I still don't know how the world ends

It's a great title and, bottom line: it's really worth listening to and the narrator is great, playing the roll of tough female investigator in a male world. Yet it suffers from not being edited harder and not developing its story to its full potential. But - full disclosure - I found I edited it quite well by falling asleep in the many repetitive sections. That did it no end of good because the bits I did take in gave me information that everyone should know and add to our big list of things that are going to destroy us. This was never explicitly spelt out, unless I missed it when I was unconscious, but I think what is implied is that some idiot will hack a control system that ACCIDENTALLY starts a nuclear war. Of all the things that will cause the apocalypse CARELESSNESS like that seems to me to be the most plausible human foible to finish us all. It’s a close race though between that and global warming, artificial intelligence and intentional war, though really what is the point of betting on which threat will get us first when there will be no one here to pay out or collect?
So anyway you will learn the idea of ‘Zero Days’ – the point at which software is released to the public (day zero) that has become a pseudonym with the most vulnerable time in the life cycle of software as that is when it hasn’t been publicly tested by a wider world than just the nerd centre that made it and when there are therefore potentially the most undiscovered bugs, or more accurately sections of weak code, that can be exploited. Somehow the term Zero Days has now also mutated into a name for a vulnerable piece of code, a phrase has become a noun, and so there are obviously Zero Days within language itself too, but that’s by the by. You will learn that one common way that software vulnerabilities are exploited is to rewrite little bits of code within software updates - you know the ones we are always being asked to install to make the software better, which is ironic to say the least. And, blow me, the people, the hackers, that can find and exploit these Zero Days can get paid for them handsomely, both so they can be fixed or weaponised, according to which side of the evil equation you are on. Who knew that governments would like to use them as weapons against other governments? There then follows many chapters in which we hear examples of various people selling various Zero Days for various large amounts of money, but essentially it’s just the same thing and the story never develops.
The level at which the information is tackled is pretty superficial at times and a bit suspect in terms of journalistic rigour. For a start Martin Luther King is credited with the brilliant saying ‘ An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind’ when a simple search on Google will confirm that it is a quote generally attributed to Gandhi about thirty years earlier. This level of checking also applies to the story of Stuxnet – the software that was supposed to have brought down the Iranian nuclear programme. I have read about code breakers in Bletchley Park that managed to keep their work secret for over sixty years - so if it is public knowledge, and Stuxnet was general knowledge about a couple of years after its supposed use, somebody probably wants you to know about it or wants you to think you know about it. Stuxnet was a bit of incredibly short code that infected many computerised controllers – not only in Iran, but all over the Middle East and central Asia pretty much simultaneously. It could be that Iran’s anti-virus software just wasn’t as good as other countries and that it wasn’t directly targeted at all. Also it was supposed to have lain dormant and switched itself on at the right moment and off when being scrutinised – very complex things to do with just about 500k of code – is it really possible? – what are the code size vs. complexity of behaviour limits? The author doesn’t know or discuss such theoretical computing concepts, and so misses another important line of evidence. Also it’s reported that 2000 of 70,000 centrifuges were disabled – or 68,000 were still in action – enough to do the job of uranium purification, with only a minor inconvenience one would have thought. It’s not that I am a conspiracy theorist; I don’t think I am anyway, and besides the conventional view of Stuxnet sounds like it could itself stem from conspiracy theory or at least ‘to good to be true’ theory. It’s just that a book of this length demands detailed rigour and we don’t get it.
Most of all I would have liked this book to gradually focus on the possibility of the accidental detonation of nuclear weapons – something it is surely vital to understand for the whole world’s safety, and giving it that much missed story development - but it never delivers on its title – only goes on about the many ways in which people will try to profit from other people’s mistakes. We know. Even so it causes you to think about all the things I've mentioned, which is why it’s well worth listening.

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9 people found this helpful

Remarkable insights into a secret and deadly world

Journalists come in for a lot of criticism, much of it deserved. However, books like this should remind us how important and valuable good journalists are. This story needed to be told and it took the drive and persistence of a very talented, intelligent and brave woman to do it. Nicole Perlroth makes this complex and highly technical world accessible to the public. It shines a light on the very dangerous underbelly of the Internet, which is driven by greed, fear and political ambition. What struck me most was how the public and a country’s infrastructure has become the battlefield and how everyone in the world is likely to be a victim or casualty one day. I really hope that this book is widely read and pressure is put on leaders around the world to restore some sanity before real disaster strikes. Everyone should read this book if they want to understand how the world could end!

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3 people found this helpful

Great book let down by sloppy narration

Nicole Perlroth's account of the world ofcyberweapons is as gripping as a thriller and as terrifying as a Stephen King novel. It's written in a lively style that is authoritative, well informed, and often very funny. It's won awards, and deservedly so. Its origins in shorter pieces of journalism are evident in both positive and negative ways - positive in that each chapter is written in easily digestible chunks that convey clear information and have well drawn portraits of the key players, and slightly negative in the sense that there's a bit of repetition (an anecdote about how Microsoft "got their shit together" is repeated almost verbatim, for example) - stronger editing would have helped. But with that minor proviso, this is an important book that explains a complex area very well.

As other reviewers have noted, however, the book is let down by a very poor standard of narration. Although the narrator delivers the text clearly, there are a lot of errors in pronunciation (the maddeningly distracting "Kreev" for Kiev has been pointed out by other reviewers). There's also a surprisingly large number of misreadings - community for communist, disposed for deposed. and others. Audiobooks do cost a lot of money and I feel we should expect that narrators would (a) take the time to find out how to pronounce unfamiliar words and that (b) when they make mistakes producers will catch them and fix them. Not good enough really. So I'd certainly recommend the printed book but would be slow to recommend the audiobook.

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1 person found this helpful

Another Piece Of The Jigsaw

If you're at all interested in how the world works and who deals with who then this is essential listening. It's as much a global politics book as it is a warning about cyber security and our safety in a future where everything is connected.
The book is a post Snowdon milestone, one that can and should be referenced in 10 years time just to keep track of how things have moved on.

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Terrifying but good to know

Whilst the author does exort me to use long passwords due to coding/hash exploits that I won't detail here, it does feel slightly hopeless if the operating system and even the chips themselves have been compromised. Truly eye opening. I knew a lot about phishing and a bit about hacking, but the complicty of the various government agencies and how their desires for cyber offence Vs. defence have left us all totally vulnerable was an education. An essential read, but I would suggest you line up something more cheery and fanciful you can lose yourself in immediately afterwards as I am not quite sure what I/we can do against this level of infiltration on so many levels. But at least read this and take the red pill, even if it might taste awful.

Very good reading by Nicole. Apologies for the 4, but I only give 5s to truly exceptional actors that have to do a zillion voices. You did nothing wrong and were excellent, but unlike Spinal Tap, I can't go to eleven, so have to leave some headroom. I hope you understand.

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Good overview of the current cyber war!

Good performance although a little bit monotonic. This book gives a bird’s eye view of the cyber exploits performed by independent and state sponsored groups.
Nicole seems to be objective and fair until Donald Trump comes onto the scene, at which point the tone changes, which is a shame as it rather spoils things a bit.
Still worth listening to though.

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Scary but a must read

Very well written and narrated book about how incredibly vulnerable we are, illustrating how Russian hackers access US nuclear facilities, how other foreign actors hacked and effected hospitals, electrify grids and even electoral lists. On top of that it’s illustrated how poorly governmental agencies are at storing digital weapons of mass destruction while equally inept at protecting us.

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Outstanding

Thought this would be a well-written business book on cyber, but turned out to provide a new lens through which to see and understand the world.

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Brilliant

An instructive and eye-opening book replete with detail and meticulous analysis. Very helpful book!

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A rewarding audiobook

This was a long read/audio. it's extremely detailed and well researched. The author goes through numerous world famous cyber attacks and their root causes. I feel I've learned a lot on the underground world of cyber hackers. I wouldn't say it's enjoyable more like informative and rewarding.

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