Book Review: Why hackers Win: power and disruption in the network society

• Published date: 01 December 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/07340168221082951
• Author: Jay S. Albanese
• Date: 01 December 2024

solutions is particularly interesting. Finally, this book provides ample information for anyone hoping

to better understand contemporary research and response to gun violence in the United States.

Further, students and scholars that research gun violence would benefit from reading—as well as

practitioners seeking to expand their tool kit of informed responses to gun violence.

Patrick Burkart & Tom McCourt.

Why hackers Win: power and disruption in the network society.Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2019.

pp. 197. 978-0-520-30013-2. $29.95.

Reviewed by: Jay S. Albanese, Virginia Commonwealth University, Wilder School of Government & Public Affairs

DOI: 10.1177/07340168221082951

Why Hackers Win approaches the issue of cybersecurity from a unique perspective. Cybersecurity is

often framed as an attack against legitimate commerce and infrastructure (e.g., phishing, malware

attacks, password hacking), but this book argues the inverse---that corporate and government

efforts to control the risk of hacking results pose greater threats of surveillance, data misuse, and per-

sonal privacy concerns against citizens than do the hacks they purport to prevent. Moreover, as the

authors note, "states have resisted legal regimes to contain hacking by institutions---even as they

have enacted draconian laws against hacking by individuals" (p.xii).

The hacking of data and online activity of individuals by commercial and government institutions

serves many of their interests, including gathering intelligence, maintaining competitive advantage,

and handling crises involving incidents or trust in their systems. Moreover, this hacking by institu-

tions has spread to the hacking of commercial and government rivals, often seeking vulnerabilities in

their systems.

Of course, it is now impossible to conduct banking, the purchase of goods and services, and media

entertainment without an online presence, accounts, and passwords. We must rely on trust thatthe

commercial and government systems will protect our personal information. But these information

databases are increasingly controlled by third parties (e.g., clouds, private storage vendors) which

are subject to internal and external threats of unauthorized dissemination or hacking. Added to

this is the growing "Internet of Things" in which refrigerators, alarms, webcams, and other

devices all provide access points for potential misuse, including doxing, ransomware, or sale and

use of private information without authorization. The software codes that underlie the security of

these devices often contain defects that can be exploited.

Why Hackers Win reviews a number of the major cases of cybersecurity in recent years, noting

that corporate, third-party, and government data have all been hacked with the ultimate victims

being individuals without recourse. The readers will recall the breaches at Yahoo, Equifax, NSA

data-gathering revelations from Edward Snowden, Uber, News Corp, Sony, Volkswagon, Target,

Home Depot, DNC emails, and others the authors discuss in detail. It is also shown how current

law provides little or no remedy for individuals, and that individual hackers are prosecuted aggres-

sively, both civilly and criminally, while companies and government agencies involved in breaches

are not.

Current international agreements, such as the Budapest Convention, are addressed in dealing with

cybersecurity and, although laudable, some major governments do not participate, and compliance is

not yet assured. In addition, there has not been full recognition of the threat of "dual-use" technol-

ogies such as invasive software that can be "deployed in both military and business networks for

both defensive and offensive campaigns" (p. 47).

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