// What to read next
What to read after Kingpin
Where to go after Kingpin, picked from our catalog. The next step up from beginner level, weighted toward the topics this book covers.
01 · 2014
Spam Nation
Brian Krebs's investigative deep-dive into the Russian-speaking pharma-spam economy of the late 2000s — the affiliate networks, the rivalries, and the people who ran them.
Beginner4/5Brian Krebs02 · 1989
The Cuckoo's Egg
Clifford Stoll's first-person account of investigating a 75-cent accounting discrepancy at LBNL that turned into a year-long pursuit of a KGB-paid intruder across early-internet networks.
Beginner5/5Clifford Stoll03 · 2014
@War
Shane Harris on the entanglement of US military doctrine, the intelligence community, and private contractors after cyberspace was declared the fifth warfighting domain.
Beginner4/5Shane Harris04 · 2019
Cult of the Dead Cow
Joseph Menn's history of cDc — the Texas-rooted hacking collective that coined 'hacktivism', shipped Back Orifice, and threaded its way through three decades of the security industry's coming-of-age.
Beginner4/5Joseph Menn05 · 2016
Dark Territory
Fred Kaplan's policy-side history of US cyber capability, from Reagan-era panic about WarGames to the institutional buildup of NSA's offensive arm and the political fights over its use.
Beginner4/5Fred Kaplan06 · 2011
Ghost in the Wires
Kevin Mitnick's first-person account of his 1990s social-engineering and phone-system intrusions, foreword by Steve Wozniak. Self-promotional in tone but a primary source on a defining era.
Beginner4/5Kevin Mitnick, William L. Simon07 · 2005
The Art of Intrusion
Mitnick and Simon's follow-up to The Art of Deception: third-party stories from working hackers — casino slot exploits, prison-network breaches, post-9/11 intelligence ops — reconstructed and annotated by Mitnick.
Beginner4/5Kevin Mitnick, William L. Simon08 · 2012
We Are Anonymous
Parmy Olson's reconstruction of LulzSec, AntiSec, and the early-2010s Anonymous moment — the chat logs, the infighting, the Sabu turn, and the FBI takedown that ended the era.
Beginner4/5Parmy Olson