Ghost in the Wires is the story of Kevin Mitnick, self proclaimed computer hacker. Mitnick takes us through most of his hacking career, and also explores some of his personal and family relationships and conflicts during his career.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* Mitnick writes very well, and the book moves quickly. I ended up reading it in a single evening, and was actually sad when it came to the end.

* While the book describes some of the technical details of his exploits, anyone with even an inkling of how computers work will have no trouble understanding 95% of what happens in the book. Most of his more interesting exploits seem to be of the "social engineering" variety, namely talking people into doing him "favors" which compromise their own security.

* Mitnick is reasonable, for the most part, about his exploits. He admits to his exploits, and at least claims remorse for the trouble his hacking caused for his family.

* The book includes his attempts to flee law enforcement, including fleeing to different states and attempting to set up new identities for himself. It was quite interesting to hear the things that he found easy versus the things that caused him difficulties in his attempts to establish his new credentials.

=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

* By definition, Mitnick is the only source for much of the material in this book. It is therefore difficult to judge just how accurate a picture of his exploits he presents, and I got the feeling he carefully screened which parts of his biography he included. I am an engineer, and much of his discussion at least passed the "sniff" test for being at least plausible.

* The end of the book becomes somewhat self-serving. Mitnick claims to not understand why large companies would put very high values on some of the intellectual property he "just borrowed". I thought he was just being naive, until you realize that he now makes an excellent income because those companies are willing to pay him money to protect those very same assets. Clearly he has some understanding of their value.

=== Summary ===

I enjoyed the book, and enjoyed reading it. While some of the exploits seemed to stretch what I was wiling to believe, it almost doesn't matter. The book was an enjoyable and fun read whether it was fiction or not.

One thing that did stick out was that some of Mitnick's greatest successes were not done at a computer, but rather with a telephone talking some lowly employee into bypassing carefully developed security procedures.

Finally, I can't help but wonder with the billions we have spent on "security" since 2001, how many of Mitnick's exploits would still work today. I have the awful feeling that I don't really want to know.