Unlike his other books, this one is pretty much an autobiography of Mitnick. The book starts when he's a teenager who doesn't really fit in the common social groups and starts to do HAM radio chats to find friends. HAM radio leads to phone "phreaking" which leads to computer hacking. He starts small, hacking free long distance for his mother, then hacking school computer systems - "just for fun", then moving onto hacking commercial companies like DEC and downloading source code for their top paid Operating Systems, like VMS. All for fun, of course, he claims that he never sold any information or code, and never used any credit card numbers that he obtained. This might as well be true, as he pretty much lived most of the time around the poverty line standard, and if he really made a huge amount of money with his hacks there would be no need for him to beg his mother and grandmother to sponsor him from their meager savings.
His hacker friends have pretty much all betrayed him to the authorities, and even though some of them he forgave (why?), he does claim that the ancient proverb "There's no honor amongst thieves" is still very true and valid. His best friend not only betrays him to the feds, but also becomes his wife's lover, which is a really shitty thing to do.
The feds come off as some horrible people, and so do pretty much all law enforcement people in the book, with a few honorable exceptions. Sometimes these things ring true, like Mitnick being put in solitary and in top security prisons with uber-violent offenders, while in reality he was never aggressive or violent towards anybody. Seems that his reputation and rumors have scared law enforcement people and judges and they wanted to err on the cautious and punitive side, because they really did not understand the subject matter and did not want to be played for fools.
Mitnick is amazing in what he calls "Social Engineering" which most people would call "lying" and passes himself for a variety of different people, even cops and FBI officers, and extracts all kind of information from unsuspecting patsies who should have known better. Mitnick is very proud of his Social Engineering skills, and often describes the meticulous research with which he approaches every such situation.
Eventually he does get caught, despite having piles of birth certificates (from South Dakota!), false identities and all kinds of phone faking equipment. He spends some pretty rough time, a couple of years, while waiting for trail, and is so broke he cannot even afford his own lawyer. He gets sentenced to a couple of years, after which he becomes a security consultant where the book ends. This book is published much after the "Takedown" book which describes his case from the POV of the law enforcement people, because the judge ordered that Mitnick is not to profit from his story for a certain amount of years afterwards.
Today, some people even forgot Mitnick - I read a review on Amazon claiming that Julian Assange (!) is a bigger hacker. Newsflash: Assange is a journalist, not a hacker. I guess time destroys everything, which is why even bloodthirsty tyrants are seen in a positive light after a few centuries have passed.
The book is written in a very easy, conversational style and is monotone and repetitive at times, but still a good read. At some points the reader wants to yell "Kev, don't do it! Why would you do that Kev, when you know you're sure to get caught?" but I guess there's some compulsion at play here, so we cannot assume a totally logical actor.
Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Thursday, March 1, 2018
"Red Mars" by Kim Stanley Robinson
I had this book on my reading list for a long time, but deprioritized it multiple times, as stories about Mars never much interested me. Mars has always seemed mundane, and little green Martians never stroke any kind of connection to me, neither did stories of Mars colonization (why waste all that money, time and resources when we can just build generation ships like Clarke's Rama, or make asteroids inhabitable). On the other hand, this novel has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards, and that is usually a good indicator of an amazing novel (to think I'd never discover The Wind-Up Girl or The Three Body Problem if I didn't scour the Hugo and Nebula awards - two best Sci Fi works of modern times!).
Not in this case. The novel is pretty average; the science is OK, but nothing special, the characters are paper thin, hollow shells, uninteresting and devoid of complexity, basically just reciting replicas without any real feeling. John Boone, the wild west super hero that's addicted to drugs, Frank Chalmers, the bad guy who is really just incompetent and petty, and Maya Toitovna (I can't help but reading her last name as Hoyti-Toytovna each time :) the materialistic Russian chick who uses her vagina to achieve her goals, and of course the all-mysterious Hiroko Ai (Ai is love in Japanese), who is supposed to add exoticism to the story, especially with her relation to The Coyote (another useless character), and her acting as the Queen Mother Bee to an army of children later. Why do Western authors think Japanese are exotic? Japanese cultural tropes are a mainstay in the Western World, only if you take a little time to look.
The "First 100" get over to Mars on Ares, the long-haul ship assembled in space. Once they get there, the primitive primate brain takes over and they fuck (a lot!), cheat each other, kill each other, split in petty little groups, based on petty beliefs and become a sort of the Wild West for Earth, which is overpopulated and ran by huge corporation (TransNats). Eventually there's a rebellion because the TransNats keep sending more immigrants to Mars and the local infrastructure cannot support it, many people are killed, most infrastructure is destroyed, but not everybody and not all, because, of course, we have a sequel coming!
Overall a very boring and disappointing book - I will not be reading the sequels.
Not in this case. The novel is pretty average; the science is OK, but nothing special, the characters are paper thin, hollow shells, uninteresting and devoid of complexity, basically just reciting replicas without any real feeling. John Boone, the wild west super hero that's addicted to drugs, Frank Chalmers, the bad guy who is really just incompetent and petty, and Maya Toitovna (I can't help but reading her last name as Hoyti-Toytovna each time :) the materialistic Russian chick who uses her vagina to achieve her goals, and of course the all-mysterious Hiroko Ai (Ai is love in Japanese), who is supposed to add exoticism to the story, especially with her relation to The Coyote (another useless character), and her acting as the Queen Mother Bee to an army of children later. Why do Western authors think Japanese are exotic? Japanese cultural tropes are a mainstay in the Western World, only if you take a little time to look.
The "First 100" get over to Mars on Ares, the long-haul ship assembled in space. Once they get there, the primitive primate brain takes over and they fuck (a lot!), cheat each other, kill each other, split in petty little groups, based on petty beliefs and become a sort of the Wild West for Earth, which is overpopulated and ran by huge corporation (TransNats). Eventually there's a rebellion because the TransNats keep sending more immigrants to Mars and the local infrastructure cannot support it, many people are killed, most infrastructure is destroyed, but not everybody and not all, because, of course, we have a sequel coming!
Overall a very boring and disappointing book - I will not be reading the sequels.
Wednesday, February 21, 2018
"Conscience : The Search for Truth" by P.D. Ouspensky
This book, which in reality is five different essays put together, develops some of the topics that are present in Gurdjieff's and Ouspensky's writings and system. The system is, of course, Gurdjieff's, while Ouspensky is the most advanced pupil. There are passages from the "In Search Of The Miraculous" interspersed throughout, but most of the material is from talks and answers to questions that Ouspensky gave.
In the first part, “Memory,” Ouspensky gives some insights on memory formation and durability that are not yet discovered by modern neuroscience but ring true to one's experience.
In the second part, “Surface Personality,” principles of the self are explained and the false or surface personality explained, as a necessary but, in a correct setup, subservient part of the unified personality. Unfortunately, the modern science called Psychology devotes most of its breadth to researching this surface or false personality.
In the third part, “Self-Will,” the difference between will, or Real Will, is juxtaposed to Self Will, or what is usually thought of as will in everyday language. The real will does not exist in the vast majority of humans which are thrown around by the resultant of the sum of forces of all the vectors that are influencing them, without the possibility, even the smallest one, of a personal choice, except in trivial and non-consequential matters.
In the fourth part, “Negative Emotions,” Ouspensky talks about the utter uselessness of negative emotions, which include angers, sadness, depression, patriotism, sports rooting and pretty much everything that saps and wastes energy rather than preserving and storing it. He points out to a common misconsception that a man who exresess negative emotions (in the wider, Ouspensky sense), is honest and genuine, instead saying that such a person is weak and self-indulgent.
The final part, “Notes on Work,” an emphasis is put that development on one's own is utterly impossible, but only through a school with a teacher on another level of being any kind of progress can be made. Otherwise all work would be just in the imagination, i.e. imagining one is working instead or thinking about working, rather than actually doing the work.
In the first part, “Memory,” Ouspensky gives some insights on memory formation and durability that are not yet discovered by modern neuroscience but ring true to one's experience.
In the second part, “Surface Personality,” principles of the self are explained and the false or surface personality explained, as a necessary but, in a correct setup, subservient part of the unified personality. Unfortunately, the modern science called Psychology devotes most of its breadth to researching this surface or false personality.
In the third part, “Self-Will,” the difference between will, or Real Will, is juxtaposed to Self Will, or what is usually thought of as will in everyday language. The real will does not exist in the vast majority of humans which are thrown around by the resultant of the sum of forces of all the vectors that are influencing them, without the possibility, even the smallest one, of a personal choice, except in trivial and non-consequential matters.
In the fourth part, “Negative Emotions,” Ouspensky talks about the utter uselessness of negative emotions, which include angers, sadness, depression, patriotism, sports rooting and pretty much everything that saps and wastes energy rather than preserving and storing it. He points out to a common misconsception that a man who exresess negative emotions (in the wider, Ouspensky sense), is honest and genuine, instead saying that such a person is weak and self-indulgent.
The final part, “Notes on Work,” an emphasis is put that development on one's own is utterly impossible, but only through a school with a teacher on another level of being any kind of progress can be made. Otherwise all work would be just in the imagination, i.e. imagining one is working instead or thinking about working, rather than actually doing the work.
Monday, November 6, 2017
"The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin" by Pyotr Demianovich Ouspensky
His name is Pyotr, not Peter. Let's get that straight first. No need to anglicize every foreign name out there, especially not European ones. A little foreign languages study goes a long way.
"The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin" is largely biographical and the main theme is Nietzsche's idea of Eternal Recurrence, exposed in several of his writings. However, Ouspensky wrote the original Russian version in 1915, after he met Gurdjieff (the Magician), and the novel reflects that, as the idea of Eternal Recurrence is modified to include only "two or three, or in any case a few" lives, after the person learns about the idea. Nietzsche's concept is also modified by Ouspensky in the sense that each 'recurrence' is not completely identical to the previous one, but they can be different, and it is postulated that each following one is worse than the previous one, because the person has less and less chances to change anything in each subsequent incarnation.
Aside from young Ouspensky's pussy chasing (and he's not doing bad at all!), the book emphasizes the point from the Gurdjieff's system that "a man cannot do" that is, one cannot change anything, even if one knows what one wants to change and even if one remembers all the things as they were before. Ouspensky writes that from a far things look clear and obvious, but once one is surrounded by the circumstances and details - things just happen mechanically of themselves, exactly in the way they happened before.
At the end of the book Osokin is offered a deal by the Magician, in exchange for 15-20 years of his life and service, the Magician will help Osokin learn and know how to change himself, but young Osokin doesn't trust him and is still more concerned about the latest hot pussy running away from his clutches.
We all know how Ouspensky's life turned out later and his love of pussy was replaced by love of whiskey and vodka (sometimes together), however that does not prevent him from being one of the most clear-minded, clear language expositors of both Gurdjieff's and his own ideas in writing.
"The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin" is largely biographical and the main theme is Nietzsche's idea of Eternal Recurrence, exposed in several of his writings. However, Ouspensky wrote the original Russian version in 1915, after he met Gurdjieff (the Magician), and the novel reflects that, as the idea of Eternal Recurrence is modified to include only "two or three, or in any case a few" lives, after the person learns about the idea. Nietzsche's concept is also modified by Ouspensky in the sense that each 'recurrence' is not completely identical to the previous one, but they can be different, and it is postulated that each following one is worse than the previous one, because the person has less and less chances to change anything in each subsequent incarnation.
Aside from young Ouspensky's pussy chasing (and he's not doing bad at all!), the book emphasizes the point from the Gurdjieff's system that "a man cannot do" that is, one cannot change anything, even if one knows what one wants to change and even if one remembers all the things as they were before. Ouspensky writes that from a far things look clear and obvious, but once one is surrounded by the circumstances and details - things just happen mechanically of themselves, exactly in the way they happened before.
At the end of the book Osokin is offered a deal by the Magician, in exchange for 15-20 years of his life and service, the Magician will help Osokin learn and know how to change himself, but young Osokin doesn't trust him and is still more concerned about the latest hot pussy running away from his clutches.
We all know how Ouspensky's life turned out later and his love of pussy was replaced by love of whiskey and vodka (sometimes together), however that does not prevent him from being one of the most clear-minded, clear language expositors of both Gurdjieff's and his own ideas in writing.
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
"La Grande Bretêche" by Honoré de Balzac
This is a short story, one of the few that deals specifically with a subject that could be loosely called "Horror" by Balzac. Balzac used to get paid by the word, so all his novels are very wordy, though not less enjoyable for that.
This story can be seen from multiple perspectives: as a plain horror story, as a portrait of the power relationship between a husband and a wife in 19th century France, or as a critique of "Christian" morality and fate, which seems to crumble when strong enough biological impulse is introduced to the equation.
The story has to do with a doctor from Paris who comes to a rural part of France and is enamored of an old, isolated house which seems to be abandoned. He gets the initial story from the town Notary, and then the Inn Keeper (who has a problem with theft) and finally by bedding a former maid from the house he was interested in.
The story has to do with a very-Christian wife who takes in a lover, imprisoned Spaniard, but falsely swears to the husband that there's no one in the room, though the guy is hiding in the alcove. The husband, who can compete in cruelty with the best, orders the alcove closed with a brick wall and spends several weeks in the wife's room to makes sure the guys inside is completely dead and decomposing before he leaves her.
This story can be seen from multiple perspectives: as a plain horror story, as a portrait of the power relationship between a husband and a wife in 19th century France, or as a critique of "Christian" morality and fate, which seems to crumble when strong enough biological impulse is introduced to the equation.
The story has to do with a doctor from Paris who comes to a rural part of France and is enamored of an old, isolated house which seems to be abandoned. He gets the initial story from the town Notary, and then the Inn Keeper (who has a problem with theft) and finally by bedding a former maid from the house he was interested in.
The story has to do with a very-Christian wife who takes in a lover, imprisoned Spaniard, but falsely swears to the husband that there's no one in the room, though the guy is hiding in the alcove. The husband, who can compete in cruelty with the best, orders the alcove closed with a brick wall and spends several weeks in the wife's room to makes sure the guys inside is completely dead and decomposing before he leaves her.
Wednesday, May 10, 2017
"The Martian Chronicles" by Ray Bradbury
This book is not a novel, but a collection of short stories, very loosely relating to Mars, which were stitched together by small vignettes and intermezzos.
It doesn't really work well. Although I respect Bradbury and his seminal novel "Fahrenheit 451" had strong influence on me when adolescent, the "Martian Chronicles" fail short of the vision, depth and breadth in his other novels.
Bradbury writes "soft" science fiction, so don't look for plausible science, or even an emphasis on accuracy. Science fiction is used as a narrative device, while the actual topics of the stories are quite different; oppression of women, treatment of black people, cohesion and viability of the family unit, etc.
All these topics and their mixing with Science Fiction is not a problem in itself, the great Ursula LeGuin has mixed and matched with great success, but in this novel/short story collection - it just doesn't work.
Many of the stories could be classified more as horror than science fiction, but I guess the "speculative fiction" moniker covers all that ground. The first story, Yilla (and Yill), seems completely out of place in this book, but then again we had to have a 'first' expedition to Mars.
The rest of the stories vary in quality: from silly contraptions about the first hot dog stand on Mars (built by a psychopath) - to meditations on loneliness and companionship, even if not with true human beings.
Interesting book from a historic perspective, but not much else.
It doesn't really work well. Although I respect Bradbury and his seminal novel "Fahrenheit 451" had strong influence on me when adolescent, the "Martian Chronicles" fail short of the vision, depth and breadth in his other novels.
Bradbury writes "soft" science fiction, so don't look for plausible science, or even an emphasis on accuracy. Science fiction is used as a narrative device, while the actual topics of the stories are quite different; oppression of women, treatment of black people, cohesion and viability of the family unit, etc.
All these topics and their mixing with Science Fiction is not a problem in itself, the great Ursula LeGuin has mixed and matched with great success, but in this novel/short story collection - it just doesn't work.
Many of the stories could be classified more as horror than science fiction, but I guess the "speculative fiction" moniker covers all that ground. The first story, Yilla (and Yill), seems completely out of place in this book, but then again we had to have a 'first' expedition to Mars.
The rest of the stories vary in quality: from silly contraptions about the first hot dog stand on Mars (built by a psychopath) - to meditations on loneliness and companionship, even if not with true human beings.
Interesting book from a historic perspective, but not much else.
Monday, May 1, 2017
"The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester
There's nothing likable about Gully Foyle. He's a rapist, murderer, thief, swindler, uneducated, unmannerly. But he is the main protagonist of this novel and even if the reader does not like him, the reader at least learns to appreciate his point of view, especially towards the end of the novel.
This novel is a great mixture of the old and the new. Published in the mid-50s, this novel is a proud representative of the pulpy 30s and 40s with their melodramatic plots, paper-thin characters, unfeasible science and generally being written like pirate stories in space. However, there's much of the new. This novel is the direct precursor of the Cyberpunk genre, with its corrupt corporations more powerful than governments, sarcastic and resigned view of life and death where everyone is expendable, straying away from "hero" main characters. Gibson's "Neuromancer" is just the next step.
Gulliver Foyle was a nobody dock worker who happens to be in space. Large, dumb, uncaring, with no plans, motivation or aspirations, his life was looking like a dead end at 30. However, after his cargo ship Nomad was attacked by Outer Satellites and he, as the only survivor, left to die, and was passed over for pickup by the Vorga, a ship owned by the Presteign corporation, the most powerful one on Earth and the Inner Planets. Gully is enraged by the Vorga passing him by and his life gets only one meaning - to exact revenge on the Vorga and its crew.
Gully moves the Nomad with some spare rockets and lands it on the Sargasso asteroid, where leftover humans have formed their own primitive civilization - "The Scientific People." Gully is accepted into the tribe and his face is tattooed with a hideous tiger-like mask by Joseph, the leader and priest of the Scientific People. However Gully finds a working ship on the asteroid and flies to Earth where he meets Robin, a one-way telepath, whom he rapes and threatens with exposing her as an Outer Satellites agent.
Further Gully is found by Presteign and his minions and thrown into a jail deep in a gorge in France from where "jaunting" - teleporting, is impossible. However Gully meets Jizzbelle in the jail and they escape together to find the money on the Nomad, but Gully abandons Jizz. Later Gully takes the name of Geofrey Fourmyle from Ceres with his enormous fortune from the Nomad, but everyone is looking after the PyrE, which can be telepathically exploded and could be the key in winning the war with the Outer Satellites. Here Fourmyle meets Olivia Presteign, a blind albino daughter of Presteign, the head of the clan and incidentally the one who ordered the Vorga not to pick up Foyle from the Nomad.
Eventually Gully learns to jaunt through time and space, goes around the galaxy to scout some new inhabitable planets, appears as the "Flaming Gully" several times in the past, and with Robin's help, he finds his way back to the present when he goes back to the Scientific People and falls asleep.
Much of the plot is ripped directly from the Count of Monte Cristo, but it is interesting to see it set up in space. No good characters in the book - everyone has a flaw - even Robin who gets raped by Gully later accepts him and betrays him again. Same with Jizz who has sex with Gully before discovering his tiger tattoos and hates him afterwards. An interesting pointer in the 1950s as to where would the genre go next.
This novel is a great mixture of the old and the new. Published in the mid-50s, this novel is a proud representative of the pulpy 30s and 40s with their melodramatic plots, paper-thin characters, unfeasible science and generally being written like pirate stories in space. However, there's much of the new. This novel is the direct precursor of the Cyberpunk genre, with its corrupt corporations more powerful than governments, sarcastic and resigned view of life and death where everyone is expendable, straying away from "hero" main characters. Gibson's "Neuromancer" is just the next step.
Gulliver Foyle was a nobody dock worker who happens to be in space. Large, dumb, uncaring, with no plans, motivation or aspirations, his life was looking like a dead end at 30. However, after his cargo ship Nomad was attacked by Outer Satellites and he, as the only survivor, left to die, and was passed over for pickup by the Vorga, a ship owned by the Presteign corporation, the most powerful one on Earth and the Inner Planets. Gully is enraged by the Vorga passing him by and his life gets only one meaning - to exact revenge on the Vorga and its crew.
Gully moves the Nomad with some spare rockets and lands it on the Sargasso asteroid, where leftover humans have formed their own primitive civilization - "The Scientific People." Gully is accepted into the tribe and his face is tattooed with a hideous tiger-like mask by Joseph, the leader and priest of the Scientific People. However Gully finds a working ship on the asteroid and flies to Earth where he meets Robin, a one-way telepath, whom he rapes and threatens with exposing her as an Outer Satellites agent.
Further Gully is found by Presteign and his minions and thrown into a jail deep in a gorge in France from where "jaunting" - teleporting, is impossible. However Gully meets Jizzbelle in the jail and they escape together to find the money on the Nomad, but Gully abandons Jizz. Later Gully takes the name of Geofrey Fourmyle from Ceres with his enormous fortune from the Nomad, but everyone is looking after the PyrE, which can be telepathically exploded and could be the key in winning the war with the Outer Satellites. Here Fourmyle meets Olivia Presteign, a blind albino daughter of Presteign, the head of the clan and incidentally the one who ordered the Vorga not to pick up Foyle from the Nomad.
Eventually Gully learns to jaunt through time and space, goes around the galaxy to scout some new inhabitable planets, appears as the "Flaming Gully" several times in the past, and with Robin's help, he finds his way back to the present when he goes back to the Scientific People and falls asleep.
Much of the plot is ripped directly from the Count of Monte Cristo, but it is interesting to see it set up in space. No good characters in the book - everyone has a flaw - even Robin who gets raped by Gully later accepts him and betrays him again. Same with Jizz who has sex with Gully before discovering his tiger tattoos and hates him afterwards. An interesting pointer in the 1950s as to where would the genre go next.
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