Kevin Mitnick Audiobooks

Ghost in the Wires: from convicted hacker to security consultant, told from the inside

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.5/5 average

4 listener ratings

Who is Kevin Mitnick?

Kevin Mitnick (1963-2023) was an American computer security consultant, author and – the word that followed him everywhere – convicted hacker. His 1995 arrest for a string of computer and communications offences ended in a conviction for fraud and illegally intercepting communications, and five years in prison. Few cases in computing history have been argued over so fiercely: the pursuit, the trial, the sentence and the media circus around them were all contested, with supporters insisting the punishment was excessive and that many of the charges rested on losses that never really existed.

What happened next turned a cautionary tale into something stranger. On release, Mitnick crossed from poacher to gamekeeper, running his own firm, Mitnick Security Consulting, and lending his expertise to other security businesses: the hacker the authorities once hunted became a consultant the industry paid to keep it safe. He died in July 2023.

Kevin Mitnick in audiobooks

In audio, Mitnick’s appeal is obvious: his life reads like a thriller because, for a while, it effectively was one. Ghost in the Wires, his book in our catalogue, trades on precisely the territory that made his name – the crimes, the pursuit, the arrest and the arguments that never stopped. A story built on phone lines, intercepted communications and sheer nerve belongs in the ear; heard aloud, it plays as the chase it always was.

British listeners should not expect a neutral account – every element of this story, from the charges to the sentence, remains disputed – but that is exactly what makes it compelling. It offers genuine computing history with the momentum of a manhunt, and it leaves the listener to judge where mischief ended and menace began.