Make sure to read a book and save the date, says Diana Benner. TCEA’s Librarian Conference is taking place this week, and here is the latest in the “Read a Book” poster series featuring folks facilitating the event. Meet Diana Benner, whose favorite book is The Art of Deception.

The Art of Deception is a book by Kevin Mitnick that covers the art of social engineering.^[1][2] Part of the book is composed of real stories and examples of how social engineering can be combined with hacking.

All, or nearly all, of the examples, are fictional but quite plausible. They expose the ease with which a skilled social engineer can subvert many rules most people take for granted. (source)

I haven’t read this particular book, but given Diana’s recommendations, I’m definitely interested. I read a similar book many years ago about phreaking wizard and I spent a few weeks thereafter with auto-dialers/wardialers using my Hayes 300 Baud SmartModem trying to hack into the numbers I discovered. I didn’t experience much success, thank goodness, so I never went down the hacker route.

That failure aside, I did discover electronic bulletin board services (BBSs), and in fact, my childhood phone number was 210-494-1BBS (which is ironic since I never set up my own BBS using that number). These days, I’m grateful that I was such a failure when it came to phreaking and hacking. Seeing how Bill Landreth turned out (homeless), it is shocking to realize such profound consequences played out as they did for something that, in hindsight, appears to have been kid fun.

Books like Diana’s choice can kindle a deep desire to learn more about using technology. It paid off for me.