
Ask HN: Recommendations of good cybercrime novels? - init-as
I recently read American Kingping by Nick Bilton and I thought it was really good. It’s about the founder of the Silk Road and how the FBI tracked him down.<p>Can you recommend any similiar novels?
======
wpietri
This isn't quite in the category, but John Carreyrou's nonfiction book "Bad
Blood", which covered the rise and fall of Theranos, satisfied me in a similar
way. There's plenty of crime, although it's really about pretending to be
high-tech rather than actually being high tech. For people in tech who love a
good fraud story, I highly recommend it.

~~~
brk
Just finished this one and really enjoyed it. I will say, it would have been
infuriating to read if I didn't already know the story ended with her
takedown.

~~~
jonwinstanley
Spoiler alert?

~~~
dmix
Only if you have managed to ignore every major story about Theranos/Elizabeth
for the last couple years...

------
GavinMcG
_The Cuckoo 's Egg_, by Cliff Stoll.

~~~
preya2k
Second this. Fantastic book about true events. If you like the story, there is
also a movie which covers the same events as the book. The movie is called
"23" and is available in German and English.

~~~
superice
I know the movie as 'The KGB, the computer, and me':
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FTac](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcKxaq1FTac)

~~~
asragab
Thanks for this, just started watching it now!

------
dsr_
We Were Gods, by Alex Feinman. Among other things, it contains an amazing
scene describing an attack on a race condition from inside a fantasy game's
magic system.

Here's part of it:

Giggling a little from the alcohol, the four points began the slow juggling
routine I'd sent them; just a simple ball passing, in rhythm. Pass, pass,
pass. Throw and catch in the same instant; the balls went round and round
until all four were landing in palms at the same time, four little smacks
merging into one sound. Their avatars were better at this than they were.
After a moment I threw another ball in, then another, until there were eight
in the circle: four in the air, four in the hand. Faster and faster they went
round, until there were little streaks of light behind them, until the streaks
almost formed a complete, rippling circle.

Around us the world leaned in, currents of energy creating a field of magic
potential. Rhythmic motion always attracted the attention of the underlying
world routines as they struggled to incorporate it into the ebbs and flows of
the wind and water; a vortex here, at one of the two hearts of the world, drew
a lot of processing power. And each point of the cross was a magic-using
engine; those strands of energy consumed a surprising amount of resources. But
the real trick was the synchronization: slight imperfections in the coding
routines for distribution and rationing of magical energy made them
susceptible to a timing attack. It was a matter of chance, though; each time
the circle tossed and caught, quanta of energy were requested at nearly-
identical times. Sooner or later the system would try to service two at once
and--ah.

One of the balls vanished momentarily, lost to accounting for a brief instant
before the system found it again. It left a tiny kink in the circle of light
as it passed: an opening, into the collection routines. This was what my
watch-spell was waiting for: a chance to insert my own instructions into the
information transmission stream: instructions that said 'open', 'open'.

[https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/396337](https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/396337)

------
beat
In a hard SF rather than contemporary context, _A Deepness in the Sky_ , by
Vernor Vinge, is an absolute delight (and a Hugo winner for best novel). Vinge
was a mathematics and computer science professor, and very much knows what
he's talking about.

Part of the fun is that, on a 5000 year old spaceship set arbitrarily far in
our future, long past the end of Moore's Law, all the systems are still
running Unix. And one of the jobs on board is "Programmer-Archeologist",
digging through generations of code to try to find useful bits from the past.
But story-wise, there's some outstanding hacking ideas going.

~~~
munin
Same author wrote _True Names_, which pre-dates the internet and yet nails a
bunch of internet crime concepts (it's not about black ICE it's about someone
doxing you, etc). Some sci-fi authors had a vision of the future, Vinge went
on a 3 month vacation to the future.

------
harel
Two books come to mind (while excluding the obvious absolute classics like
Neuromancer (William Gibson) and Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson):

"Cryptonomicon" by Neal Stephenson. It goes from WW2 to modern time.

"Cyberpunk" by Katie Hafner - Read it aeons ago so working from long term
memory. 3 real world stories of famous hackers and their "crimes" (Kevin
Mitnick, Pengo, Robert Morris).

~~~
power
The last being one of the founders of ycombinator

~~~
harel
Didn't know that...

------
r3bl
Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter.

It talks about the Stuxnet and the story behind it, and I got the chance to
learn some fairly interesting stuff in the meantime (like the complexity of
building a nuclear bomb).

I found it much more useful than the American Kingpin, which just _mentions_
that Tor and Bitcoin offer anonymity online, but doesn't get anywhere even
close to explaining either of the technologies that are crucial for the
storyline.

We Are Anonymous by Parmy Olson also made me feel kind of the same, but the
writing wasn't quite as engaging as the Countdown to Zero Day was.

~~~
hectorr1
Sanger's Confront and Conceal has a great chapter on Stuxnet / Olympic Games
as well.

------
amingilani
Ghost in the Wire by Kevin Mitnick.

I can't believe no one recommended this. The guy literally evaded the FBI
using technology.

~~~
mulletbum
And I don't know if someone helped him write the book, but the story is
amazingly good. It is exactly what you look for in a hacking story, someone
outwitting people combined will some phone phreaking. Very good book, I would
recommend.

~~~
thro_awayz_days
Can't upvote this comment enough. Incredible story.

------
ngoldbaum
“git commit murder” is a story in the style of a detective novel set at a BSD
convention. Not sure if it counts as “cybercrime” because it’s about a murder
but of course the motive and circumstances only make sense in terms of the
internal politics of a fictional BSD distribution. It’s also a really
authentic description of what it’s like to be at a technical conference as a
newcomer where you don’t know anyone.

------
divan
"Stealing the network" series by Ryan Russel is awesome.

    
    
      - Stealing the Network: How to Own the Box
      - Stealing the Network: How to Own a Continent
      - Stealing the Network: How to Own an Identity
      - Stealing the Network: How to Own a Shadow

~~~
e12e
Came here to make sure someone mentioned these. Might not qualify as _great_
fiction imnho - but the technical detail more than makes up for it. And the
books _are_ entertaining.

I see people's mentioned Stephenson's "Cryptonomicon" \- while I loved
"diamond age" and like "snowcrash" \- I much prefer Singh's "the codebook" on
a similar theme. Thrilling non-fiction.

On the more fiction side, I enjoyed Bruce Sterling's "The Zenith Angle" a lot.

And second the recommendations for Mitnick's books - both the autobiography
"ghost in the wires" and the more free form "made up examples" in "the art of
deception" (like many of the stories in the stealing the network books,
"inspired" by true events...).

Other than that there's of course:
[https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/](https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/)

(and to a lesser extent "homeland").

And others mentioned the non-fiction book detailing operation sun devil:

"THE HACKER CRACKDOWN Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier", Bruce
Sterling

[http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/101](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/101)

[ed: I think maybe "Rainbows End" by Vernor Vinge deserves a mention too. And
maybe "speed of Dark" by Elizabeth Moon]

------
ovi256
_Reamde_ , by Neal Stephenson.

Yeah, the big daddy of cyberpunk ("Snowcrash") also wrote a contemporary
technothriller set in organized cybercrime organizations.

~~~
menacingly
I'm a big Stephenson fan, and I thought Reamde was terrible.

His usual quirky pacing just turns into a dragging nightmare that never pays
off, it's uncharacteristically full of questionable technical premises, and if
it weren't for a few islands of genuinely entertaining scenes I would not have
made it through.

I honestly believe it's the result of some suit pressuring him to write about
topics people see on Dateline

~~~
pavel_lishin
It definitely dragged on, but overall I thought it was enjoyable. He
definitely kept building up to climaxes throughout the whole book - on an
airplane, I kept sadly checking the percentage read because I was sure I was
almost done with it, only to discover that I was only 30%, 50%, 70% along...

If you're a Stephenson fan, I would absolutely give this a read.

------
walterbell
The Defcon book list ("peek behind the curtain" and "underground culture") is
a good starting place, [https://www.defcon.org/html/links/book-
list.html](https://www.defcon.org/html/links/book-list.html)

~~~
sshine
All my recommendations happen to be mentioned on this list, so I'll mention
them here:

\- Stealing the Network, a collection of short stories. One of those stories
was written by Fyodor of nmap and is available online:
[http://insecure.org/stc/](http://insecure.org/stc/) \-- this sort of works
like a tutorial for nmap and networking security. :-D

\- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson

\- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

\- Neuromancer by William Gibson

------
modernerd
Lock In by John Scalzi.

[https://www.tor.com/2014/05/21/lock-in-john-scalzi-
excerpt-c...](https://www.tor.com/2014/05/21/lock-in-john-scalzi-excerpt-
chapter-1/)

Wil Wheaton's narration is great too. I listened to the audiobook and think
about it a lot.

It's a techno whodunit — hacking and cracking neural dust/lace, remotely
renting and operating physical bodies and committing crimes while “occupying”
them, and bio/techno ethics all play a role.

In Scalzi's future, locked-in patients receive so much government funding to
improve their lives that they gain more abilities and advantages than those
who aren't “locked in”, which makes for an interesting inversion.

~~~
sdoering
I would throw in the sequel "Head on". Same universe - just some time later.
The audiobook is also narrated by Wil Wheaton. And it is great as always.

Offtopic. I would blindly recommend all books in the combination Wheaton
narrating Scalzi. But esp. "The Collapsing Empire" (I can't wait for the next
part to be released in October).

------
gm-conspiracy
Cory Doctorow's _Little Brother_. I could not put it down, and read it in one
sitting.

~~~
dhtns
In the spirit of the fact that a few of these book suggestions have been made
available online for free, I feel obligated to point out that Cory Doctorow
has chosen to make both _Little Brother_ and _Homeland_ (the sequel to _Little
Brother_ , mentioned by another commenter) available in a few different
formats on his website. [1] [2]

[1]
[https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/](https://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/)

[2]
[https://craphound.com/homeland/download/](https://craphound.com/homeland/download/)

------
Dowwie
"Daemon" or "Kill Decision" by Daniel Suarez

"Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson

~~~
bovermyer
I'll second _Daemon_. It's a really good novel.

~~~
hmhrex
If you read Daemon, you really need to read FreedmonTM. It's a direct sequel,
and almost has a hopeful vision of the future where Daemon has a dismal
vision.

~~~
bovermyer
I've wondered about whether there was a sequel, given how _Daemon_ ends.

~~~
hmhrex
Honestly, I feel like the story is incomplete without the sequel. It made the
whole idea even better.

------
pjc50
Bruce Sterling's _The Hacker Crackdown_ (nonfiction, now freeware). Lots of
important early hacker history and run-ins with the authorities, plus the
origin story of the EFF.

------
solotechno
Similar title, different book:

Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground by
Kevin Poulsen ISBN-978-0307588692

The story of how credit card hacker Max Butler was caught by the FBI.

~~~
stef25
Late reply to say I immensely enjoyed this book. Highly recommended.

------
tribeofone
Halting State by Charlie Stross

~~~
fencepost
As others have said, also its sequel Rule 34. It's been a while since I read
these, but I don't recall anything in there that jumped out at me as "you
can't get there from here."

There was originally supposed to be a third novel in this series, but Stross
cancelled it[0] after Edward Snowden.

 _" Halting State" wasn't intended to be predictive when I started writing it
in 2006. Trouble is, about the only parts that haven't happened yet are
Scottish Independence and the use of actual quantum computers for cracking
public key encryption (and there's a big fat question mark over the
latter—what else are the NSA up to?).

I'm throwing in the towel. I probably will write another near-future Scottish
police procedural by and by, but it won't be a sequel to the first two except
in the loosest sense. The science fictional universe of "Halting State" and
"Rule 34" is teetering on the edge of turning into reality. Meanwhile, the
financial crisis of 2007 forced me back to the drawing board for "Rule 34";
the Snowden revelations have systematically trashed all my ideas for the third
book._

[0] [http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-
why-...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2013/12/psa-why-there-
wont-be-a-third-.html)

------
dhtns
"The Right to Read" by Richard Stallman[1] is certainly not a novel, but it is
a short bit of fiction about cybercrime (or rather, what would happen if
certain day-to-day developer activities were made criminal) and is certainly
worth the <20 minutes that it takes to read.

I seem to recall that it received a bit of hysterical "oh that could never
happen" reaction when it was released but I can't seem to find a source for
that recollection. It may have mostly been a reaction that was generated by
the somewhat emotive backlash that tends to appear whenever Stallman makes a
statement about "freedom" though, and the story certainly is allegorical, so
anyone who disagreed with him may have posted about it online and skewed the
discussion in that direction. I can't recall much about the specific reaction
at the time (it was more than 10 years ago now) though so much of the above is
really just poorly-informed speculation on my part.

It is, unfortunately, disappointingly prescient and it's something that I
think everyone working in the tech industry should read, regardless of whether
they think they agree with RMS's views on software freedom and intellectual
property.

[1] [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-
read.en.html](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html)

Edit: I just re-read it and my initial estimate of "<20 minutes" was way off.
I had forgotten just how short the story actually was, so perhaps my
recollection about the reaction to the allegory isn't entirely accurate
either. Nonetheless, I'm leaving this comment here as witness to the
fallibility of my memory.

------
sateesh
"Hard-boiled Wonderland and end of the world" by Murakami. Not exactly a
cybercrime novel. But I find the novel to be resonant with SF/cyberpunk
subculture and an engrossing read too.

------
Randin
Try Daemon and Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez.

~~~
eps
Daemon was virtually unreadable.

It's a hacker-themed fairtale for computer illiterate, basically. I had a non-
techy friend borrow the book and they too couldn't finish it, because it was
just way over acceptable believability limits even for them.

~~~
madmax108
Ohh man, for me it was EXACTLY the opposite. Daemon was one of the finest
examples of a book in the cybercrime genre. It was one of those "Black Mirror"
style entertainment: Take known tech and push it towards dystopia style
stories. Daemon was was super-fun, and absolutely un-putdownable (Literally
read it in a single sitting IIRC).

Almost all the tech (Self driving cars, distributed systems, daemons that can
self replicate (viruses), collaborative systems, a Darknet all exist in some
form or the other today! Is it fantasy? Duh!

Is it a fun read for someone who works building these exact systems fora
living? Definitely!

~~~
anon-anon
Completely agree. Everything is possible in it. If there was indeed someone
who had a far surpassed genius level of IQ and tech know how, and dedicated
hours of their time to developing the stuff with an unlimited budget (which
basically is what Matthew Sobol supposedly has) then I could easily understand
how a lot of things in that book could become reality.

Either way - a fun read and a good book to re-visit. One of the few that I
read every few years or so...

~~~
pavel_lishin
Looking back on it now, I think the one thing that's really _not_ plausible is
the idea that someone could write a system that can anticipate _anything_ that
can happen. It was a little too Foundation/Psychohistory for me.

But it was still a fantastic novel, I loved reading it, and will probably re-
read it again and again.

~~~
jefurii
Did you read Freedom(TM)? It's a "sequel" but is really the second half of the
novel. Addresses your critique in a very interesting way.

~~~
pavel_lishin
I did, yup. I was actually super mad at Daemon; I always try to get people to
get both at once, to avoid the cliffhanger.

I don't think it address it _enough_ ; it made it more plausible by admitting
that it can't be completely autonomous, but I'm not entirely sold. Having said
that, I still love the series, much like I love any fantasy novel :P

------
terminalcommand
Mark Russinovich's Jeff Aiken Trilogy. If you're looking for a quality
bestseller similar to Dan Brown books.

Zero day, Trojan Horse and Rogue Code are all excellent novels. Some common
themes include computer virus epidemics, cyber armies, cyber warfare, dangers
of an overnetworked but undersecured society

~~~
actf
Second this suggestion. As others have noted his books probably aren't going
to win any literary awards, but they are fun entertaining reads. There are
some similarities in subject matter to some of Dan Brown's books, but
Russinovich is a former Microsoft employee (and iirc he wrote the sys
intervals suite of tools) so his are much more technically detailed, and
accurate then what you would find in Dan Brown.

------
GuB-42
Takedown by Tsutomo Shimomura

That's the story of how Kevin Mitnick got caught. Very controversial so I
can't say it's good. I still enjoyed it back then.

Note that the question is about novels, and I think it is how you should read
the book. I seriously doubt its credibility when it comes to facts.

~~~
paulie_a
I never understood the fame of mitnick. He was a loser and not very talented.
He is the equivalent of a Kardashian for fame

Kevin Paulson at least had some actual skills.

~~~
nbabitskiy
Read his book, if you haven't yet. He's honest, likable guy, always curious
(and hungry) to live. He wouldn't have scored high in a coding competition,
but it makes his accomplishments only more impressive.

Being "talented" and "winning" looks like a railroad track, interesting life
is worth more imho

~~~
paulie_a
I've read it. I believe he smashed the detective in the face with a garbage
can lid to escape. Not exactly very likeable.

Also he literally lied to a ton of people to gain access to systems. So not
very honest

~~~
nbabitskiy
I need a reality check sometimes. As a Russian, I naturally look at abusing
cops or lying to phone company clerks as a good thing, but it's obviously my
national deformation.

However, he is honest to his readers, which is the best honesty we could ask
for from a book.

------
alfon
On the topic of Non-fiction cybercrime books, one that provides very good
insight imho on the history of spam albeit a little hard to follow is "Spam
Nation", by Brian Krebs

~~~
iooi
"Spam Kings" isn't bad either. A bit dated, but it's a good history of one of
the earlier spam operations.

------
mamcx
Not a book, but Person of Interest is a _very good_ serial about cyber stuff &
IA. Plus, more of the thing the team do is cyber-crime or gray-hacking.

------
Faaak
Citing Wikipedia: "Blackout: Tomorrow Will Be Too Late" is a disaster thriller
book by the Austrian author Marc Elsberg, described by Penguin Books as "a
21st-century high-concept disaster thriller".

The novel is about a European power outage due to a cyberattack. For realism
the book is written on the basis of interviews with intelligence and computer
security officials.

~~~
trampi
I read it some weeks ago and can definitely recommend it. It was a departing
gift from my university, a very fitting one for computer science students if
you ask me.

------
JoelMcCracken
Recently I enjoyed [https://www.amazon.com/Strength-Numbers-Cryptocurrency-
Bill-...](https://www.amazon.com/Strength-Numbers-Cryptocurrency-Bill-
Laboon/dp/1981526730/)

Basically a novel about a couple of college students who find some lost
bitcoin in the near future, and the drama that ensues.

I thought the book was super interesting.

------
Flenser
Computer Crimes and Capers

Edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg & Charles G. Waugh

Publication date 1983

Table of Contents:

    
    
        Introduction -- crime up to date      Isaac Asimov
        DARL I LUV U                          Joe Gores
        An end of spinach                     Stan Dryer
        Computers don't argue                 Gordon R. Dickson
        Goldbrick                             Edward Wellen
        Computer cops                         Edward D. Hoch
        Sam Hall                              Poul Anderson
        Spanner in the works                  J.T. McIntosh
        While-you-wait                        Edward Wellen
        Getting across                        Robert Silverberg
        All the troubles of the world         Isaac Asimov
    

Borrow for 14 days on Archive.org:

[https://archive.org/details/computercrimesca00asim](https://archive.org/details/computercrimesca00asim)

------
paultownsend
"Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace" is a true crime story
covering the late 80s/early 90s era of hacking in the US, and a conflict[0]
between two prominent hacker groups of the time - LOD[1] and MOD[2] - which
mostly consisted of smart teenage kids who were just obsessed with computers
and telephone networks. It's unquestionably one of my favourite books.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hacker_War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hacker_War)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_Doom_(hacking)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_of_Doom_\(hacking\))

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Deception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masters_of_Deception)

------
EvanAnderson
You said "novels", so I'm assuming you're looking for fiction. If that's the
case I enjoyed Jon Evans' "Swarm":
[http://m.feedbooks.com/userbook/24466/swarm](http://m.feedbooks.com/userbook/24466/swarm)

~~~
init-as
I just assumed that a lot of them would be novels. If you have any
recommendations for real-life stuff I’d love that too.

------
mordant
OP asked about _novels_. Here are a few excellent novels in this genre which I
highly recommend:

 _Soda Pop Solider_ by Nick Cole

 _Ctrl-Alt-Revolt_ by Nick Cole

 _Glasshouse_ by Charles Stross

Second the Vernor Vinge recommendations, and the Neal Stephenson and William
Gibson Sprawl Trilogy recommendations.

Gibson's _The Peripheral_ , as well as _Pattern Recognition_ , _Zero History_
, and _Spook Country_ all apply, as well. Same for his _Idoru_ , _Virtual
Light_ , and _All Tomorrow 's Parties_.

Finally, Gibson and Sterling's _The Difference Engine_ \- the first and, so
far, best steampunk novel - also qualifies, given the storyline.

------
KlaymenDK
I would recommend "Underground", a text-only e-book about (perhaps even by?)
Kevin Mitnick, how the entire hacker scene got started, and through the cat-
and-mouse game that led to Mitnick's eventual arrest.

Unfortunately, I cannot find a link to this work; although I did find
uncountable similar books and movies on the topic.

Perhaps this will suffice as a teaser? "Catching Kevin" at Wired:
[https://www.wired.com/1996/02/catching/](https://www.wired.com/1996/02/catching/)

~~~
dhtns
I'm not sure which specific Kevin Mitnick book you're actually referring to or
looking for but the book "Underground" is actually by Suelette Dreyfus and is
about the nascent hacker/cracker subculture of the late '80s and early '90s.
It was researched by/with Julian Assange (not written by him as another
commenter has stated) who is known in the book as "Mendax". [1]

Interestingly, the book was released for free online in 2001, at the
suggestion of Julian Assange, and the author credits this online release for
expanding both the quantity and range of different people that would end up
reading the book. [2]

The book can be read online (in HTML) at [2] or various ebook formats can be
downloaded from Project Gutenberg at [3].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_(Dreyfus_book)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_\(Dreyfus_book\))

[2]
[https://suelette.home.xs4all.nl/underground/justin/preface.h...](https://suelette.home.xs4all.nl/underground/justin/preface.html)

[3]
[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4686](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4686)

~~~
KlaymenDK
Yes, this must be it. Thank you (and other commenters!) for the added
references.

------
metaodi
I want to add "The Watchmen" by Jonathan Littman. It's the story of Kevin
Poulsen. It's very well written and I personally liked it better than all the
Mitnick stories, but they are certainly comparable. It's been a while since
I've last read it, but I think about it with a bit of nostalgia, as there are
all those phone phreaking and dumpster diving stories in it, when nobody cared
about security.

------
adamzochowski
Marcin Przybylek wrote a series of books called "Gamedec". The first book is a
collection of short stories. Detective crime stories all involving games.
Permadeth. Pvp. Hacks and cheats. Kidnappings. Augmentations. Etc. The second
book is still much a detective story but it is now one longer book, not a
collection of stories.

Afterwards gamedec series changes style and pace, still okay but no longer
detective work.

------
DownGoat
Spam Nation by Brian Krebs is excellent. It delves deep into the email spam
scene, and covers some big events and the people around it. He talks to users
which buy stuff they are advertised in spam emails, and looks into the quality
of the products advertised (are the viagra pills safe?).

The book is not very technical, and he never digs deeper into the details than
what is necessary.

------
sanxiyn
I think you will enjoy Kingpin by Kevin Poulsen.

~~~
sailfast
Came here to say this. Great book. Not a novel, but still worthy of a mention.
It definitely reads like one with the pacing and writing.

------
Dnguyen
Darknet by Matthew Mather About an AI entity taking over the financial market
and buying its way into the political system.

------
beaconstudios
if you like books that combine fiction and technical detail, I can thoroughly
recommend the "stealing the network" series. It has an intriguing overarching
plot and the details are all accurate and technical-minded - the best
comparison I can give is it's like "The Martian" but for cybersecurity.

------
bb2018
Black Edge is on one the largest insider trading cases ever prosecuted. There
was no real hacking or advanced cyber crime (maybe just some social
engineering) but was an interesting case of how some bad hedge funds operate.

There are some great books on this thread! I've read a bunch of them and going
to come back for more.

------
bigboris
The Gibson Vaughn series by Matthew FitzSimmons. It isn't purely cybercrime
but the protagonist is a hacker. As a cybersec pro who runs bug bounty
programs and red teams, I felt all of the tech was on point without taking
away from the stories.

------
cosmolev
Not a novel, but super interesting story about how the Feds caught Russian
Mega-Carder Roman Seleznev:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Chp12sEnWk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Chp12sEnWk)

------
zn44
Kill Process by William Hertling

~~~
filleokus
The only one I've read in this genre. It was quite enjoyable, and if my memory
is correct quite technically plausible. Interesting themes about tech gigants
and their influence/power, and some tragic stuff about wife/women abuse.

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bhance
The Atavist's "Mastermind" series re: Paul Le Roux -
[https://magazine.atavist.com/the-
mastermind](https://magazine.atavist.com/the-mastermind)

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perlgeek
If cybercrime interests you, you might like the "Malicious Life" podcast:
[http://malicious.life/](http://malicious.life/)

Not a novel though.

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Insanity
The blue nowhere is one that I hugely enjoyed. Also Kevin Mitnick's "ghost in
the wire". I read that one after kingpin and enjoyed it more, but it is in a
similar trend :)

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jnsaff2
Future Crimes a non-fiction about cybercrime of past and future
[http://www.futurecrimesbook.com](http://www.futurecrimesbook.com)

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jlc
We all know that novels are by definition fiction, right?

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vectorEQ
not really a cybercrime novel, but really interesting for people in that
business i'd say. Spy Catcher. That is written by someone in high position of
MI:5 and their first 'science' officer. a lot of interesting information about
spying which later really kickstarted cyber espionage / crime in a way...

~~~
lb1lf
...and in a related vein, anyone with a hacker mindset ought to check out R.V.
Jones’ ‘Most Secret War’; Jones was the UK senior scientific adviser during
WW2 and the book reads like an endless string of anecdotes about one-upping
the Germans.

I guess tricking early IFF and radionavigation systems could be considered
cyber crime - today, at least, he’d get the DMCA thrown at him for his
trouble. :)

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jim_lawless
Out of the Inner Circle (1985) - the autobiographical true story of "The
Cracker" Bill Landreth.

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EamonnMR
Exploding The Phone covers phone phreaking and the phone company
investigations into it.

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suff
The Cuckoo's Egg true story

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zarkov99
darknet is exciting and well grounded technically. also cyberstorm by same
author.

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ishanjain28
Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. I read it 5 years ago. Recommend it

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BlasDeLezo
Rick Dakan's "Geek Mafia" trilogy

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malaya_zemlya
"Fatal System Error" by Joseph Menn

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pags
Littman's books on Mitnick and Poulsen.

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pavanred
Ghost in the wires by Kevin Mitnick.

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serhadiletir
Future Crimes by Marc Goodman

a good book from Goodman

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thro_awayz_days
Ghost in the Wires - Kevin Mitnick

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jonbaer
The Quantum Spy by David Ignatius

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raffleslodge
Daemon by Daniel Suarez

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epx
Terminal Compromise

