Fatal System Error

"This was really the first serious book about cyber crime that was written by someone who could write – Joseph Menn, who was the technology correspondent at the FT. What he does, quite sensibly, for much of the book is write not about computers but about the characters and the detective work behind a couple of crimes. Fatal System Error is a very readable book, and it demonstrates that if a crime takes place on the web, if you’re the victim all you know is that someone has stolen your ID or your credit card details or whatever, and nothing else. This gives you a profound feeling of powerlessness, which I think is very interesting, and is one of the things I try and explore in Dark Market . What Joseph has done, which I think is very important, is begin to show how the real world interacts with cyber when it comes to crime. And just how complex and developing the relationships are between cyber and traditional organised crime, which is beginning to get in on the cyber action, because they realise that it’s a hugely reduced risk from a lot of their other activities. But the hackers who have the technical ability to do this are a very different type. They do not fall into types recognised by classical criminology. They tend to be very young when they get started – aged between 12 and 15 – and they become involved incrementally in crime. Sometimes they don’t understand the moral implications of what they’re doing at all, because they get involved in it before their moral compass is anywhere like fully formed. “Hackers do not fall into types recognised by classical criminology. They tend to be very young when they get started – aged between 12 and 15” They are also quite vulnerable personalities. Hackers tend to conform to certain personality types. They often find the formation of relationships in real life difficult, and often look for some form of affirmation. Menn writes very well about this interaction between the real and the virtual world."