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

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
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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.

Garden Fresh Pesto

Basil from 2018 Garden
a packet of basil seeds can provide enough basil for a winter’s worth of pesto.

This year I did get around to planting basil in one of my new replacement raised bed stock tanks. The new containers have worked out well. I use this recipe and a freeze the ready-made pesto in old Tupperware containers used for making and freezing hamburgers. Once frozen I remove them and seal them into food saver packets.

Pesto Recipe

  • 2 cups fresh basil leaves (packed)
  • 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
  • 1/2 cup Olive oil
  • 3 Tbs pine nuts or walnuts
  • 3 garlic cloves (finely minced)
  1. Place basil leaves in small batches in food processor and whip until well chopped (do about 3/4 cup at a time). Add about 1/3 the nuts and garlic, blend again.
  2. Add about 1/3 of the Parmesan cheese; blend while slowly adding about 1/3 of the olive oil, stopping to scrape down sides of container.
  3. Process basil pesto it forms a thick smooth paste. Repeat until all ingredients are used, mix all batches together well. Serve over pasta. Basil pesto keeps in refrigerator one week, or freeze for a few months.
  4. Remove 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid before draining the pasta. Toss pasta immediately with the pesto sauce and the reserved cooking liquid. Serve at once with additional cheese, if desired.

Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History

Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History

Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History by Katy Tur
Published by HarperAudio on September 12, 2017
Format: audiobook
Genres: 21st Century U.S. History, Domestic Politics, Journalism, Nonfiction
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Synopsis

7 hours, 46 minutes

Called "disgraceful," "third-rate," and "not nice" by Donald Trump, NBC News correspondent Katy Tur reported on—and took flak from—the most captivating and volatile presidential candidate in American history.

Tur lived out of a suitcase for a year and a half, following Trump around the country, powered by packets of peanut butter and kept clean with dry shampoo. She visited forty states with the candidate, made more than 3,800 live television reports, listened to endless loops of Elton John’s "Tiny Dancer"—a Trump rally playlist staple.

From day 1 to day 500, Tur documented Trump’s inconsistencies, fact-checked his falsities, and called him out on his lies. In return, Trump repeatedly singled out Tur. He tried to charm her, intimidate her, and shame her. At one point, he got a crowd so riled up against her, Secret Service agents had to walk her to her car.

None of it worked. Facts are stubborn. So was Tur. She was part of the first women-led politics team in the history of network news. The Boys on the Bus became the Girls on the Plane--but the circus remained. Through all the long nights, wild scoops, naked chauvinism, dodgy staffers, and fevered debates, no one had a better view than Tur.

Unbelievable is her darkly comic, fascinatingly bizarre, and often scary story of how America sent a former reality show host to the White House. It’s also the story of what it was like for Tur to be there as it happened, inside a no-rules world where reporters were spat on, demeaned, and discredited. Tur was a foreign correspondent who came home to her most foreign story of all.

FROM THE RECIPIENT OF THE  2017 Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism

White River Burning

White River Burning

White River Burning by John Verdon
Series: Dave Gurney #6
Pages: 423
Format: hardback
Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense
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Synopsis

The next installment of Verdon's internationally bestselling series featuring retired NYPD detective Dave Gurney, who must solve a deadly puzzle amidst murder and racial strife in one small town.

Tensions have been running high in White River as it approaches the one-year anniversary of a fatal shooting of a black motorist by a local police officer. The economically depressed, racially polarized city is on edge, confronted with angry demonstrations, arson, and looting. In the midst of the turmoil, a White River police officer is shot dead by an unknown sniper. As the town spirals out of control, local authorities approach Dave Gurney to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting.

The situation in White River becomes truly explosive as more killings occur in what appears to be an escalating sequence of retaliations. But when Gurney questions the true nature of all this bloodshed, and zeroes in on peculiar aspects of the individual murders, his involvement is suddenly terminated. Obsessed with evidence that doesn't support the official version of events, Gurney cannot let go of the case. Despite intense opposition from the police, as well as from dangerous fanatics lurking in the shadows, he begins to uncover an astonishing structure of deception—learning that nothing in White River it what it seems to be.

White River Burning is the most provocative and timely book yet by the author hailed by the New York Times as "masterly"—furthering the adventures of Dave Gurney, a detective reviewers have compared to Sherlock Holmes.