Ankit Fadia - "Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking" 32% Plagiarized

Sat Jan 1 01:08:44 CST 2011

Ankit Fadia's career is built on the cornerstone of him writing a 'hacking' book when he was 14, which he used as a means of establishing his expertise on the subject of computer security. Since the book 'Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking' (ISBN 0333 93679 5) was published in 2001, Fadia has not been able to keep sales figures straight.

.. the author, ankit fadia, who at the tender age of 14 wrote this book, is the youngest author for macmillan india limited in their 110 years of history.

At 15, his book on Ethical Hacking made him the youngest author to be published by Macmillan India.

Even his parents and siblings weren't aware how tech-savvy Ankit was till he surprised everyone by writing his first book on ethical hacking at 14.

By fourteen years he published his first book titled The Unofficial Guide to Ethical Hacking which became an instant bestseller worldwide, sold 3 million copies and was translated into 11 languages.

The book was clearly written by a 14 year old and did not enjoy the benefit of an editor or technical editor (even as of the 6th reprinting). Countless misspellings, technical errors, repeated material and a high level of disorganization make the book difficult to use even as a reference. The book attempts to dismiss some of this in a "Publisher's Note" saying "Many words in this book have been spelt in the manner that the author is comfortable with and is retained in respect to the inexhaustible spirit of enterprise and adventure of the generation X." While words such as 'kewl' are understood in this context, it does not cover words like 'bascially', 'ubehackers' or 'stricted' [sic].

The book is comprised of many articles written by Fadia for his web site, and later used with minor edits for the book. Throughout the book, there are over a dozen cases of Fadia using material that he did not write. In some cases, he quietly removes headers or text that would give attribution. In others, he blatantly claims credit for writing something he did not. In addition, almost 130 pages at the end of the book are blatantly taken from other sources, sometimes without attribution or honoring explicit copyright statements. This flagrant plagiarism advertised as original work launched his career and now leads to him receiving five-figure speaking engagements.

The Plagiarism

The following table details the portions of the book that were taken from other sources, making up 32.2% of the material. Information is included to distinguish not only plagiarized material, but also what was done in an attempt to obscure the original source (e.g., removing text or credit). This shows willful infringement of copyright and inexcusable plagiarism.