A modern-day penny dreadful: Hacking is an industry, not just for black and white hat computer security experts, but for the mass media as well. Hackers are the modern-day equivalent of the gunslingers of the American frontier, exploited by the media and misunderstood by a public fascinated by them. The picture of Mitnick presented in Shimomura and Markoff's Takedown is no better then an account of Billy the Kid in a 19th century penny dreadful.

Don't purchase this book without picking up Jonathan Littman's excellent Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick. There are two stories to every side, and the Kevin Mitnick saga is no exception. Littman presents a much more complex and problematic account of Mitnick's supposed exploits, and the media circus that has surrounded him.