Mafiaboy: A Portrait of the Hacker as a Young Man - Tapa dura

In 2000, an unknown attacker brought down the websites of Amazon, CNN, Dell, E-TRADE, eBay, and Yahoo!, inciting panic from Silicon Valley to the White House. The FBI, police, and independent security experts launched a manhunt as President Clinton convened a cyber security summit to discuss how best to protect America's information infrastructure from future attacks. Then, after hundreds of hours of wiretapping, law enforcement officials executed a late-night raid and came face-to-face with the most wanted man in cyberspace: a fifteen-year-old whose username was "Mafiaboy." Despite requests from every major media outlet, that young man, Michael Calce, has never spoken publicly about his crimes--until now. Equal parts true-crime thriller and expose, "Mafiaboy" will take you on an electrifying tour of the fast-evolving twenty-first-century world of hacking--from disruptions caused by teens like Calce to organized crime and other efforts with potentially catastrophic results. It also includes a guide to protecting yourself online.

Michael Calce served eight months in open custody for the fifty-six charges on which he was convicted. He now writes a computer security column. Craig Silverman is the author of "Regret the Error: How Media Mistakes Pollute the Press and Imperil Free Speech." His articles have appeared in the "New York Times," "Vice," and "Report on Business."