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Rogue Code  By  cover art

Rogue Code

By: Mark Russinovich
Narrated by: Johnny Heller
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Publisher's summary

Michael Lewis’ Flash Boys revealed how high-frequency trading has created a ruthless breed of traders capable of winning whichever way the market turns. In Rogue Code, Mark Russinovich takes it one step further to show how their grip on high finance makes the stock market vulnerable to hackers who could bring about worldwide financial collapse.

Cyber security expert Jeff Aiken knows that no computer system is completely secure. When he’s called to investigate a possible breach at the New York Stock Exchange, he discovers not only that their system has been infiltrated but that someone on the inside knows. Yet for some reason, they have allowed the hackers to steal millions of dollars from accounts without trying to stop the theft.

When Jeff uncovers the crime, the NYSE suddenly turns on him. Accused of grand larceny, he must find and expose the criminals behind the theft, not just to prove his innocence but to stop a multibillion-dollar heist that could upend the U.S. economy. Unwilling to heed Jeff’s warnings, the NYSE plans to continue with a major IPO using a new, untested system, one that might be susceptible both to hackers and to ruthless high-frequency traders willing to take any risk to turn a profit.

Now Jeff Aiken must unearth the truth on his own, following the thread to the back alleys of Rio de Janeiro to take on one of the world’s most ruthless cartels.

Praised for his combination of real-world technology and quick-paced action, with Rogue Code Mark Russinovich delivers an intense thriller about a cyber threat that seems all too possible - and the Wall Street traders who might allow it to happen.

Includes a foreword by Haim Bodek, author of The Problem of HFT: Collected Writings on High Frequency Trading & Stock Market Structure Reform.

©2014 Mark Russinovich (P)2014 Macmillan Audio

What listeners say about Rogue Code

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

This Will Probably Happen.

See, Mark Russinovich is the ubber-geek who can speak colloquial English.

You know like meeting a space alien who talks like he came from Philly. He can explain so that I can suddenly mutter… "Good God! We're all in a LOT of trouble."

Here he digs into the space where computer security meets VERY VERY VERY Big Money. And he explains exactly what opportunity (or threat) lurks between the left scissor edge of computer engineering and the right edge of international financial transaction.

First I'm warning you NOT TO LISTEN TO THIS BOOK… first. Go get Russinovich's "Zero Day" first. Because you probably will after you hear this novel. And since it's a continuing ensemble cast, hey… why not enjoy all of the feelings and back-stories as they grow through Mark's second novel, "Trojan Horse" (and his best), and then come here to Rogue Code?

Johnny Heller does a terrific job. I was disappointed though with the Jeff Aiken (hero) - Darlyl Haugen (demoted heroine) relationship's direction. They were so much more interesting twin parts of whole lead character in Zero Day and Trojan Horse. The altered path seemed like some sort of personality-ectomy. Hope the partnership gets renewed.

Oh yeah, that teaser up above… The Steven-King-terror-inducing-talent of Mark Russinovich is that what his stories tell-about will escape from his cloud and will probably happen quite soon, maybe tomorrow. YIPES!

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6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Formulaic

Never in doubt about the plot. A decent effort at explaining high frequency trading and the inside workings of an exchange. Narrator was difficult to listen to.

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4 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Dull dull dull

and a bit trite. And it is not the embedded quasi-technical information that makes it so -I am reasonably familiar with information system security. The plot just doesn't seem to have weight or momentum -the characters are not there. Couldn't finish it. The saving grace for me was learning High Frequency Trading. It is horrifyingly prevalent and - still- accounts for 50% or more of all trades and seems to add fragility to the markets. I can't articulate why taking profits (only a billion or so a year) from algorithm driven almost -nstant trades seems so wrong to me so I guess I'll go off and read Michael Lewis. Johnny Heller seemed wrong for the part.

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3 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars

Well...Better Than the Last One...

So at this point in the series (book 3), I really thought my review for this one was going to mirror my review for Mark Russinovich's first two books in the Jeff Aiken series. And for some parts it will. Just to summarize my thoughts... The Jeff Aiken series suffers from two main flaws. First, it's a series written for and by computer geek(s). Much of the story is heavily based on computers and cyber security. Unfortunately when you think about it, and look (realistically) about how real cyber security works, it isn't all that exciting. There's no hollywood like stunt actions, explosions or great chase scenes. We'll most likely have a person or small group of people hunched over computer with coffee and perhaps a pastry laying around. So an easy way to by pass this interest crippling fact is to add in all of this artifically. The first book in my opinion fell for the trap of trying to go too big in scale, drama, and dooms day plot. It literally pits a cyber security researcher (note I don't mean a secret agent or someone trained in combat) go up against two Al Qaeda cyber hacking assassins, one brandishing a sword by the way if it couldn't get any more ridiculous.
The first book to me is just a parade of cliche's, bad character dialogue, and a plot that is just too James Bond for me. The 2nd book improves upon this in small amounts. It still wasn't perfect, and the characters are as flat as ever, but the plot isn't as bombastic and it cleaned up some of the drama. That being said, it still fell for the same cliches, super evil middle east terrorists and all...

So with that recapped, "Rogue Code" I was prepared to be written in the same vein. And for some of it, it is. But I'll give credit where it's due. Mark Russinovich has improved noticeably. (that or he just wanted to change it up a bit) Either way, the book comes off as far more polished. What I mean by this, is..well here's a check list of things I feel have improved...

Character Development.. Now after 3 books of the same core characters, you'd have to be a really crappy writer if you couldn't get your audience to care at least a tiny tiny bit about them. But in Rogue Code there actually is a noticable increase in character depth here. I mean it's not going to have me trying to psycho analyze the character's driving motivations, but they actually seem far more real in this book. I suppose this could be because it takes places about a year after the 2nd book and both of the main characters who have been dating, have split, and are off making their own way. Now the flip side of this is how quickly the fall back to each other, and the inclusion of having Darryl be like the only person in the world who can assist in this.. (though granted the role she plays is pretty cool, and even a bit painful to read at the end).

A more down to earth story is presented here, which...thank god is also (to me anyway..) more interesting. To some the plot of the hacking of the NYSE for a corruption ring in Brazil, may pale in comparison to the world shattering events of mid east terrorists on the verge of plotting a nuclear attack on the US, and the only man who can stop them is Super Aiken. To me, I mean come on, let's get a far more realistic story to make me feel like these characters are real. Not super hero archetypes. I think this more human plot (the back story of our antagonists is actually fleshed out modestly well too) gives life to Jeff, Darryl and Frank. Character decisions and the story flow itself just felt far more natural because it was a story I could (almost) expect to see on the news.

The action, flow and direction of the story as a whole hasn't changed. And that is a very good thing. One of Mark Russinovich's talents is he can really write a good climax and set the pace so that it becomes a real page turner. For all three of his novels. Despite my dislike of the first two, even those, provided a really entertaining ride at the end. Characters met, faced off, and as unrealistic as the combat usually turns out, It's a fun ride.

In Rogue Code, it seems Mark has also moved away from the preachy style of writing. In his first two novels, they come off as bordering on fables, with a morale that he's trying to ram down our throats. He makes it painfully aware to the reader than we, through the heavy use of the internet and lack of focus on security, leave ourselves open. The idea is one that is very real and the audience is made away of it in the first book. Book two comes along and basically re-hashes that same point. The book Trojan Horse could, in my opinion be a carbon copy of book 1, Zero Day. The same thesis is presented and even the character dynamics, and villains and support characters, are the same. It offers nothing new. This is why Rogue Code was such a breath of (Moderately) fresh air. It lays off the gas of rubbing the terrorist plot in our faces and presents us with a book that is still thrilling, and deals with cyber crime, but not so determined to prove a point.

One complaint that I did have with Rogue Code is that (exactly like the first two books) is that the presentation of the different pieces of the storylines. While the first two books provided a few different points of view and story threads, Rogue Code goes a bit overboard with this, and in the beginning it can be pretty jarring. There's a lot of different people and players in the book and unless you really pay attention to their jobs and titles, and what company they're in, it can get very confusing as to who is who and why they're apart of this story. This came off as me reading about these characters who I wasn't sure if they were even important to the story. (there's quite a few that aren't, but I suppose just add to the feel of the story)

I'll wrap this up by saying that reading Rogue Code is far far more enjoyable than the first two. I think the character interaction, and the way it's presented fueled this. It really feels like an organized, natural and fun cyber thriller. I wasn't rolling my eyes and cringing like I was for the first book. Jeff Aiken and Darryl actually had me smiling for a bit, and the plot of the story was very acceptable in terms of how much I could take in as believible. If Mark were to write a 4th in the series, I'd be hoping that he builds on this, and continues his development as an author.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Watch out as it may make you paranoid...

Would you consider the audio edition of Rogue Code to be better than the print version?

I haven't read the print version, but I must say that the Portuguese words pronunciation in this book could (should) have been a lot better. I am Brazilian and I had a really hard time understanding most of the portuguese from the audiobook. But on the other hand, this is the ONLY complain I have on this audiobook.

What did you like best about this story?

As usual, all his books are very realistic, not only from a technical stand point, but also in many aspects portrait in the story (economics, politics, etc). Beware, you could become paranoid about your computer and devices security after reading any histories with Jeff Aiken ;)

Any additional comments?

Excellent book. I couldn't stop listening. Finished the book in only 2 sittings. Only complain is that the portuguese pronunciation is wrong almost every time (I am from Brazil, where part of the history happens).

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
  • P
  • 05-31-14

Decent IT fiction

What made the experience of listening to Rogue Code the most enjoyable?

Makes you reevaluate some of the systems we take for granted and assume to be error proof.

If you’ve listened to books by Mark Russinovich before, how does this one compare?

I've listed to all his books and this one is fares the same. I like that he doesn't use the same formula.

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Johnny Heller?

Anyone else.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No.

Any additional comments?

It's tough to write an IT thriller that both IT folks and general public can thoroughly embrace. The result is snippets throughout the book that explain mundane facts that IT folks know about and the repetition/reminders of other events like the BATS IPO make this a little tiresome to finish. Mark should try harder to get his books in the same echelon as Daniel Suarez's IT thriller Daemon.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Loved the story and all his books.

Loved the story and all his books. Very entertaining. Fun story and interesting story line.

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  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars

Not on the same level as other Jeff Aiken novels

As much as I liked the other Jeff Aiken novels, this one just seemed to struggle to focus and the conflict took too long to come out and wasn't that interesting once it finally got moving.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great read and well written.

I really enjoyed this book. Being in the field of technology and knowing that the author knows what he is talking about made this book a lot of fun to listen to.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

couldn't finish

by the last couple hours I didn't care any more. I'm a technophile but story was unimpressive and the reader was awful. dialog between male and female characters sounded identical and I just didn't care enough to finish.

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