Draft:Fancy Bear Goes Phishing

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks is a book on the history of cybersecurity and computer hacking by Scott J. Shapiro, a professor of philosophy and law at Yale Law School. The book was published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on May 23, 2023.

Synopsis
Fancy Bear Goes Phishing covers five computer hacks and their methods, as well as the political, legal and cultural impacts of the hacks.

Morris Worm
Fancy Bear Goes Phishing opens by first examining the "Morris Worm", a computer virus named after its creator Robert Tappan Morris. The book examines how the virus spread using various technological methods, including exploits from a backdoor in the Unix sendmail program and a buffer overflow exploit in the finger network service. The virus would go on to cripple or crash multiple networks due to, in part, it's high re-infection rate of 1 in 7.

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing then explains how Morris&mdash;son of then chief scientist at the National Computer Security Center, a division of the National Security Agency&mdash;was the first person prosecuted and convicted under conviction in the US under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. During his trial, Morris accepted the facts presented by the prosecutors, but pleaded for leniency because he did not intend for the virus to be harmful. Morris was sentenced to three years' probation, 400 hours of community service, and a fine of US$10,050.

Reception
Fancy Bear Goes Phishing was released to generally positive reviews. John Naughton praised the book as am "impressive achievement". Dorian Lynskey of The Guardian. Richard Lea of The Wall Street Journal.

Awards
Fancy Bear Goes Phishing was listed on Amazon.com "Best Books of the Year" list.