Spam Nation

Risky topic, but Br. Krebs hits it out of the park

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Not only would I recommend it to my Cyber Security Colleagues, I will and have recommended it to a number of technical & non-technical & Leadership professionals that can use the stories in Brian's book to put some context around many of the things we encounter everyday...anywhere from a DDOS attack, phishing email or stolen credit card numbers.

What did you like best about this story?

I enjoyed the level of detail that Brian was able to provide - you can't make this stuff up! It takes a great story teller to explain the technical crud and avoid putting your audience to sleep. Brian does a good job grabbing you, let go a few times, and then loops everything back around in the end.

Which scene was your favorite?

I really liked That he was crazy enough to travel overseas and meet some of these people...it's not for the faint of heart, and I will bet that Brian was much more nervous than he let on.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

unfortunately, I have a bit of a personal conection to a few chapters from the book...not with Mr. Krebs, although I have seen him at a couple industry events. My biggest reaction was more of - ahaaa, that is why this stopped happening, or "that explains a lot".

Any additional comments?

I did the kindle and audio versions, the audio was great, but I had to get past the Russian narratives, after a while, ey just became funny parts of the story...as They were probably meant to be.

24 of 24 people found this review helpful

Surprised How Riveting a Technology Book Could Be

Any additional comments?

I expected a wonky technology book but found myself caught up in the drama and colorful personalities of a virtual war that impacted all of our lives, though most knew little about. I was equally impressed with the narrator's ability to to switch between accents and reflect the personalities of the subjects involved. By far one of my favorite audiobooks to date.

13 of 13 people found this review helpful

Must read

Gives a good insight in to the world of spam. I am glad but very surprised the bad guys left the author alone, considering how he exposes their operating methods.

Write more books Brian.

Morten Ziersen
Denmark

12 of 12 people found this review helpful

Great book, Narrator will cure your Insomnia

What made the experience of listening to Spam Nation the most enjoyable?

I've followed Brain Krebs since he started at the Post years ago. This book ties together some of his most groundbreaking, and engadging articles over the years and gives the reader a behind the scenes look at both his sources and methods. And the merky world of Russian origanized Cybercrime

What did you like best about this story?

The best thing in this book by far is the explaination of Rouge Online Phramacies. The personal stories from Amaricans who buy from pill shops advertised in spam email are both fascinating, and horrifing. If there were only one reason to reform our perscription drug system this book gives a great one

What didn’t you like about Christopher Lane’s performance?

I did not like Lane's perfomance at all, he drones in a monotone for hours. It detracts from Krebs' excellent writing, and almost makes the book unlistenable Except for his Russian accent which is pretty good, but even that devolves into a monotone after a few minutes

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, with lots of cofee to compinsate for Lane's utterly boring performance :)

10 of 10 people found this review helpful

Excellent book

I really enjoyed this book. Once you get past Brian Krebs love of himself, it's very informative. I'm a frequent visitor of his site and this book goes along with some if the things he writes about. Great listen.

7 of 7 people found this review helpful

Amazing Audio/Read

I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend it to anyone interested in the topic. Best book ever! A

5 of 5 people found this review helpful

Informative read

Even though we have good filters on our e-mail programs these days and no longer see all the spam, the author maintains it is a critical problem. Krebs claims the crooks are no longer content with standard commercial fraud, e-mail criminals infect millions of computers worldwide with toxic digital parasites, designed to extort our wealth and steal our personal data.

Krebs states that Russia is the key spam Nation with skilled hackers and corrupt police and is now the global epicenter of cyber crime. Krebs says Visa and MasterCard are starting to successfully shut down spammers. The author says Microsoft and other such companies are becoming successful shutting down “botnets.” Krebs tells of the frightening world of cyber criminals and reveals some of the success in fighting it.

The information is interesting but the author had problems staying focused on the main topic. The writing was jerky at times making for a difficult read but the topic was interesting enough to overcome the writing difficulties. I am glad I listened to this book rather than read it because of all the Russian names. I would not know how to pronounce them. Christopher Lane narrated the story.

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Great book

Great story, very insightful. Some names in Russian weren't accurately pronounced but its not a big deal.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Who knew that Spam was so interesting

What made the experience of listening to Spam Nation the most enjoyable?

Great book that really digs into the spam problem and what drives those to spend so much time and effort sending spam.

6 of 7 people found this review helpful

Spam for your ears and brain

Very disappointing book on a few levels.

While the book takes you through a bloated account of the stories of some of the key figures in the Russian Spam "industry", the book focusses almost no attention to some of the other aspects of spam - i.e. in particular the stories about the people who click on spam messages and why. There is some token coverage of some anecdotal accounts of people who buy pills from Russian spammers, but no serious attempt to ascertain the quality of the drugs supplied. For what is a huge worldwide online pill industry, Krebs struggles to come up with more than a small handful of people to interview about it. And while Krebs makes brief mention of other well known spam operations, no real light is ever shed on the people who are "victims" of spam.

The narration is also hilariously bad - why it was decided to use Russian accents for some of the people when straight English would have sufficed is curious. All the Russian characters sound like Boris from Rocky & Bullwinkle.

Overall the book just seemed like one long, boring infomercial for the author's website.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful