My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker

Kevin Mitnick was the most elusive computer break-in artist in history. He accessed computers and networks at the world’s biggest companies–and however fast the authorities were, Mitnick was faster, sprinting through phone switches, computer systems, and cellular networks. He spent years skipping through cyberspace, always three steps ahead and labeled unstoppable. But for Kevin, hacking wasn’t just about technological feats-it was an old fashioned confidence game that required guile and deception to trick the unwitting out of valuable information.

Driven by a powerful urge to accomplish the impossible, Mitnick bypassed security systems and blazed into major organizations including Motorola, Sun Microsystems, and Pacific Bell. But as the FBI’s net began to tighten, Kevin went on the run, engaging in an increasingly sophisticated cat and mouse game that led through false identities, a host of cities, plenty of close shaves, and an ultimate showdown with the Feds, who would stop at nothing to bring him down.

Ghost in the Wires is a thrilling true story of intrigue, suspense, and unbelievable escape, and a portrait of a visionary whose creativity, skills, and persistence forced the authorities to rethink the way they pursued him, inspiring ripples that brought permanent changes in the way people and companies protect their most sensitive information.

Kevin Mitnick was infamous to us nerds in the 90s, and I remember reading a bit about him back then when I was young. The image that comes to mind is the movie Hackers, and Swordfish from the ridiculous punching into keyboards and breaking into the NSA. In reality it isn’t like that, its just the flaws that these systems that Kevin managed to figure out and take full advantage of them. Starting from the 80s all the way to the mid 90s, and people were scared from what they didn’t know and they didn’t know what hacking was so they feared it. This story is far from technical and its rather exciting as you see how he dodged so many companies & the FBI and how he managed to infiltrate so many companies. Now its an even bigger reality we face a totally digital world and it is far from secure, it was a very entertaining read and picked up pace as it went along and you see what the government will do when they want someone, and a lot of laws are broken along the way.

Link: Amazon
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At some point in time I used to know a large amount of the books I have, but now I have piles of them sitting on different parts of the room and some of them getting dangerously high. When I go through a few piles, I realize there were some books I wanted to read and follow up on at a later stage. I know the books that I read but the ones that go unread sometimes disappear and I forget to follow up on them, until I find them later hidden inside a cabinet or the back of a shelf. So to organize this large mess of items there are two softwares that I have been looking at, one is the usually awesome Delicious Library which has advanced greatly but there is one other very viable option which is Collectorz Home Library, two options to choose from.

Delicious Library 2
Price: $35

Pros:

• Can categorize anything: Books, Movies, Music, Electronics, Toys, Tools, & Video Games
• Scanning through the computer Camera
• Smart Shelf to Organize your Items

Cons:

• Mac Only
• No App for the iPad, iPhone, or Android, Just exporting to the iPhone

Collectorz Home Library
Price: $49
Pros:

• Works on Both Mac & Windows
• App for iPad, iPhone, & Android
• Very good categorizing

Cons:

• Only for Books (If you just want it for books then this doesn’t matter to you)
• You have to enter the ISBN number or enter it through a scanner, not through the computer camera
• There are other versions from Collectorz but have to be purchased individually

Are people reading more with E-Readers these days? Do people read more Books or E-Readers? I have an iPad but I have started reading comics again because of my iPad. So people put together an infographic, there is an infographic for everything and this one is from GOOD and Column Five. It seems E-reader owners not only read more books, but purchase more than their bibliophile holdout equivalents. For me I am sticking to my books for now, there is no better feeling then that book in hand, I will see how I think about it when I get my Kindle Fire.

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To be honest I do believe that Steve Job’s was one of my favorite CEO’s he did a lot for animation industry and the challenged the computer industry and every other media and technology industry out there. He certainly left his dent in the universe people are still trying to wrap their heads around his loss. At least you get to hear the story of the man himself, I’m not much for Biographies but this one I am going to read giving you an inside look inside Steve Job’s life. Written by hand-picked biographer Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs by Walter Issacsson tells the tale of Steve’s professional and personal life, informed by unprecedented access to Jobs, his family, friends, and co-workers, including details of his final days at Apple, and reflections from Jobs as he faced what he called “Life’s greatest invention.” Rest in peace, o turtlenecked one. You will be missed.

Link: Amazon

G.I. Joe: Tales from the Cobra Wars is an action-packed collection of all-original prose stories. Flint, Scarlett, Destro, the Baroness; they’re all here as the ongoing war between G.I. JOE and Cobra is depicted from every angel. This trade paperback presents eight novella-length tales, penned by today’s leading crime and thriller writers, such as Jonathan Maberry, Duane Swierczynski , Chuck Dixon, and Dennis Tafoya. Cobra Wars is edited by Max Brooks, who also supplies a new story, and features new illustrations for each story.

This is one of the easier reads that I have laying around the office, I always wondered when I would read so I just picked it up a few weeks ago and started reading it. First off if you are a fan of G.I.Joe then you have to pick up this book, its written in short story form, like mission logs and you have to be familiar with the characters from G.I.Joe because they jump right into it. Each short story is written by a different writer who works with the G.I.Joe Comics and all of it is edited by Max Brooks (World War Z). There are some stories that gets your blood pumping and a few times I was slightly confused because I wasn’t totally familiar with all the characters, overall it was a fun read and I would have wanted the stories to be a little longer because you do get caught up in them and by the end of the book the good guys aren’t winning.

Link: Amazon
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Its like a bonus of items, I love getting packages like these, full of things that I have been looking forward and piling them up together in my mailbox to be shipped together. I preordered the BluRay edition of Star Wars from May or June and now that I have it I have no clue when I’m going to watch all 6 movies, but I want to do it one shot and require people to watch it with.

Books:

• Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker
• Man Machine – Max Barry

Picked up a couple of books that I am looking forward to reading and a couple of design books that I would enjoy going through. Then I picked up the Star Wars special edition Moleskines both the small and large notebooks and I love having them but don’t want to use it. I have other Moleskines that I can use, the normal ones, I like collecting these special edition Moleskines.

With the release of special edition Blu-Ray set of Star Wars Moleskine have come up with these journals. There is one thing that I can’t resist buying it is these journals, I seriously can not get enough of them, I already bought them and waiting for them to be delivered. I love that Moleskine keep coming up with these very interesting special edition notebooks. I honestly don’t write enough in them but I do try to sketch and write down notes as much as possible. The journals come in both Empire and Rebellion flavors, the biggest difference being the Empire variety is “ruled” while Rebel journal remains “unruled.” I got both the large and pocket size in the Empire and Rebellion designs, a must have for any Star Wars fan. Check out the fun video below at the end.

Link: Moleskine

A little while ago I posted about the Belgium Photographer who managed to get the confidence of the Yakuza. I didn’t find out except after a little roaming around that he put together a book of all the photographs and details, that book had a limited edition run and was sold out extremely quickly. This time around he is making another edition of the book which will be available in limited quantities by October 30th, I personally loved the photographs and jumped at the possibility of buying the book, so I bought two.

To buy the book click this link: AntonKusters Buy Book
To see more photographs click this link: Photographs

The larger then life stories of our time are all owned by someone, turns out they are owned by a few big companies. This is a very nicely done chart that shows which company is a subsidiary of another and what story line they own, Time Warner and Walt Disney Corporation seem to have a vast wealth of movie rights to these stories.

Click the picture for a larger image

Link: iO9

After being dumped by his longtime girlfriend, twenty-eight-year-old Justin Halpern found himself living at home with his seventy-three-year-old dad. Sam Halpern, who is “like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair,” has never minced words, and when Justin moved back home, he began to record all the ridiculous things his dad said to him:

“That woman was sexy. . . . Out of your league? Son, let women figure out why they won’t screw you. Don’t do it for them.”

“Do people your age know how to comb their hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their heads and started fucking.”

“The worst thing you can be is a liar. . . . Okay, fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but then number two is liar. Nazi one, liar two.”

More than a million people now follow Mr. Halpern’s philosophical musings on Twitter, and in this book, his son weaves a brilliantly funny, touching coming-of-age memoir around the best of his quotes. An all-American story that unfolds on the Little League field, in Denny’s, during excruciating family road trips, and, most frequently, in the Halperns’ kitchen over bowls of Grape-Nuts, Sh*t My Dad Says is a chaotic, hilarious, true portrait of a father-son relationship from a major new comic voice.

I watched the show before reading the book and I can tell where they got their great inspiration. Sh*t My Dad Says is f’ing great! Very funny, very irreverent, very real. When I was reading the book I could hear William Shatner’s voice in my head saying all these things to his kid, and being as stubborn as usual. It’s refreshing at a time when we’re all choking to death on political correctness and can go for days without meeting a single person with common sense. The things he says is what you think about saying but never do, he loves his family in his own way. The book is a very easy with short stories and quotes all over the place, and hilarious read, if you haven’t read it then you are really missing out.

Link: Amazon
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