This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends

This is a great little bible of leaks & cyberattacks of the last decade that have shaped our modern world. Nicole's work at New York Times gave her access to curious set of characters. From Italian contractor-hackers for hire, through Argentine's old guard hacking for fun all the way to elite NSA hackers hacking for their country.

Most of the stories were not new for me, but she packaged them up for ordinary people. Accessible, readable and fun. Full of detail but short on technical jargon. There's a lot of notes in the back of the book to back up most of the stories as well. If you've never heard of Stuxnet, Petya, WannaCry and others, this book might make you throw away your iPhone/Android and any other electronic device.

I suppose a small consolation for people might be: Unless you build nuclear centrifuges or are a political activist in Saudi Arabia, Uighur in China or some high profile individual in politics - nobody will "burn" their expensive zero-day bug just to get into your devices. The costs have risen significantly over the years (to millions of dollars for each).

This book covers the big picture. Zero-days, nation-states spying on each other, industrial espionage, ransomware of the highest order and more. It might work as an overview for future policy decisions. What the book misses is the recommendations for the ordinary people. Can they avoid being collateral damage in this war of the titans?

Worst attacks happen because people run out of date software riddled with bugs that have long been patched in the new versions. There's a hint of this recommendation buried in the book in one or two places. But I feel like that was a missed opportunity.