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| The Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey | 
| Author: Emmanuel Goldstein
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $39.99
Buy New: $21.84
You Save: $18.15 (45%)
Buy New/Used from $21.78
Avg. Customer Rating:  (9 reviews)
Sales Rank: 33863
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 888
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3.2
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 7.6 x 2.2
ISBN: 0470294191
Dewey Decimal Number: 005.8
EAN: 9780470294192
ASIN: 0470294191
Publication Date: July 21, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Since 1984, the quarterly magazine 2600 has provided fascinating articles for readers who are curious about technology. Find the best of the magazine?s writing in Best of 2600: A Hacker Odyssey, a collection of the strongest, most interesting, and often most controversial articles covering 24 years of changes in technology, all from a hacker?s perspective. Included are stories about the creation of the infamous tone dialer ?red box? that allowed hackers to make free phone calls from payphones, the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the insecurity of modern locks.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 A fantastic read marred by false claims December 18, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was really looking forward to reading this book and enjoying the stories it contains. I was never a 2600 subscriber or participant, but I was familiar with the content of the magazine and the anti-authoritarian stance taken by those behind the publication.
I finally decided to get this book, knowing full well that I'd enjoy stories of hacking and phreaking in the old days. Truth be told, there is plenty of that kind material here and sharing "war-stories" while reminiscing about the glory days of this underground, obscure culture is well worth the time it takes to get through this enormous book. Many of the stories involve obsolete notions, many do not. It's a varietal hodgepodge that keeps one reading, and for that I commend it.
However, the fatal flaw to this book is the fact that anyone could have made any of it up. I accept the fact that most of the material is from user contributions, sharing experiences that could not possibly be verified, and even if they could, wouldn't be anyway. I can live with that.
On the other hand, the book (and 2600 in general) makes some claims so outrageous as to cast further doubt on any content contained here. For example, claiming responsibility for the dissolution of Ma Bell into the Baby Bells (telephone companies) seems like a bold claim, and I don't believe it. The reason is this; simply put, the book will spend several pages going on about some random calling to a weather and time station, but for something as large as breaking up Ma Bell, one of the biggest monopolies the US has ever seen, well, it's only mentioned in passing, given two or three lines worth of reference. It hardly seems likely that a 3 page story about kids playing on a conference call should get more attention than hackers and phreakers breaking up Ma Bell, that is of course, unless it never happened...
...and it didn't. The "divestiture" of Ma Bell came from the result of a lawsuit brought against the monopoly by the US Department of Justice in 1974, when most of the 2600 participants were either yet to be born or little children. In 1982 (2 full years before 2600 and before any of the stories contained in this book) Ma Bell willfully agreed to divest its local exchange service. Yet this happened, according to, "The Best of 2600" at the same time that their first issue came out. Factually incorrect. That the "early phreaks" as the book claims, defeated this monopoly, it's interesting that it took a lawsuit from the Justice Department if this were the case.
Furthermore, looking at 2600's website, they claim to be responsible for the economic crisis of late 2008. Really? Was 2600 selling mortgage backed securities funded by participants who were bankrupt, all on a global scale? I doubt it. What next, they put Jupiter missiles in Turkey during the Cold War too? Invented the automobile? Mapped the human genome?
I can overlook that much of this content could never be substantiated, but when the book makes outrageous claims that we know are completely untrue, this makes the rest of the material doubtful at very best. That's unfortunate. They should have left the user submitted stories and had readers deciding perhaps that they were mostly true, instead of preposterous brags that have us taking every bit of content with a grain of salt.
Having said that, the book is still fun to read and I wouldn't doubt that there are a lot of true stories in it despite the obvious exaggerations. It's a thoroughly enjoyable, extremely unique book, and that alone earns it two stars. Despite the terrible flaws, it's still worth it to buy and read the whole thing.
 no surprises for readers of 2600 November 19, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I remember finding my first issue of 2600, in a bookshop attached to an enormous, secretive government laboratory. Those were in the days after ESS but before the Internet (well, we had NNTP and SMTP and telnet, but HTML hadn't been invented). It seemed so illicit and exciting, I bought every issue I could find for years, and even wrote one article for them.
Over time, I read it less and less, both because the writing was generally bad, and because the revelations were often so weak. The Best Of book fairly reflects the content of the magazine -- it gives a good sense for the passions of a particular technological subculture, but much of what is here is dross.
So many articles were clearly written by people who did not know much, and who punt when they get to difficult work. "The encryption is done by a custom chip and, uh, you might want to decompile the EEPROM and see what's in there." Or they contain only trivial information, made to fill many pages through the inclusion of anecdotes about how the writer came to know the trivial information. (Four pages on how you discovered that ATMs run OS/2? The entire article could have been reduced to four words: "Many ATMs run OS/2.") And then there are the political articles, most of which are screeds about how the government and/or big companies are coming to take your freedom away, and their desire to be paid for your pirated movies proves it.
In some cases, it is hard to imagine how a given article was selected for inclusion in the magazine, let alone for reprinting in the book. An essay on the mathematics of lotteries is particularly weak, using high school level combinatorics to argue that nobody should ever play. The article contradicts a much more interesting essay earlier in the book in which the weaknesses in certain lotteries were revealed and methods for exploiting these weaknesses detailed.
The best material in the book is historical -- the stories of individual hacks, arrests, court battles, etc., by the people involved. Emmanuel Goldstein could have printed just those and had a better book while saving 550 pages.
 A very wonderful book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! October 23, 2008
As a normal reader of 2600, this is a masterpiece. There is alot of knowledge over the years, wrapped up in one book. I would recommend this book to anyone!
Very interesting October 13, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have followed 2600 for years, but am by far not old enough to have been there for the start of it, this ... I hate to call it a book, but it is... book fills in a lot of very interesting and important history of the estranged phreaker/haxxor communities alike through republishing many of the key articles featured in the magazine/news letter as well as some extended back history on the whole shebang that was probably know to very few before this book came out. Understanding the histories of your favorite subject is important, it keeps you from repeating mortal mistakes, and teaches you what kind of things to look for in future exploits and conquests... hopefully ones without malintent. Hacking and prheaking is about the quest for knowledge, hopefully if you are of the mindset to cause anarchy, destruction, or 'own' someone, this book will set you on the right path... plus it is much more challenging to make something than to break something, though, the latter is often part of the process for the first.
But regardless of your ideologies, this is an important book to consume if you are in any way interested in the dark underbelly of computers, networks, or phone systems.
This should be a history book for CS students. September 6, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Very good read. Still reading it but the first section alone is worth the price. I wish they would have released it in 3 sections so I can easily travel with this book.
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