Worm

The First Digital World War

By: Mark Bowden

Narrated by: Christopher Lane

Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins

Publisher's summary

Worm: The First Digital World War tells the story of the Conficker worm, a potentially devastating piece of malware that has baffled experts and infected more than twelve million computers worldwide. When Conficker was unleashed in November 2008, cybersecurity experts did not know what to make of it. Exploiting security flaws in Microsoft Windows, it grew at an astonishingly rapid rate, infecting millions of computers around the world within weeks. Once the worm infiltrated one system it was able to link it with others to form a single network under illicit outside control known as a “botnet.” This botnet was soon capable of overpowering any of the vital computer networks that control banking, telephones, energy flow, air traffic, health-care information — even the Internet itself. Was it a platform for criminal profit or a weapon controlled by a foreign power or dissident organization?

Surprisingly, the U.S. government was only vaguely aware of the threat that Conficker posed, and the task of mounting resistance to the worm fell to a disparate but gifted group of geeks, Internet entrepreneurs, and computer programmers. But when Conficker’s controllers became aware that their creation was encountering resistance, they began refining the worm’s code to make it more difficult to trace and more powerful, testing the Cabal lock’s unity and resolve. Will the Cabal lock down the worm before it is too late? Game on.

©2011 Mark Bowden (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Clearly and enjoyably written

Explains such an obscure and esoteric subject as internet security in a way that is more digestible to laymen. Similar to Clifford Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg, but more sophisticated.

The narrator's voice is pleasantly paternal, has a tone that follows the writer's intention well.

Intriguing and riveting

Would you listen to Worm again? Why?

Worm is the most fascinating, interesting and suspenseful books I've read in a long time - and I've read some really good ones!

A complicated problem expertly explained.

What did you love best about Worm?

Very well written, Bowden takes a complicated subject and not only explains it simply, but manages to keep it highly entertaining as well.

What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?

The subject could have been dull, but Bowden keeps it moving along without loosing his audience, This despite LOTs of complicated concepts and processes to explain.

What about Christopher Lane???s performance did you like?

He is a very competent and engaging orator.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes

Any additional comments?

Great read, if you are at all interested in the subject, this book won't disappoint.

Masterful Work of Journalism

Any additional comments?

As a professional in the field, I normally find any article or book by a typical journalist dealing with computer security, hacking, or artificial intelligence to be absurdly inaccurate and devoid of anything useful. Mark Bowden is clearly not a typical journalist.

I have been familiar with Conficker as a piece of malware since I first learned about it in school, but I had never before heard the details behind the group finding and dealing with it as it first hit the web. This book tells that story as it unfolded, treating all the characters in a believable and human way. The technical material is presented for a typical non-technical reader, but is all very accurate and well described by analogy.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long time, and I would highly recommend it to anyone, from casual computer user to software engineer.

They're out there...and they want in.

Any additional comments?

I liked this book on several levels. First it is an interesting subject by a good author. Sesond it is a compelling description of the rapidly escalating cyberwarfare going on behind the screens, and can be understood and enjoyed by just about anyone. Geek credentials not required, but interesting to geeks too. But more than that, the personalities, alliances, strategies, counterstrategies, escalation, and implications reads like a spy novel...but it's true. The book went fast because I kept wanting to find out what was next. These are very clever people. Since it is real, there are more loose ends than a novel, but welcome to real life.

hard to get through

struggled to finish it. maybe I was expecting it to be more intriguing but either way the narrator wasn't that great either.

Not what it was advertised to be

It started off good, and went down hill from there.
If you like a lecture on the terms and history of the internet great. It was like listening to someone read a dictionary of computer terms.

Very boring book.

What disappointed you about Worm?

This book is very boring.

Has Worm turned you off from other books in this genre?

This book has not turned me off of other books in this genre.

What didn’t you like about Christopher Lane’s performance?

Boring

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

None

Any additional comments?

I wish I could get my credit back. I did not, I could not finish this book...

Not what I expected

The ending is a let down. The story is pretty flat and the dialogue has a lot to be desired.
It is more like a report than a story. I won't say more than that.

Uggghh

While this book was educational, it was very boooorrrinnnng. The author believed that he should explain the workings of a computer in order to describe the cornficker infection. After hearing about mano v mano and the foibles of various players, I decided that he had an axe to grind and set the "listen" to fast forward. I've read Bowden books in the past, but this one was baaaaad.