In his very reader-friendly manner Misha Glenny ( of McMafia and Brazilian underworld fame to name the few books by the same author) guides us through Internet underworld and introduces creators of sites for enticing and (this is something I found very interesting) support and mediation for various criminal activities.

Along the way we also meet law enforcement agencies who are chasing down criminals but don't cooperate, intelligence agencies utilizing same criminals for their own purposes, police officers blocked by bureaucracy and forced to act on their own [as they say in some cases it is better to ask forgiveness than permission] and security people that get chased down by their own agencies because you cannot trust anyone on the net and rumor can put the person in prison in no time.

Very interesting chapters linked to Turkey were a little bit down-played by the author. Considering entire schizophrenia and complete paranoia that rules the Internet [and especially shady parts of network] it is sometimes very difficult to discern lies and outright fantasies from the actual facts. And then I guess it is better to keep tone down.

Some readers said that writing style was condescending and/or long-winded. I did not have that experience. Everything presented is not given from the expert point of view. Misha Glenny is investigative journalist and it shows [in a good way], he knows a lot about a lot of things but does not use buzz words to let everyone know how smart he is. He lets experts speak through interviews and builds his story from there while making materiel understandable and available to everyone.

Highly recommended to all interested in current politics, crime-fighting and in general how technology changes our lives in not always good ways. ( )

DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You follows the story of the now-defunct cybercrime forum DarkMarket.

Based on the description my local library provided, I thought this book would be more like [b:American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road|31920777|American Kingpin The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road|Nick Bilton|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1578216397l/31920777._SY75_.jpg|52573415] by Nick Bilton - an exploration of the people behind a criminal enterprise and the impacts of the site itself on average people. In other words, I was expecting a book that was more focused on DarkMarket and the case itself, and this book did not meet my expectations.

Glenny writes a fair amount about global cybersecurity practises in this book. I found this to be somewhat tangent to what I thought the focus of the book was: the DarkMarket investigation. For example, an interlude is dedicated to discussing Estonia's cybersecurity practises. I'm still not sure how this is relevant to DarkMarket.

On top of that, Glenny also has a more dry writing style, which made this book even more difficult to read for me.

As to be expected with the subject matter of this book, there is a lot of technical lingo being used. I get the feeling that it's already less technical than similar books and Glenny did a decent job of explaining the concepts. But, the trouble with too much detail is that it can make the book difficult to follow, particularly for the lay reader.

I acknowledge that as a true crime fan who knows nothing about cybersecurity, I'm probably not the right reader for this book. However, if you're more interested and knowledgeable about the technical aspects of cybersecurity, you might want to consider giving this one a read.

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This is so inaccurate it's criminal. The author is so out of his depth this reads like some spoof.

Now let me get back to phishing my hacker trojan on my alienware laptop (a must have hacker accessory) so I can worm a pdf reader app into a shell and download a cracker onto my dark site through an encrypted ICQ channel.

If you read this sentence without choking (the alienware comment is a genuine line from the book, it made me giggle, so did "buffer overload") then it might be safe for you to read this book but why? There are dozens of better books: Fatal System Error, Countdown to Zero Day, Future Crimes, Spam Nation. Short of this book being some elaborate joke I don't understand how the publisher let this through. It's the reportage equivalent of a CSI: Miami episode. I also really dislike the dramatisation (i.e. fabrication) of the details that are patently unknowable.

If there was a technology consultant proofreading this I assume his head exploded and they just assumed that since he didn't get back it meant the book was flawless.

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There are many interesting stories of tracking cyberthieves in Estonia and other Eastern Bloc countries. It explains why it is so hard to track them down and find what they have done as the internet is such a fluid medium creating so many new forms of crime. ( )

Written like a thriller. More scary though as it is true! Well worth a read if you are interested in internet stories and crime. ( )