Book 742: Crime Dot Com – Geoff White

I honestly don’t know how people exist without being paranoid ALL THE TIME. When I first said yes to this after the publicist reached out, it was like 95% because the author’s first name was Geoff and 5% because the subject was interesting. And then I found myself completely absorbed with this book.*

Now I’m not saying we’re totally screwed, but I mean we’re not really that far from being totally screwed and White does a really good job of explaining all of it. He takes an in depth look at the start of cybercrime with the quaint “Love Bug” virus (Wikipedia) to the state sponsored hacking/cyber assault that nudged us into the rotting cesspool of Trumpism that is the US right now.

But there’s a second, more compelling reason for choosing the Love Bug as an entry point. It’s the perfect illustration of a basic truth about much of the computer crime wave currently plaguing our society: it’s not about tech, it’s about people. (31)

Now, I’m not going to go all conspiracy theory on you or anything, but between this and Rachel Maddow’s Blowout, I’m further convinced the world just sucks and the institutions that are supposed to be there for us (AKA our governments) are not there to protect us, but are there to protect themselves at all costs. I mean hello first world privilege check. We learn about all the shitty things our governments have done historically, but that is like the tip of the iceberg with all the shady shit that goes down we only hear about, ironically enough, through massive cybercrimes like the Snowden leak.

This is the real reason why so many brings minds are excited about Bitcoin – because the underlying blockchain concept is so radical and potentially powerful: it’s a permanent, public, irrevocable store of information that can be verified in a flash. Contracts, voting records, company audits . . . many things can be hashed and stored in the blockchain and preserved forever on multiple computer servers spread across the world. (115)

White’s writing is incredibly approachable and digestible. He takes complex ideas and programs and describes them in such a way that any lay person could get the basic gist of how these super complicated things work. White was finally able to make me understand the to-do around Bitcoin, or more specifically the underlying technology and it was definitely a lightbulb moment for me having read many articles about it and just not getting it!

White also acknowledges from the outset that he’s not going to get super technical and he’s definitely had to make sacrifices of what made it into the book, but none of this seems to have had an impact on the book. His differentiation between cybercrimes, cyber-enabled crime, and hacktivism and the blurred lines between all of them wove through the book and constantly lapped back around to each other. And when the cybercrimes/hacking came into the real world in the last three chapters, especially “Chapter Nine: Weaponizing Data”, it was horrifying to find out just how close we are to some of those Sci-Fi films that end up with us all starting from scratch and fighting for survival because all of our technology is gone.

Hacker tactics have moved a long way. From simple mischief or money-making (or a combination of both), in the last few years they’ve had bigger and more significant impacts on our lives. And now, hackers are not just threatening the infrastructure that helps us survive, but are manipulating what we see and hear. It’s a confluence of criminal hacking and influence management that has been brewing for years. (246)

If I had one worry going into the book was that White’s writing would be too heavily technical or focused on the program or acts of crime. Thankfully, my concern was alleviated pretty early on as White immediately introduced us to not only the coders and hackers who created the viruses, but the victims (both geographical locations and individuals) and he humanized both without glorifying the crimes. I found his observations to be both anthropological and psychological which were interesting to read in this heavily virtual driven work. The profile and subsequent conversations (and thanking in the acknowledgments) of the TalkTalk victim just brought everything back to a personal level that could easily have been overlooked. And it wasn’t just good journalism, it was good writing.

Overall though, what the book does more than anything is it leaves you wanting more. Whether it’s how to get on the dark web for whatever reason or to learn even more about the evil that is online trolling (I now desperately want to read Whitney Phillips This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relationship between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture, which he draws heavily on) White clearly has a way with his subject matter that not educates and titillates, but doesn’t give over-explain or exhaust you.

There is of course a big difference between the credit card fraud and bank account hacking that started this book, and the legally sanctioned backing of the NSA, GCHQ and others that finishes it. But in between there is a growing area of thick, grey mud, and the number of players within it is expanding all the time. That’s a direct result of a crossover between the three types of hacking groups: organized cyber crime gangs, hacktivists and nation-state hackers

Recommendation: Between this and Rachel Maddow’s Blowout, I’m debating going off grid and living like I’m in the 1800s—this shit is scary and slightly overwhelming when faced collectively. White does an excellent job of highlighting the last 30 years of cyber (enabled) crime, all while keeping the individuals (and governments) who perpetrated it and suffered from it at the center of his narrative. He doesn’t give you everything and is upfront about that, but he does gives you the unvarnished truth without scaring you too much. But let’s face it, this book gives you enough knowledge to want to seek out more so you can keep you and yours safe as society continues venturing forth into the vast unknown that is the cyberage we live in. This is definitely worth the read!

*I received a copy of Crime Dot Com from the publicist in return for my honest opinion. No goods or money were exchanged.

Opening Line: “It’s 30 degrees in the shade and I’m standing, sweating, at the entrance to a sprawling street market in the Quiapo district of Manila, capital of the Philippines.”

Closing Line: “But perhaps if we pay attention to the lessons of the past few decades, our future can be made just that little bit safer.” (Not whited out as this is a work of nonfiction.)

Additional Quotes from Crime Dot Com
“Even now, email is invariably the number one vector for cybercrime – the germ-laden sneeze in the elevator. It’s also what drives the mega-hacks on businesses, in which hundreds of millions of customer records are stolen.” (48)

“In the early 1600s, a decision was made in Britain which helped lay the centuries-long path toward Bitcoin. Perhaps tired of the fiddly coins, James I created a copper farthing that was coated in tin. He wasn’t the first to eschew precious metals, not by a long chalk: money made from non-precious materials such as paper had existed in other countries for centuries. Over time, across the world, we accepted the big switcheroo and carried on. After all, if this bit of copper still buys you the same amount of wheat, who cares what it’s made of? Currency began to be detached from its inherent physical weight and worth became increasingly ‘virtual’.” (112)

“It would be wrong to paint the cases of the Lakeman brothers and Brennan and Gledhill’s fentanyl factory as typical. For many drug users the dark web was and still is a place where they can find a reliable dealer selling high-quality narcotics and get their weekend off to a flying start. But it’s also fair to say that with a cornucopia of sites and growing competition for buyers, there were plenty of dealers prepared to sell dangerous drugs to make a fast buck with fatal consequences. In the end, several of the main dark web marketplaces added fentanyl to their banned products – perhaps out of moral repugnance, but perhaps because a dead customer isn’t as profitable as a living one.” (175)

“In fact, tech and its interface with the media was a faultline that ran through the entire [US 2016] election. The attempts to influence its outcome using technology didn’t only come via the cybercrime tactics of the Fancy Bear group. Those who wished to sway the campaign also exploited the online platforms that many of us are hooked on, harnessing the power of Facebook and Twitter for a new propaganda campaign.” (286)

“In an age of mass data leaks and shadowplay, it’s painfully easy for the media to become the puppet of the hackers.  Salacious data-leak stories may look like an easy win at first, but they can have sour consequences in the long term – particularly if, as apparently happened in the Democratic Party and Sony hacks, it later emerges that journalists effectively became a tool of cynical manipulation by nation states.” (310)