Subtitle: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground...
OK, this book was a well-paced travelogue through the cyber-underworld that most of the people on this planet probably aren't even aware of. We meet Max (Butler), a seemingly bipolar computer geek, when he's a teenager in Boise, and follow his rise into the world of computer hacking in the 1990's and 2000's. Good and bad—in almost Shakespearian proportions—Max lets his bad side control his actions as we follow his rise to global prominence in the seedy, but stunningly lucrative world of credit card fraud. In the end, Max, and his colorful accomplices, all featured in this book, are all caught. The story ends when Max is caught and sentenced for the largest credit card scam in history; he is currently serving time in a California prison, due for release in 2018, when he'll have to figure out how he'll repay over $25 million in fraud reparations—marked down from an estimated $86 million during his time on the top of the cybercrime mountain. And of course, he's got successors who are picking up where he left off right now!
The book was alright—not great—and it was a fast read, but it raised more questions than answered for a garden-variety civilian like me. What I came away with was this nagging conclusion that for all of the businesses and banks that get pilfered by cyber-geniuses like Max over the last 10-15 years, they all seem to prefer to take the insurance losses on fraud than to actually protect consumers.
In the end, I walked away from this book thinking that none of the money in any of my bank accounts or on my credit cards is actually safe.