook, but that was not a problem with Masters of Deception at all.


I enjoyed Masters of Deception, Im not sure that the subject matter will appeal to a wide audience, but science fiction fans will almost certainly like it, especially if you liked the movie War Games.
Fans of true crime stories would probably find it interesting as well,

sitelinkSteven Brandt AudiobookHeaven I followed this story as it unfolded in the earlys through the pages of Phrack, cud, and other philes and ezines.
I talked to Bloodaxe and Phiber on mindvox back in the old days, but other than Emmanuel Goldstein, I never really knew the people who were central to this story, so it was interesting to relive it all through a journalist's eyes.


Like all of the stories written about the LOD/MOD feud, the subjects contest the facts as presented in the book, and like all of the stories written about hacking in thes and earlys, it's difficult to tell what's fact and what's myth, but even then, when it was happening, the only people who knew what really happened were the guys who dialed into Tymnet, and then as now it was in their personal interest to make themselves seem a little taller, their conquests a little more epic, their accusers a little more dastardly.


In other words, you have to take everything in this book with a grain of salt, . . just like we did when we telnetted into some longforgotten BBS and read The History of MoD back in the old days,

This book probably deserves betweenand,stars. The authors frequently switched between present and past tense, in what I think was an effort to make readers feel like they're listening toyearolds talk, but I found jarring and distracting.
Ultimately, though, I graded it on a curve and rounded up tobecause I loved the subject, and the opportunity it gave me to revisit a time when I explored what would become the internet,columns at a time, at.
k, dreaming of connecting atk some day, Brilliant, funny, and factual. A great account of the first PC cyberwar and its colorful players, Just reread Masters of Deception: The Gang that Ruled Cyberspace by Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner, I first read it shortly after it was initially released in, I bought a hardback copy and its sat on my shelf this entire time, waiting for a second goround, It didnt disappoint.

This book is a great examination of computer hacking in the lates and earlys, Theres a fair amount of technical jargon that the authors did a great job of making accessible to the layperson,

The authors did a wonderful job of weaving the lives of several people together to present the tale of The MOD Masters of Deception and the way they marauded through preinternet networks.


Highly recommend if you have any interest in vintage computing, tales of early hacking, or general cybercrime,
RIP Maybe this would have been more interestingyears ago, Tech crimes ofhave surpassed what these kids were doing, so much so the whole book is boring, Its complete overkill for crimes the world didnt even understand yet committed by kids, Pure brain candy for geeks, A story about one of the first federal cases built against hackers, . . it describes the early days of computer hacking, what could be done, some of the culture surrounding hacking, and how the early cases were built.
I enjoyed reading about the attempts to hack into and use the phone system, given that my parents worked for the phone company foryears doing work on some of the systems described.
An easy read, a fun book, A true story about brilliant young hackers in the lates, Masters of Deception versus Legion of Doom, and both poking around telephone companies' databases,

The book explores the adventures of curious teenagers who want to discover the intricacies of the telephone system and a government who can't quite understand what a switch is.


The law came down hard on these explorers, Each individual saw jail time for their exploits, but after punishment, they were valued and celebrated in the tech community, The internet took off and their skills were in high demand, A fascinating look into the early days of computer and telecommunications hacking, sitelinkMichelle Slatalla takes us through the history of the Legion of Doom LOD and Masters of Deception MOD, their online exploits, the reasons why they did what they did, and how it went oh so wrong in the end.
From homes in Queens, NY and Houston, TX the unfolding story of teenagers fascinated with nothing more than trying to figure out how things work, their excitement of sharing what they knew, and the creation of underground organizations to further their exploits are told in a narrative which is relateable and nontechnical.


Masters Of Deception as of this review was writtenyears ago when much of the technology discussed was new to the general public.
So listening to this book today can at times seem a little basic from a technical pointofview, However, the story is still a fascinating one, What happened is actually quite amazing, The chance that all of these teenagers were able to connect and create a synergistic relationship which fed upon one another was what seemed one in a million chance in the days prior to the internet and social media.


The book makes one think about what happened, The Government's inability to grasp at an early time what was going on and the ramifications, One must ask if the Government really was in the right when they raided MOD the first time without ever charging them and then claiming they were repeat offenders when raided the second time and charged.
The gray areas in the areas of telecommunications companies' rights to monitor their lines without a court order and when wrong doing discovered whether that same information is then admissible without a court ordered wiretap.


This is an enjoyable and good read, I recommend it to anyone interested in the history of hacking and early enforcement of laws against the hackers, .