A story
It's a fictional story, but there are more great hacks in there than 5 newbie guides put together.
http://insecure.org/stc/sti.html Written by an nmap contributer, Brian Hatch.
Enjoy.
wow, i like messing with my linux box as much as the next guy, but that was boring shite…
maybe a half decent plot if it wasnt covered in 14 pages of UNIX jargon..
dont see why he couldnt just tell the story rather than try and show everyone just how much he knows about computers.. keeping the balance between telling the story and going off an a tangent is what makes Michael Crichton or Robert Ludlum such well read technology based writers..
Plot?
There was a plot?
Seriously though, it's no doubt, this guy is not Robert Ludlum (awesome author by the way), and while the plot is no worse than a thousand other B-grade books, it's certainly not top notch, or anywhere close. But, I like to think of it more as a computer security document with a bit of a plot, rather than an story with way too much technical jargon.
But for me, what was interesting was seeing all these hacks, not just in a contained environment but out 'in the wild' per se. Even if 'the wild' here was entirely fictional, it's certainly realistic enough, and it's nice to see new hacks too.
The other story (Return on Investment) is pretty good too. The bit about using packet sequence numbers to estimate site traffic. And using site traffic to estimate online store revenue. And then taking that estimate to the stock market, taking up long or short positions. Genious. I'm not even entirely sure if that's white, black or grey hat, if it's illegal, or just good research. I mean, technically, the packet sequence numbers are public knowledge, given to you, so you're not actually cracking anything.
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