06/15/2015
Former federal prosecutor Hall offers a disturbing look at the world of digital piracy, recounting his successful investigation of a Chinese hacker, Xiang Li. Through his Crack99 website, Li offered stolen software worth more than a $100 million for sale at bargain basement prices, including advanced technologies important to the U.S. military. Hall walks the reader through the case from its start in 2009, when a private company alerted the feds to Li’s sale of sensitive applications to track satellites and missiles, to the hacker’s guilty plea and sentencing in 2013. He offers some insights into the criminal justice system, including the effects of an indictment-based performance metric on politically appointed regional U.S. attorneys. Hall’s prose, which is occasionally baroque (“We should have seen it coming, given the propinquity between vengeance and the keen sting of love’s loss”) and often cavalier, is a distraction from an otherwise informative account of the threat of online crime to national security. (Oct.)
CRACK99: The Takedown of a $100 Million Chinese Software Pirate
Narrated by Mark Peckham
David Locke HallUnabridged — 10 hours, 43 minutes
CRACK99: The Takedown of a $100 Million Chinese Software Pirate
Narrated by Mark Peckham
David Locke HallUnabridged — 10 hours, 43 minutes
Audiobook (Digital)
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Overview
The utterly gripping story of the most outrageous case of cyber piracy prosecuted by the US Department of Justice
A former US Navy intelligence officer, David Locke Hall was a federal prosecutor when a bizarre-sounding website, CRACK99, came to his attention. It looked like Craigslist on acid, but what it sold was anything but amateurish: thousands of high-tech software products used largely by the military, and for mere pennies on the dollar. Want to purchase satellite tracking software? No problem. Aerospace and aviation simulations? No problem. Communications systems designs? No problem. Software for Marine One, the presidential helicopter? No problem. With delivery times and customer service to rival the world's most successful online retailers, anybody, anywhere-including rogue regimes, terrorists, and countries forbidden from doing business with the United States-had access to these goods for any purpose whatsoever.
But who was behind CRACK99, and where were they? The Justice Department discouraged potentially costly, risky cases like this, preferring the low-hanging fruit that scored points from politicians and the public. But Hall and his colleagues were determined to find the culprit. They bought CRACK99's products for delivery in the United States, buying more and more to appeal to the budding entrepreneur in the man they identified as Xiang Li. After winning his confidence, they lured him to Saipan-a US commonwealth territory where Hall's own father had stormed the beaches with the marines during World War II. There they set up an audacious sting that culminated in Xiang Li's capture and imprisonment. The value of the goods offered by CRACK99? A cool $100 million.
An eye-opening look at cybercrime and its chilling consequences for national security, CRACK99 reads like a caper that resonates with every amazing detail.
Editorial Reviews
"A crackling good tale, well-told in Hall’s confiding, thoughtful, and humorous tone."
"A super-charged, electrifying story. CRACK99 reads like a bestselling thriller!"
"A rollicking true tale of high-level undercover cyber espionage in which Hall puts every bit of his extensive experience and investigative skills into catching a cyber-pirate. His stories of teaming with Homeland Security agents to double-cross a Chinese cyber criminal are, in a word, sensational."
"A gripping and sobering account of the hemorrhage of high-end American computer programs into the Chinese internet black market…A riveting story."
"A crackling good tale, well-told in Hall’s confiding, thoughtful, and humorous tone."
A crackling good tale, well-told in Hall’s confiding, thoughtful, and humorous tone.
2015-07-15
A jaunty yet disquieting tale of the first American prosecution of a Chinese software pirate.Hall, a federal prosecutor and Naval Reserve intelligence officer, was nearing retirement in 2010 when Homeland Security investigators directed him to CRACK99.com, a website, "amateurish and even juvenile in its presentation," offering high-end aerospace and engineering software with clear military applications for pennies on the dollar. Intrigued, he made contact with webmaster Xiang Li and began making purchases in an escalating undercover investigation. Hall plays Xiang Li's evasive, linguistically challenged communications for laughs ("This is the perfect sure! Trust from our services") while emphasizing the serious national security implications of such piracy. He notes that unenforceable indictments had been issued against Chinese army officers for similar activities. "If we failed," he writes, "investigating CRACK99 would [also] go down as a fool's errand, and we would be the fools." Although Hall was unable to link Xiang Li to the Chinese government, search warrants for CRACK99's email revealed that the gaudy website was selling "hundreds of different software programs…originally produced in the United States" to customers in locales including Syria and China itself. The case followed several surreal twists, culminating in Xiang Li's apprehension on Saipan, an American protectorate; Xiang Li was ultimately sentenced to 12 years, and some American customers were prosecuted as well. Hall takes a prosecutor's perspective, noting, "ironically, U.S. technology enables the Chinese to steal U.S. technology with relative ease…[using] the Internet as an efficient method of theft." The author writes in the familiar voice of a blustery, world-weary top cop; his observations as the case unfolds are often humorous but can also be repetitive. While many, including Xiang Li himself, portrayed such software piracy as a harmless libertarian impulse, Hall believes he's sounding the alarm about a metastasizing military threat: "The use to which China will put this stolen [American] technology is anyone's guess." A quirky tale of international pursuit through a legal labyrinth with unsettling implications regarding proliferation of ominous technologies.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169865288 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 10/19/2015 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
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