The Cyberthief and the Samurai

by Jeff Goodell

Kevin Mitnick was the most wanted hacker in the world.

He was called "The Condor," and "Mr. Cyberpunk."  He was a rebel.  A loner.  A poor kid from California thumbing his nose at society as he hacked into phone companies, international corporations--and possibly even the U.S. Military Command.

The FBI couldn't stop him.  And they sure as hell couldn't catch him.

Then Kevin Mitnick did the "impossible."  He got into the personal home computer of the man considered by many a master of cybersecurity, Tsutomu Shimomura.  That computer held data for advanced security systems and top secret intrusion and surveillance tools.

Shimomura--a modern-day intellectual samurai--decided Mitnick had to be stopped.  He had the high-tech gadgets and the brains to do it.

Now the leading expert on computer crime made it a matter of honor to bring America's most notorious computer criminal to justice.  But the Information Highway is the perfect place to run, hide and get away with dirty tricks...

Let the battle begin.

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, True Crime

328 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published February 1, 1996

About the author

Jeff Goodell’s latest book is The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. He is the author of six previous books, including The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World, which was a New York Times Critics Top Book of 2017. He has covered climate change for more than two decades at Rolling Stone and discussed climate and energy issues on NPR, MSNBC, CNN, CNBC, ABC, NBC, Fox News and The Oprah Winfrey Show. He is a Senior Fellow at the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center and a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow.

Reviews

[Nick Black · Rating 2 out of 5]

by far the worst of the classic Mitnick trio (see also The Fugitive Game and Takedown)

[Christopher M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Kevin Mitnick"

If you were in the IT industry and someone mentioned that name to you, not knowing at least who it was would be like a sports fan not knowing the names "Michael Jordan" or "Joe Montana".

In Jeff Goodell's book "The Cyberthief and the Samurai", we get to follow both the hunter and hunted through a chase which left only electronic trails or, sometimes, no trails at all. I enjoyed both sides of the tale, myself - as Kevin does have an 'underdog' quality that I admire, and he played the perfect rabbit to Tsutomu Shimomura's wolf, this tale of true crime keeping me on the edge of my seat as I rode along on an action story too fantastic to be fiction.

[M. W. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really fun and nerdy account of the events that led to Kevin Mitnick's incarceration. I've read this book at least seven times....it's sooooo cyberpunk.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read, not as good as Cyberpunk

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Engaging true story that reads like fiction.

[manka · Rating 2 out of 5]

Začátek mne moc nebavil, ke konci se to zlepšilo, ale musím říct, že od knihy s takovýmhle názvem bych čekala zábavnější brak. Ale asi nejsem správná cílovka, věřím, že mikrobratr tohle ocení...