Author: Ed Piskor
Publisher: Top Shelf Comix
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review. The chance to read a new book is often enough reward aplenty!
This one had me at the cover. Now I'm pissed off that I didn't think of that first! This graphic novel follows closely the real life of Kevin Mitnick, here naming him Kevin Phenicle. I have no idea where that came from unless it's somehow a reference ot Phenic acid. Maybe it's pure invention. The novel tells the story of his initial hacking attempts (the LA transit system, believe it or not, to get free rides!) of his being bullied, and of his subsequent initiation into phone phreaking (the first real form of hacking). All of this takes place at an early age, and is prep school for his alter forays into computer hacking. His best asset was what's known as "social engineering" - finding out secrets from people just by being friendly and sociable towards them. Mitnick excelled at this.
At the time of his arrest in 1995, a pursuit documented in Tsutomu_Shimomura's Takedown (1996, Hyperion Books, which I recommend reading in tandem with Mitnick's side of the story) Mitnick was the most-wanted hacker in the USA. The events have been made into a movie known as "Track Down", which as of this writing I have not seen. The hacker quarterly, 2600 produced a documentary titled Freedom Downtime in response to the movie There has been considerable controversy over these events, and Mitnick's resultant arrest and trial and imprisonment. Mitnick has written his own book (one of many since he was released from jail) about these events including some serious criticism of the story related in Takedown. As of this writing I have not read Mitnick's book. Mitnick now runs his own computer security consulting business.
This graphic novel is done in black and white line drawings, which are skillfully executed but very basic. Dialog is sparse. Contrary to popular media stories of hacking, especially those in film, this novel tells it much more like it really is. The most successful hacks (until those which have been in the news recently, such as the stuxnet business in Iran) weren't done in Mitnick's era by someone using advanced hacking software, but by tried and proven methods of dumpster-diving (finding vital passwords and log on information from discarded business materials), and from social engineering (befriending or becoming an acquaintance of someone on the inside, and using information garnered from interactions with them to derive passwords and network navigation information.
I recommend this graphic novel. It's a really interesting piece of history and it makes a fine tale, well-told.
