[ISN] Think like a hacker (Two messages)

[InfoSec News]

Forwarded from: Jason Scott <jason at textfiles.com>

Hello, William.

Once the documentary I'm working on is done, I'm turning back to look
at journalistic overviews of Hackers, and while there have been many
people who have done good work, a lot of it would best be defined as
"suspect".

In this case, I was idly wondering why I'd never heard of Deb
Radcliff's "Best-Selling" Mitnick book. I've wasted a bit of time this
early morning trying to match her name to it, and I am, simply,
failing. Obviously, she didn't write a book on Mitnick; she did some
sort of research for another book on Mitnick, but which one?

What got me going on this was the word "best-selling". Authors don't
write that their books are "best-selling" unless they, themselves,
have something they are "selling". Dissing phone phreaking, which has
specifically different nomenclature over the years but also contains a
lot of rich history, also didn't help. This from someone who "spoke"
at a HOPE conference, which itself is based off of a phreaking
magazine; you'd think she's give the term a tad more respect.

My question is: what the hell is the book she so happily calls
best-selling but won't bother giving the title of? Her own SITE won't
even tell me:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&c2coff=1&q=+site%3Awww.deb.radcliff.com+mitnick

I'm sorry, that's just suspicious behaviour. Why call something
best-selling and not even tell you what it is?

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005, InfoSec News wrote:
 
> http://www.networklifemag.com/weblogs/securitychief/2005/007187.html
>
> By Deb Radcliff
> Network Life, 01/09/05


-=-


Forwarded rom: Jason Scott <jason at textfiles.com>

Further searching using Amazon's "Search Inside the Book" feature
shows that Deb Radcliff is thanked by Jonathan Littman for editing
help in his book "The Watchman: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Kevin
Poulsen".  Since Littman is also the author of "The Fugitive Game:
Online with Kevin Mitnick", I am going to make the slight jump that
this the the "Best-Selling" Kevin Mitnick book that she helped do
research for. She is, however, not thanked, mentioned or discussed in
the book in any fashion that I could find.

Is this it? Am I correct? Is she dropping Kevin Mitnick's name because
she did some background checks for Littman for his Mitnick book?

Disclosure: I really, really like Kevin Poulsen. He wrote the best
article on me and my work that I've ever read. As a result I am not
fond of Jonathan Littman and his work.