What I'm Reading #5

The latest in an irregular series of posts on what I've been reading.

Books

Bad Blood

by John Carreyrou

Despite knowing the Theranos story, and having read John Carreyrou's reporting on the story at the time, at the end of this book, I had to stop and ask myself "WTF did I just read?". The answer was a thrilling book detailing what must be the wildest startup scandal in Silicon Valley.

Zed

by Joanna Kavenna

I found this novel to be so disappointing. It had an interesting premise for a novel, basically updating 1984 to have Big Brother make use of Artificial Intelligence and other technology, and adding an element of Kafka. Unfortunately, the author has tried to be clever, and the result was more irritating than illuminating.

The Institute

by Stephen King

An excellent novel. Stephen King has been back on form for a while (check out Sleeping Beauties if you haven't already read it), and this book is proof his current run of form is continuing.

Articles

Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

by George Dvorsky

For the attention of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. In space, no one can hear your workers scream...

A deep dive into Saint Bot, a new downloader

After being on the wrong end of a cyber attack recently, I am fascinated by these detailed descriptions of how malware works. In particular, I love reading about how cyber criminals take the everyday tools I use in my work (.NET and PowerShell) and use them (poorly in most cases) to create new malware vectors.

Bloody Sunday and how the British empire came home

by Adam Ramsay

After the recent verdict into the Ballymurphy shootings, I re-read this article on how Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy weren't abberations, but part of a long history of illegal killings by the British Army.

Counter-Forensics. Protecting your smartphone against the Five Eyes

The first tutorial I've came across on protecting your smart phone that goes beyond the naive 'enable the screen lock' advice. Worth a read to learn of the real threats to your smart phone's data.

No one will read your book (and other truths about publishing)

by Elle Griffin

This long read details exactly why most authors fail to make a living, despite more people reading than ever over lockdown.

The Incredible Rise of North Korea’s Hacking Army

by Ed Caesar

A long article that details the development of North Korean state sanctioned hackers.