Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick

Ghost in Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker by Kevin Mitnick with William L. Simon is the autobiography of a sociopath hacker  scam artist who breaks the law, makes excuses, and gets upset when he is forced to pay the consequences for what he has done.

I generally find memoirs insufferable and this is no exception. If someone thinks their life is so great that it's worthy of an entire book, they generally are either wrong or full of self-satisfied sanctimoniousness.  This guy falls into the latter category. This guy breaks the law CONSTANTLY and dares to get pissy when the police and FBI and other law enforcement agencies go after him. I found myself actively rooting for him to get caught and somehow injured during the arrest. When I find myself rooting for LE officials, you have so obviously done something wrong. I mean, how could this guy have made himself any more unlikeable?

He basically uses "social engineering" (which is just lying to people) to get them to reveal information that he then uses to allow himself access to computer files of major utilities and corporations. He then steals those files. He's all defensive about this (I didn't USE the information for profit, he says - as if that would comfort the thousands of people whose credit card, social security, and utility numbers he has) and doesn't seem to actually be able to put himself in the shoes of the people he has scammed.

And don't even get me started on how he discusses women. 

I just seriously disliked this man.  I kind of wish he were still in jail.  This book didn't make me anymore worried about technology breaches (I live in 2017 when Equifax just basically released EVERY PERSON'S private information to everyone, after all), but just reinforced my belief that computer guys are jerks.  Way to go, Mitnick.