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Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace
The bestselling account of a band of kids from New York who fought an electronic turf war that ranged across some of the nation's most powerful computer systems. "An immensely fun and -- one cannot emphasize this enough -- accessible history of the first outlaws in cyberspace."-- Glamour
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1995
26 people are currently reading
1878 people want to read
About the author
Michelle Slatalla
9 books6 followersMichelle Slatalla is a New York Times featured columnist and author of the book The Town on Beaver Creek: The Story of a Lost Kentucky Community. She is also a public speaker, and gave a lecture about "How Internet Has Changed Our Lives" at an alumni luncheon organized by the University of San Francisco. Her presentation is available at The MBA Podcast. She currently writes a weekly column for the New York Times called 'Cyberfamilias' which comments on how the Internet is changing family lifestyles. She lives in San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and her three daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
April 27, 2010
I followed this story as it unfolded in the early 90s 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 the 80s and early 90s, 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 long-forgotten BBS and read The History of MoD back in the old days.
This book probably deserves between 3 and 3.5 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 to 18 year-olds talk, but I found jarring and distracting. Ultimately, though, I graded it on a curve and rounded up to 4 because I loved the subject, and the opportunity it gave me to revisit a time when I explored what would become the internet, 80 columns at a time, at 14.4k, dreaming of connecting at 56k some day.
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 the 80s and early 90s, 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 long-forgotten BBS and read The History of MoD back in the old days.
This book probably deserves between 3 and 3.5 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 to 18 year-olds talk, but I found jarring and distracting. Ultimately, though, I graded it on a curve and rounded up to 4 because I loved the subject, and the opportunity it gave me to revisit a time when I explored what would become the internet, 80 columns at a time, at 14.4k, dreaming of connecting at 56k some day.
October 9, 2019
A must read boosk for EVERY software engineer or wannabe software engineers. The advice in the book is GEENRAL enough to benefit any professional pursuing their careers in any field and who aspire to be the best at what they do. Loved it!
June 24, 2025
Masters of Deception is a time capsule of online computing in the pre-internet age. Written in the mid-90s, it covers the true story of the group that gives the book its title, a loose organization of NYC-based hackers; teenagers with varied backgrounds (black, white, latino, mostly middle or lower middle class) and no real formal tech training. Fascinated by computers and early dial-up modem based connectivity, they absorb knowledge from BBS posts and face-to-face knowledge exchange. Their digital lives are essentially pre-security. Dumpster diving the phone company yields printouts with computer names and passwords, and that doesn’t work, the “boys” (as the authors constantly refer to the mostly-high schoolers) will simply call up a phone company service line and impersonate a field employee to get a key bit of knowledge. “Authority figures were just units in the great system that is life. They were individual lines of code, and if you used them the right way, you could get a predictable response. Power was something you could borrow.”
Between these techniques and simple trial-and-error (“when you are trying to feel your way through the cave, sometimes you just walk into the wall”) M.O.D. builds sufficient knowledge to unlock free long distance calling, changing the capabilities of a phone account, or even shutting down service at a substation (though they typically operate on a “do no harm” honor code, some do not, and there’s always the risk of unintended consequences).
The transitional nature of the era is one of the book’s highlights. Since so much knowledge was passed informally, the crew had gaping holes in their knowledge. One is so self-conscious about appearing uninformed, he sends a neighborhood girl to buy a modem for him, just to avoid the potential embarrassment of the salesperson asking questions he didn’t understand. Passwords and system info is scrawled in notebooks instead of stored in digital files. For both the boys and the investigators that start tracking them, there’s as much communication happening on the telephone as their is via computer terminal.
Masters of Deception drips in 90s culture and style, with a sarcastic, edgy writing style and references to plenty of touchpoints of the era like the movie WarGames, or the first, failed World Trade Center bombing in 1993. M.O.S. has online encounters with minor celebrities like David Barlow of the Grateful Dead, and up speaking with him on the phone. They hack into the credit report of Geraldo Riviera and Julia Roberts. The nascent Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) consider defending them when they are prosecuted for their exploits in the phone system, but back off when they decide it might jeopardize their political capital with the incoming Clinton administration. You can tell it was written in the 90s, not reminisced from a distance. The internet hadn’t yet gone mainstream, and the book has no sense of how that will change the tech and hacking landscape. This book is a fun read and real time machine on the intersection between information technology and mainstream society.
Between these techniques and simple trial-and-error (“when you are trying to feel your way through the cave, sometimes you just walk into the wall”) M.O.D. builds sufficient knowledge to unlock free long distance calling, changing the capabilities of a phone account, or even shutting down service at a substation (though they typically operate on a “do no harm” honor code, some do not, and there’s always the risk of unintended consequences).
The transitional nature of the era is one of the book’s highlights. Since so much knowledge was passed informally, the crew had gaping holes in their knowledge. One is so self-conscious about appearing uninformed, he sends a neighborhood girl to buy a modem for him, just to avoid the potential embarrassment of the salesperson asking questions he didn’t understand. Passwords and system info is scrawled in notebooks instead of stored in digital files. For both the boys and the investigators that start tracking them, there’s as much communication happening on the telephone as their is via computer terminal.
Masters of Deception drips in 90s culture and style, with a sarcastic, edgy writing style and references to plenty of touchpoints of the era like the movie WarGames, or the first, failed World Trade Center bombing in 1993. M.O.S. has online encounters with minor celebrities like David Barlow of the Grateful Dead, and up speaking with him on the phone. They hack into the credit report of Geraldo Riviera and Julia Roberts. The nascent Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) consider defending them when they are prosecuted for their exploits in the phone system, but back off when they decide it might jeopardize their political capital with the incoming Clinton administration. You can tell it was written in the 90s, not reminisced from a distance. The internet hadn’t yet gone mainstream, and the book has no sense of how that will change the tech and hacking landscape. This book is a fun read and real time machine on the intersection between information technology and mainstream society.
July 16, 2023
The Great Hacker War. It sounds corny, and it kinda was. Just a bunch of kids trolling one another by using and exploiting phone systems running the telecommunications of the 1980s United States. In Masters of Deception, Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner put a rhetorically pithy and stylish tone to the story of the infamous hacking group and their exploits and spoils in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s before the dawn of the Internet.
The book gives a broad history of the origins of MOD, the players in the hacking space in this era, what they did, how they did it, and what happened after. Seminal in that it marked a new era of “crime” in the US, these digital trespassers were dabbling in some dubious stuff, but ultimately did much less damage than what the government was coming after them for.
What Slatalla and Quittner excel at doing in this book is distilling highly technical information about the phone systems, early computing networks, and code hacking into a highly digestible narrative while being highly informative. I learned quite a lot about how hacking works in this book, the basics of intrusion, and what exactly happens once you’re “in” the system. Further, the narrative established by Slatall and Quittner is engrossing as we track what was essentially a “flame war” kicked off in part by casual online racism (someone dropped the n-word in a group call with a bunch of hackers, which one guy [John Lee, aka Corrupt] took personally enough to launch a vendetta).
Meanwhile, the government’s surveillance of a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings just goofing off online seems excessive, the punishments harsh, and ultimately, you are left wondering what would have happened had these cases gone even more public had they gone to trial. The crimes were vague. The damages were either $500 or millions. The injured parties were telecom megacorps whose injuries were barely perceptible—and in fact, had suffered more debilitating failures at their own code deployments, more than any hacker had ever done.
The story is engrossing, the style is sharp, pithy, but maybe a bit dated. The book is a highly entertaining and educational affair, especially enlightening in how (and who) shaped the early culture of what would become the Internet.
The book gives a broad history of the origins of MOD, the players in the hacking space in this era, what they did, how they did it, and what happened after. Seminal in that it marked a new era of “crime” in the US, these digital trespassers were dabbling in some dubious stuff, but ultimately did much less damage than what the government was coming after them for.
What Slatalla and Quittner excel at doing in this book is distilling highly technical information about the phone systems, early computing networks, and code hacking into a highly digestible narrative while being highly informative. I learned quite a lot about how hacking works in this book, the basics of intrusion, and what exactly happens once you’re “in” the system. Further, the narrative established by Slatall and Quittner is engrossing as we track what was essentially a “flame war” kicked off in part by casual online racism (someone dropped the n-word in a group call with a bunch of hackers, which one guy [John Lee, aka Corrupt] took personally enough to launch a vendetta).
Meanwhile, the government’s surveillance of a bunch of teens and twenty-somethings just goofing off online seems excessive, the punishments harsh, and ultimately, you are left wondering what would have happened had these cases gone even more public had they gone to trial. The crimes were vague. The damages were either $500 or millions. The injured parties were telecom megacorps whose injuries were barely perceptible—and in fact, had suffered more debilitating failures at their own code deployments, more than any hacker had ever done.
The story is engrossing, the style is sharp, pithy, but maybe a bit dated. The book is a highly entertaining and educational affair, especially enlightening in how (and who) shaped the early culture of what would become the Internet.
March 29, 2017
A 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 cyber-terrorists, 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'.
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 cyber-terrorists, 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'.
April 21, 2008
Brilliant, funny, and factual. A great account of the first PC cyberwar and its colorful players.
May 13, 2008
history of prankster phreakers in NYC - I found this very interesting since i work at a phone comapnies. man, this guys had mad skillz!
February 8, 2011
I wish Michelle Slatalla + Joshua Quittner would do a 2,500 word follow-up on all the characters in this book.
August 5, 2013
It’s 1989, 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, don’t 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 Telephone’s 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 haven’t been able to catch the eyes of the L O D. After a late-night 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 don’t 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. It’s 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 15, 1990, AT&T’s computer system crashes, leaving millions of subscribers without telephone service, and just like that, hacking is not just a game anymore. The boys didn’t 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 AT&T crash, the raids begin.
Reading this audiobook was like taking a trip down memory lane. In the late 80’s, 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: Commodore 64’s, Apple 2’s, TRS 80’s, and Vic 20’s. 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 layman’s 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 age’s pioneers.
Colby Elliott, who also happens to be the founder of Last Word Audio, has been working as a voice-over 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. I’m 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.
Steven Brandt @ Audiobook-Heaven
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 haven’t been able to catch the eyes of the L O D. After a late-night 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 don’t 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. It’s 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 15, 1990, AT&T’s computer system crashes, leaving millions of subscribers without telephone service, and just like that, hacking is not just a game anymore. The boys didn’t 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 AT&T crash, the raids begin.
Reading this audiobook was like taking a trip down memory lane. In the late 80’s, 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: Commodore 64’s, Apple 2’s, TRS 80’s, and Vic 20’s. 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 layman’s 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 age’s pioneers.
Colby Elliott, who also happens to be the founder of Last Word Audio, has been working as a voice-over 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. I’m 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.
Steven Brandt @ Audiobook-Heaven
November 1, 2015
A fascinating look into the early days of computer and telecommunications hacking. Michelle Slatalla takes us through the history of the Legion of Doom (LOD) and Masters of Deception (MOD), their on-line 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 non-technical.
Masters Of Deception as of this review was written 20 years 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 point-of-view. 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.
Masters Of Deception as of this review was written 20 years 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 point-of-view. 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.
June 8, 2009
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 for 30 years doing work on some of the systems described. An easy read, a fun book.
June 15, 2012
Bruce Sterling's seminal work "The Hacker Crackdown" is a tough act to follow, but Masters of Deception does a pretty good job of doing just that - by discussing the split between the Hacker group The Legion of Doom and The Masters of Deception - with a split over philosophy (among other things) - should Hackers be about elitism - whose Kung Fu is the strongest, or should it be about exploration and sharing knowledge, the original hacker spirit.
March 13, 2009
An entertaining tail of some silly, young and extremely smart hackers trying to get into systems they shouldn't.
August 21, 2017
Masters of Deception is simply an incredible novel about struggle, passion, and a run with the law. Michelle Slatalla writes to draw you in and live the lives of the young teen hackers yourself. You yourself live in Queens New York in 1989. You yourself are fascinated by the “simple” computer and wish to know everything there is to know about the complex, invisible system that controls our world. You yourself will get in a tangle with the federal law and how to deal with the struggle of trying to cover yourself up.
The third person novel is based around a young group of teenagers who all share a common passion of computers. Being the late 1980’s, everyone is fixated on this brand new technology that is only starting to break the mold and show off it’s capabilities. A brand new technology such as this has to come with a group of geeks who desperately want to learn about how such tech works. This is where Slatalla begins her story: A young kid who got to play with his father’s work computer and was immediately hooked. He made it his goal to one day own one of these machines for himself and learn everything there is to learn about it. This young kid, Eli, saves up all of his money and goes to buy himself a brand new shiny computer and telephone modem to hook up to it. Slatalla takes us through his thoughts and feelings while discovering new functions and operations for the first time. Eventually, he discovers these board rooms where one can have conversations with other people from around the world. This is where the fun starts. The board rooms are the gold mines for people just like Eli who want to know everything. These board rooms are where he meets the rest of the gang.
The pacing Slatalla uses to write the novel is perfect. It covers a month to month basis very thoroughly as she describes all of the kids’ adventures over the next two years. They figure out what they can do and all of a sudden a once harmless curiosity turns into a greed for publicity. And this publicity gains attention of more than just the general public.
Overall, Michelle Slatalla does a very nice job with her novel, Masters of Deception. The book is a very good read about a topic I didn’t know could be so interesting. The flow of the novel is beautiful and the way she recounts these intense events from the late 1980’s makes this book a bestseller. Highly recommend.
The third person novel is based around a young group of teenagers who all share a common passion of computers. Being the late 1980’s, everyone is fixated on this brand new technology that is only starting to break the mold and show off it’s capabilities. A brand new technology such as this has to come with a group of geeks who desperately want to learn about how such tech works. This is where Slatalla begins her story: A young kid who got to play with his father’s work computer and was immediately hooked. He made it his goal to one day own one of these machines for himself and learn everything there is to learn about it. This young kid, Eli, saves up all of his money and goes to buy himself a brand new shiny computer and telephone modem to hook up to it. Slatalla takes us through his thoughts and feelings while discovering new functions and operations for the first time. Eventually, he discovers these board rooms where one can have conversations with other people from around the world. This is where the fun starts. The board rooms are the gold mines for people just like Eli who want to know everything. These board rooms are where he meets the rest of the gang.
The pacing Slatalla uses to write the novel is perfect. It covers a month to month basis very thoroughly as she describes all of the kids’ adventures over the next two years. They figure out what they can do and all of a sudden a once harmless curiosity turns into a greed for publicity. And this publicity gains attention of more than just the general public.
Overall, Michelle Slatalla does a very nice job with her novel, Masters of Deception. The book is a very good read about a topic I didn’t know could be so interesting. The flow of the novel is beautiful and the way she recounts these intense events from the late 1980’s makes this book a bestseller. Highly recommend.
November 27, 2019
This is the tale of LOD v. MOD from the early 90s. No more, no less. The title is a selling point, as at no point was MOD (or LOD) a "gang" that "ruled cyberspace." This was no doubt a means of selling copies.
It is missing a lot of technical details that, had it been a deeper dive, would have made it more interesting for this reader. No doubt when this was published in 1995, it would have seemed almost unbelievable in parts. As someone who just scratched cracking and war dialing, it was another enjoyable-enough look back for nostalgia's sake. As a standalone book in 2019, however, it falls flat. The one fun thing for lay users (as with so many nonfiction works from the early days) are the references to and explanations of "obscure" things like the "Internet" (which connected some 20,000 subnetworks!) and the Cap'n Crunch whistle.
For similar walks down memory lane, but with more in-depth technical explanations (and law enforcement explanations) look to Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet for more factual origins, or Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell, to hear this story told better (about a different group of players).
It is missing a lot of technical details that, had it been a deeper dive, would have made it more interesting for this reader. No doubt when this was published in 1995, it would have seemed almost unbelievable in parts. As someone who just scratched cracking and war dialing, it was another enjoyable-enough look back for nostalgia's sake. As a standalone book in 2019, however, it falls flat. The one fun thing for lay users (as with so many nonfiction works from the early days) are the references to and explanations of "obscure" things like the "Internet" (which connected some 20,000 subnetworks!) and the Cap'n Crunch whistle.
For similar walks down memory lane, but with more in-depth technical explanations (and law enforcement explanations) look to Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Origins of the Internet for more factual origins, or Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell, to hear this story told better (about a different group of players).
October 15, 2017
A true story about brilliant young hackers in the late 1980s. 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.
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.
September 23, 2018
A fairly interesting romp through an early gang of hackers back when everything was done on phone lines. Very dated, but gives some perspective on the personalities and mindsets that can lead to this type of behavior (which is even more prevalent today) even among young hackers.
November 15, 2019
Maybe this would have been more interesting 10 years ago. Tech crimes of 2019 have surpassed what these kids were doing, so much so the whole book is boring. It’s complete overkill for crimes the world didn’t even understand yet committed by kids.
May 15, 2021
I enjoyed the writing style of this couple. Found it quite entertaining. Very informative. As you follow along, you notice the typical teen immaturity the hackers possess... while also displaying great talent and technical skills. Well done.
February 1, 2024
Very interesting non-fiction about a group of teenaged hackers from a time when there was no internet and kids were hacking into major telephone computer systems using dial up modems and Commodore 64s.
February 16, 2024
Overall, I liked the book and it gave me a new perspective into how the whole technology space was back then (as I’m 19 so I’ve never had to use a pay phone and all of that). It was an interesting story all together and had my attention the whole way through.
February 23, 2018
A little heavy on the background of all the primaries, but a fantastic journey through the wires with teenaged explorers in the 80's.
July 31, 2018
Very excellent book.
March 31, 2020
Pretty fun ride, not very well written but an interesting insight into an infamous (and hackingly great) period of time, on the cusp of the transition from the pre- to the post-internet age.
August 4, 2020
Masters of deception: the gang that ruled cyberspace.
By Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner
I rated this book an eight/ten.
By Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner
I rated this book an eight/ten.
May 28, 2022
Early days of computers, modems, phones, all that beeping!
August 25, 2022
Highly engaging, miraculously simple, and admirably clear.
February 21, 2023
Great piece of hacking history. It jumps around a bit but that's to be expected with this kind of non-fiction.
June 29, 2023
good input for those in cyber security and/or revers engineering
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