DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You
by Misha Glenny
Knopf, 296 pp., $26.95
Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker
by Kevin Mitnick with William L. Simon
Little, Brown, 413 pp., $25.99
We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency
by Parmy Olson
Little, Brown, 498 pp., $26.99
Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power
by David E. Sanger
Crown, 476 pp., $28.00
Hacking can, and often does, improve products. It exposes vulnerabilities, supplies innovations, and demonstrates both what is possible and what consumers want. Still, hacking has a dark side, one that has eclipsed its playful, sporty, creative side, especially in the popular imagination, and with good reason. Hacking has become the preferred tool for a certain kind of thief, one who lifts money from electronic bank accounts and sells personal information, particularly as it relates to credit cards and passwords, in a thriving international Internet underground. Hacking has also become a method used for extortion, public humiliation, business disruption, intellectual property theft, espionage, and, possibly, war.
