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I have just finished reading a cyberfiction novel 'Rice Tea' by Julien McArdle. The book offers a fictional account of a group of university students engaged in a series of innocent computer and phone pranks. During one of their pranks they come across an evil bot herder who, once discovered, decides to frame innocent kids for infecting thousands of computers. With all odds against them, good hackers group together to track down the black hat hacker and defend their innocence. Does this plot sound familiar? Of course it does! It's the movie 'Hackers'. My first reaction to this novel was negative, as all of the main plot twists are based on the well known and heavily discussed Hollywood movie. Here are just a few examples:
- The main character, Seth, engages the only female hacker, Kerstin, in a hacker challenge. The challenge ends with a tie.
- The antagonist attempts to frame innocent hackers once they discover his evil plot.
- Seth and Kerstin get help from two elite hackers Flow and i0, who run their own video show.
- Good hackers prevail by exposing antagonist's plans to law enforcement.
There are so many similarities that on the first read you could make a mistake of dismissing this novel as only an adaptation of a major motion picture. But wait, there is so much more. 'Rice Tea' does what the movie 'Hackers' failed to do for technical audience and what other cyberfiction works like 'Stealing the Network' series failed for the non-technical audience: It covers technical topics accurately, while keeping details at a level where they do not overpower the main plot. Here are some examples:
- Movie theater prank is based on real life exploits by Phone Losers of America (http://www.phonelosers.org/theater/).
- Building lights hack is inspired by the Project Blinkenlights (http://www.blinkenlights.net/)
- Traffic Sign hacking was illustrated in the first episode of Hack TV (http://www.hacktv.org/)
- WEP cracking is a feasible act discussed in many publications (http://www.aircrack-ng.org/)
- Clear description of command-and-control nature of botnets.
It is interesting to note that this novel is a living project. http://www.ricetea.ca/ lists several release batches. With that in mind, I hope the author will take the following into consideration when releasing the next batch:
- Exactly what type of attack was performed to intercept black hat's ssh session. If it was Man in the Middle, I feel that it should be stated as such to be consistent with other attack definitions.
- The antagonist appears to be dumbed down and stereotypical. I feel that it would make the plot a bit more interesting if his character was developed a bit farther than Hentai watching, messy, energy drink gulping evildoer. Also, it would be a bit more exciting if it was more of a challenge to track him down.
'Rice Tea' has a few good lessons:
- If you are going to do something illegal, don't do it from your home.
- Lock you computers, when you leave.
- Use disk encryption and bios passwords.
- Don't use WEP.
- Stay quiet and ask for a lawyer.
Should you spend an afternoon reading 'Rice Tea'? Yes, absolutely! But don't gulp it down, take it slow to appreciate its small subtleties. As for its similarities with the movie 'Hackers', consider this novel as what 'Hackers' should have been in the first place. Bravo to the author and looking forward to future editions. You can download or purchase the novel at http://www.ricetea.ca/.
