An authoritative, disturbing examination of hacking, cybercrime, and techno-espionage.
A cybersecurity expert delves into the mechanics, psychology, and impact of computer hacking.
Shapiro, a professor at Yale Law School and director of Yale’s Center for Law and Philosophy and its CyberSecurity Lab, is well situated to explore the downside of the internet. In his latest book, the author looks at some famous cases and players in the shadowy archives of hacking—e.g., when a graduate student accidentally crashed the internet in the 1980s; the invention of the first mutating computer-virus engine by a Bulgarian with the handle Dark Avenger; and Fancy Bear, a group probably affiliated with Russian military intelligence, which broke into the Democratic National Committee system in 2016. Each of these illustrated a technical aspect of hacking, but taken together, they show the breadth of motivations. While some hacks are for money and espionage, most Americans hackers are young men who arrived at it through online game forums and started to do it for the technical challenge and to earn the respect of their peers. This profiling raises the possibility of early identification and recruitment into the cybersecurity side. However, Shapiro believes that hackers will always be a step ahead and that a “constant patch-and-pray” strategy will eventually lose. Instead, writes the author, cybersecurity measures must be built into computer systems from an early stage. As a possible template, he points to recent legislation in California that requires “devices connected to the internet sold or offered for sale in [the state] to have ‘reasonable security features.’ ” Another avenue is to require corporations to report about their policies to manage cybersecurity risks. These are good ideas, but one suspects that the devil will be in the implementation details. Overall, this is an engrossing read, although there are parts that are dauntingly technical. Shapiro gives readers plenty to think about the next time they turn on their computers.
An authoritative, disturbing examination of hacking, cybercrime, and techno-espionage.Pub Date: May 23, 2023
ISBN: 9780374601171
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Feb. 20, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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