whiskeytown's review

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3.0

This book came in four parts. The first part is simply an introduction by Kevin Mitnick. Parts 2 and 3 are full of stories showing the techniques used by social engineers, from the perspective of the social engineer, or the victim, or often both. They also include an analysis of what was done and explanation of various terms and techniques.

The fourth part of the book was a laundry list of policies to put in place to defend against social engineering.

As someone who works in a company that has pretty much all of these policies in place, I found the fourth section to drag on and it was a bit of a struggle to finish.

Additionally, having been written in 2002 this book could do with an appendix or addendum to update some of the information that has grown out of date.

papabearcoco's review

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5.0

Well. After you read this book you'll definitely think twice about giving out certain information. Really opens your eyes to how easy it still is even in today's technological world to hack into stuff you'd never assume you could. Anyone could do it. It's called social engineering. Talking your way into stuff. Freakin' awesome.

jmhobbs's review

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2.0

It was okay, he repeated the same thing over and over. Some of the stories were clever and fun though.

mtbottle's review

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This book annoyed me because the main takeaway seems to be "TRUST NOBODY". Although it is interesting to see the ways we can take advantage of human trust, I feel like there was too much veneration of attackers and how awesome they are for taking advantage of people trying to be helpful.

I'm abandoning this book because it as many of the examples are quite dated.

observacious's review

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4.0

a detailed look at social engineering from someone who has done it.

crisron's review

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adventurous informative mysterious tense fast-paced

5.0

zuzu_k's review

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funny informative inspiring reflective slow-paced

4.0

amygda1a's review

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challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

dstaples's review

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3.0

The first three parts were a fun read, but the last part read like a textbook. Very strange.

lexia_39's review against another edition

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informative

4.0