Technology

The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal.

Filed Under: Books Read

The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal.

The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal. by Evan Ratliff
Published by Random House on January 29, 2019
Pages: 480
Format: hardback
Genres: Biography, Journalism, Technology
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

The incredible true story of the decade-long quest to bring down Paul Le Roux—the creator of a frighteningly powerful Internet-enabled cartel who merged the ruthlessness of a drug lord with the technological savvy of a Silicon Valley entrepreneur

It all started as an online prescription drug network, supplying hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of painkillers to American customers. It would not stop there. Before long, the business had turned into a sprawling multinational conglomerate engaged in almost every conceivable aspect of criminal mayhem. Yachts carrying $100 million in cocaine. Safe houses in Hong Kong filled with gold bars. Shipments of methamphetamine from North Korea. Weapons deals with Iran. Mercenary armies in Somalia. Teams of hitmen in the Philippines. Encryption programs so advanced that the government could not break them.

The man behind it all, pulling the strings from a laptop in Manila, was Paul Calder Le Roux—a reclusive programmer turned criminal genius who could only exist in the networked world of the twenty-first century, and the kind of self-made crime boss that American law enforcement had never imagined.

For half a decade, DEA agents played a global game of cat-and-mouse with Le Roux as he left terror and chaos in his wake. Each time they came close, he would slip away. It would take relentless investigative work, and a shocking betrayal from within his organization, to catch him. And when he was finally caught, the story turned again, as Le Roux struck a deal to bring down his own organization and the people he had once employed.

Award-winning investigative journalist Evan Ratliff spent four years piecing together this intricate puzzle, chasing LeRoux's empire and his shadowy henchmen around the world, conducting hundreds of interviews and uncovering thousands of documents. The result is a riveting, unprecedented account of a crime boss built by and for the digital age.

Advance praise for The Mastermind

“As directors, we spend countless hours imagining heightened plots and memorable characters that will leave a lasting impression on audiences. The true tale of obsession, genius, intrigue, and vengeance detailed in The Mastermind is as gripping and cinematic as anything we could endeavor to conjure up.”—Joe and Anthony Russo, directors of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War

“With his relentless and fearless reporting, Evan Ratliff has pried open a hidden world filled with high-tech gangsters and drug kingpins and double-crossers and stone-cold hitmen. The story is as fascinating as it is terrifying, and it is one that will hold you in its grip.”—David Grann, author of Killers of the Flower Moon

“If truth is stranger than fiction, then The Mastermind is the truest book you’ll read this year. The only thing predictable about it is how quickly you’ll turn the pages.”—Noah Hawley, author of Before the Fall and creator of the TV series Fargo

“This is a mesmerizing, absolutely bonkers story about a man as brilliant as he is villainous. You’ll find yourself sucked in, freaked out, and ultimately blown away by Ratliff's storytelling and tireless reporting. The Mastermind is a masterpiece.”—Nick Thompson, editor-in-chief, Wired

The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age

Filed Under: Books Read

The Perfect Weapon: War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age

The Perfect Weapon: How the Cyber Arms Race Set the World Afire by David E. Sanger
Published by Penguin Random House on June 19, 2018
Pages: 384
Format: hardback
Genres: 21st Century U.S. History, Technology, World Politics
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

From the premiere New York Times Washington correspondent, a stunning and incisive look into how cyberwarfare is influencing elections, threatening national security, and bringing us to the brink of global war.

Behind the Russian cyberattacks that may have thrown the 2016 election; behind the Sony hack; behind mysterious power outages around the world and the disappearance of thousands of personnel records from poorly guarded government servers are the traces of a new and powerful weapon, one that has the potential to remake global conflict like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. The Perfect Weapon is the riveting story of how, in less than a decade, cyberwarfare displaced terrorism and nuclear attacks as the greatest threat to American national security.

Cheap to acquire, difficult to defend against, and designed to shield their user's identities so as to complicate retaliation, these weapons are capable of an unprecedented range of offensive tactics; they can take us just short of war, allowing for everything from disruption to theft to the cause of widespread damage of essential infrastructure systems. And the vulnerability of those systems has created a related but equally urgent conflict: American companies like Apple and Cisco must claim allegiance to no government in the name of selling secure products around the globe yet the US intelligence agencies want the help of such companies in defending against future cyberattacks.

Reported and written with unprecedented access by New York Times chief Washington correspondent and bestselling author David Sanger, The Perfect Weapon takes readers inside war rooms and boardrooms, into the secret cyberdens of American and Chinese military, to give the deep-background story of the increasingly pitched battle between nations, their governments, their cyberwarriors, and their corporations.