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Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon by Kim Zetter
timdams007's review against another edition
4.0
A perfect companion to the equally fascinating documentary, Zero Days, on stuxnet. The book loses some momentum towards the end were it suddenly starts rambling off numbers (amount of enriched uranium produced) which could've more efficiently be reproduced with a simple graph. Other than that, the book reads like a real page turner and has enough depth to satisfy my hunger for this type of books) thanks to the many footnotes, parts of the more technical stuff are left out of the main text making the book accessible for anyone). Good read.
dsoreads's review against another edition
4.0
Better than fiction.
Kim’s narrative keeps this mostly technical operation plot alive. Although some parts were repetitive and slightly dry, most of the factual details were fresh and active on the storyline.
This book makes one respect the technical capabilities of the CIA and NSA. To be able to deploy a collision hash for MD5 crypto-logic??? That seriously is god-level.
Understanding the potential process details of how Stuxnet could have been built or written was most fascinating.
In addition to all the technical details one enjoys, the geopolitical back story of all this was impressive. By the end of the book, whether Stuxnet opened up the pandora’s box of future conflicts in a new medium or did stalling the Iranians actually save the world from anything is a whole different question to leave with.
This book left me on a dilemma - may be this escalation to cyber world’s deterrent saves physical warfare saving blood/ammunition/even lives or may be it worsens like how fictitious DieHard-style causality build would be of the future? Time will tell, I suppose. So far it hasn’t been terrible; but rather admirable a strategy.
Kim’s narrative keeps this mostly technical operation plot alive. Although some parts were repetitive and slightly dry, most of the factual details were fresh and active on the storyline.
This book makes one respect the technical capabilities of the CIA and NSA. To be able to deploy a collision hash for MD5 crypto-logic??? That seriously is god-level.
Understanding the potential process details of how Stuxnet could have been built or written was most fascinating.
In addition to all the technical details one enjoys, the geopolitical back story of all this was impressive. By the end of the book, whether Stuxnet opened up the pandora’s box of future conflicts in a new medium or did stalling the Iranians actually save the world from anything is a whole different question to leave with.
This book left me on a dilemma - may be this escalation to cyber world’s deterrent saves physical warfare saving blood/ammunition/even lives or may be it worsens like how fictitious DieHard-style causality build would be of the future? Time will tell, I suppose. So far it hasn’t been terrible; but rather admirable a strategy.
fxp's review against another edition
4.0
Stuxnet was the first cyber weapon of significant impact that became widely known. Kim Zetter tells the fascinating story of its discovery while making the technical details easy to understand.
cdbaker's review against another edition
3.0
I wanted to like this book more. It's an amazing story, but this account of it was way too technical for this non-computer person.
dlsmall's review against another edition
4.0
Compelling, well-paced and structured telling of the discovery and investigation of Stuxnet. Excellent job of being so many disparate characters to life.