Kevin Poulsen: Kingpin: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion Dollar Cyber Crime Underground (2011)

Former hacker Kevin Poulsen has, over the past decade, built a reputation as one of the top investigative reporters on the cybercrime beat. In Kingpin, he pours his unmatched access and expertise into book form for the first time, delivering a gripping cat-and-mouse narrative—and an unprecedented view into the twenty-first century’s signature form of organized crime.

The word spread through the hacking underground like some unstoppable new virus: Someone—some brilliant, audacious crook—had just staged a hostile takeover of an online criminal network that siphoned billions of dollars from the US economy.

The FBI rushed to launch an ambitious undercover operation aimed at tracking down this new kingpin; other agencies around the world deployed dozens of moles and double agents. Together, the cybercops lured numerous unsuspecting hackers into their clutches. . . . Yet at every turn, their main quarry displayed an uncanny ability to sniff out their snitches and see through their plots.

The culprit they sought was the most unlikely of criminals: a brilliant programmer with a hippie ethic and a supervillain’s double identity. As prominent “white-hat” hacker Max “Vision” Butler, he was a celebrity throughout the programming world, even serving as a consultant to the FBI. But as the black-hat “Iceman,” he found in the world of data theft an irresistible opportunity to test his outsized abilities. He infiltrated thousands of computers around the country, sucking down millions of credit card numbers at will. He effortlessly hacked his fellow hackers, stealing their ill-gotten gains from under their noses. Together with a smooth-talking con artist, he ran a massive real-world crime ring.

And for years, he did it all with seeming impunity, even as countless rivals ran afoul of police.

Yet as he watched the fraudsters around him squabble, their ranks riddled with infiltrators, their methods inefficient, he began to see in their dysfunction the ultimate challenge: He would stage his coup and fix what was broken, run things as they should be run—even if it meant painting a bull’s-eye on his forehead.

Through the story of this criminal’s remarkable rise, and of law enforcement’s quest to track him down, Kingpin lays bare the workings of a silent crime wave still affecting millions of Americans. In these pages, we are ushered into vast online-fraud supermarkets stocked with credit card numbers, counterfeit checks, hacked bank accounts, dead drops, and fake passports. We learn the workings of the numerous hacks—browser exploits, phishing attacks, Trojan horses, and much more—these fraudsters use to ply their trade, and trace the complex routes by which they turn stolen data into millions of dollars. And thanks to Poulsen’s remarkable access to both cops and criminals, we step inside the quiet, desperate arms race that law enforcement continues to fight with these scammers today.

Ultimately, Kingpin is a journey into an underworld of startling scope and power, one in which ordinary American teenagers work hand in hand with murderous Russian mobsters and where a simple Wi-Fi connection can unleash a torrent of gold worth millions.

Publisher Crown Publishing Group, 2011
ISBN 0307588688, 9780307588685
288 pages

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Nick Lambert: A Critical Examination of “Computer Art”: its History and Application (2003)

The thesis focuses principally on artists’ experiences of the computer and covers a wide range of approaches to computers in art.

DPhil thesis
Oxford University
Supervisor: Martin Kemp

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Depocas, Ippolito, Jones (eds.): Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach (2003) [English/French]

“Since its founding, the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology has considered the preservation of electronic and digital artworks a pressing matter. But it took some years before we received any project demonstrating a truly innovative approach to this issue.

When the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum submitted the Variable Media Network project based on the paradigm proposed by Jon Ippolito, the museum’s Associate Curator of Media Arts, we recognized the project’s potential as a model for approaching the issue of preserving nontraditional media artworks. The project was particularly valuable because it enabled research that was greatly needed in the field of art preservation.

To the Guggenheim’s original proposal, we added a component: an actual emulation test case to preserve a digital work. We felt that while there have been many theories and discussions on preserving digital and dynamic artworks, there was a need for practical, emulation experiments from which much knowledge could be gained.

We are proud to be forging this research partnership with the Guggenheim Museum and to be enriching and helping disseminate our knowledge. This publication, accompanied by a Web site and an online database, is integral to our goal of sharing information and directly involving the communities and institutions concerned with preservation.” (Jean Gagnon, Preface)

Permanence Through Change: The Variable Media Approach / L’approche des médias variables : la permanence par le changement
Edited by Alain Depocas, Jon Ippolito, and Caitlin Jones
Preface by Jean Gagnon
Published by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, in New York, and the Daniel Langlois Foundation, in Montreal, 2003
ISBN: 0-9684693-2-9
138 pages

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