EH-Net

Going through Hackin9's online issue (the new one) and noticed the ad on page 2. I was wondering if anyone here has read "How to Become the World's No.1 Hacker Short and Simple"?

Is it worth the price? Does it have useful information? Is it just a collections book of stuff that can be found around the web put together in one place?

I didn't see any reviews of it on Amazon or the official website. So I was wondering if anyone here had an opinion.

I also saw that ad. Haven't bought the book but checked its contents on amazon. There's just something about this book that I'm not comfortable with, but that's just my intuition. Perhaps, it could actually be a good book..perhaps not. I googled for a review of this book and found nothing.
I would give this book more time and wait for a LOT of reviews before buying it.
Just my 2 cents...

I haven't seen the ad. What is the book title?

It's the first ad in the latest issue of hack9 magazine.
http://hakin9.org/magazine

Avoid the book and just buy the tee-shirts! :-D

Google the author and then make up your own mind whether to buy the book or any of their services.

I'll avoid this one and get something a bit more realistic.

After looking at the author's website and watching some of his videos, I am not very impressed. However, the price on the book is only $25, at that price it might be worth a read.

I looked up the author yesterday, "Reformed" Black Hat hacker. But left leery of it too.

Image of the generic download book, author's background... Left me unsure too.

@H1t M0nk3y - Used the title of the book as the subject for the thread.

@What90 - Yeah, I did that the same time I was starting the thread. Part of the reason I thought to ask here.

Honestly, $25 spending to "become the world's no.1 hacker" seems some what outlandish to boast. The fact there's no reviews on Amazon or blogs post about it says volumes to me.

I'd spend the money on a book rated by decent security professionals who are well known for the teaching abilities.  Or save it up to later sign up for the any number of excellent on-courses.

Have a look at some of his videos and compare them to anything by John Strand, Muts or mubix. I know who I'd want to learn from ;-)

What90, it's a new book. I think the lack of reviews at this point could be more attributed to the lack of review copies going out before release. I have't watched the videos on his site yet. I'll have to check them out when I have time. (sometime early 2015 or so at the pace I'm going).

The book released just 2 months back I think and we're unnecessarily giving it a negative response based on nothing more than our instinct. Guys, it could actually be a good book and in which case we are not doing justice to the author.

Perhaps Don should use some Jedi Mind Tricks to get the author to give out a few copies and let a few of us give some reviews.   ;)

I've heard a few well known security people asking for copies to review, so I hope to have some indication of the material one way or another very soon.

If someone in the forums get a copy and reviews it, I'd be interested in their thoughts.


Happy to be proved wrong about my feelings on what this is going to be like :-)

From what I can tell the book is self publiched by the author. This probably explains the lack of reviews. The author's other book on spyware gets mixed reviews on Amazon.

title is so over rated.

That's nothing! Check the price out on the Amazon UK site  ;)
At that price, it MUST be good, right?
http://tinyurl.com/3a5mwfp (http://tinyurl.com/3a5mwfp)

(http://i44.tinypic.com/105wo6u.jpg)

@Data_Raid
That actually flabbergasted me.

I believe with the kind of discussion this book is generating in the forums, Don should let someone review it or close this thread. I'm just not comfortable with negatively publicizing something without even a solid proof.

To be completely fair, the title of the book has poisoned the tone of the conversation.  The title of a book, especially a technical book, often says a lot about its content - to claim otherwise would be somewhat naive.

In this case, I see two possibilities - either the author purposely gave the book a grandiose title to get non-industry / non-technical folks to buy it, or he is delusional and self-aggrandizing (like that guy who shows up on fox news now and then, claiming to already be the world's best hacker).

Foot in mouth.

The AUTHOR of this book is the self-aggrandizing person I was unwittingly talking about in my previous post.

I have read a few pieces regarding his general lack of knowledge, but it has been a couple years.

dont judge a book by its cover, but in this case, the title gives a pretty clear picture? i must say i cant give an opinion because i havent read it, but my preference would go to some other books first...I'd like to see a chapter of the book published to get a more in depth look of the book...

Don't buy this book. Check out the following book review by Ben Rothke:

https://365.rsaconference.com/blogs/securityreading/2010/06/10/how-to-become-the-worlds-no-1-hacker

This book is a work of plagiarism:

It's been received terrible reviews on Amazon too.

http://www.amazon.com/How-Become-Worlds-No-Hacker/dp/0982609108

I find it sad people will buy this book only to find out it's a poor rehash of other material.

There's been a lot of chatter on twitter about the author @ligatt and #ligatt most of which hasn't been very pleasant. Out of that a few people I respect have made some damning comments about the book and author. Save your money and buy something recommended and original.

plagiarism? copied entire chunks while at the same time not bothering to "modify" the copied text? oh Lord...

His be a hacker in 15 minutes stuff on Twitter was that exactly. I don't remember the site, now but there is a site that was listing comparisons. Some of the stuff he was putting up on Twitter was cut and pasted verbatim from CEH study materials.

One of the reviews on Amazon points out where all the different bits were stolen from.  >:(

That's the author of the review is the same one that nebu10z posted above. He copied and pasted either his review or his blog post to the other. The blog post has an interesting comment in it.

The neat thing is the blog has a table with the info.

This is a pretty good rundown:

https://365.rsaconference.com/blogs/securityreading/2010/06/14/fair-use-plagiarism-and-the-world-s-no-1-hacker-book

Good grief, that's even worse seeing all of the URLs. I really can't think of anything more expressive to say than WTF?!

A few days ago, my friend had passed a link showing this guys company website (Ligatt Security?) with an XSS vulnerability.. lol

I don't know how this guy gets any sort of publicity. I know that the publisher of that book has been contacted and I guess we'll see what happens.

Self promotion with a criminal record to help back up his claims. Some people can sell water to a fish, and ice to penguins. Looks like he's one of those guys...

Although I'm reminded of a comment (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/05/infosec_televis.html#c438822) in a one of Bruce Schneier's blog (http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/05/infosec_televis.html) entries.

Sounds good to tv news people when you through that kind of claim around I guess.

I didn't want to write about this guy whose name is Gregory Evans, author of the World's n.1 hacker book until I had some other references confirming what I had to say.

My name is Armando Romeo and I've run Hackers Center www.hackerscenter.com for years (now I run eLearnSecurity).

Gregory Evans with his LigattSecurity company is stealing my content since 2006.
In 2006 he was re-selling the HSC Ethical Hacker Kit at 3 times our price stealing money from people who then mailed me asking why I was selling the same at a lower price.

After a lot of communication with the guy (saying that software is like cars - he could sell used cars and used software at the price he decided), turned out that his is not a Security company but a lawyers company that defend him against the many lawsuits he has to face every time.

This time turns out that according to Amazon reviewer Ben Rothke

"[...] the biggest plagiarized section, namely the 5,354 words, which is the entire chapter 12. The author never mentions that he copied it verbatim from the Hacker's Center Security Portal."

http://www.amazon.com/review/R38U5KCREHIKL/ref=cm_aya_cmt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0982609108#wasThisHelpful

What is really annoying and disappointing is that TV's and medias are still giving coverage to such a criminal and not even mentioning the efforts taken by a website like Hackers Center providing the community with free genuine contents  since 2000.

At the time I didn't have the money a California lawyer asked me to go after him. This time, me and the other plagiarized authors will try to make some justice.

That's interesting and sad at the same time, I guess there has to be rogues out to cash-in in any community by re-hashing others work. It seems his time has come Armando,well at least in the security community, to show he's not someone to trust or believe.

The twitter feeds are pretty busy calling him out to prove he's THE number 1 after he made a rather rash statement about showing he's the best and wagering one million dollars to prove he's the man.

Mr Evans has taken quite a bit of flack for the statements he's made and the obvious plagiarism. A number of podcasters are trying to talk to him about the plagiarism.  Student Hacker Information podCast - http://shitcast.co.uk/ apparently have got him on Ep 7.

Will be fasinating to see what he's got to say for himself.

Wow, ridiculous. Sorry to hear about that, Armando. If there's anything that you need help with, please shout. I'd have no problem sending emails to all media outlets this guy has been in contact with. And I know EC-Council has their law team looking into this as well.

A detailed study on the plagiarism:

https://365.rsaconference.com/blogs/securityreading/2010/06/14/fair-use-plagiarism-and-the-world-s-no-1-hacker-book (https://365.rsaconference.com/blogs/securityreading/2010/06/14/fair-use-plagiarism-and-the-world-s-no-1-hacker-book)

It seems that Hackers Center is Gregory Evans's best resource for hacking being the most "copied and pasted" resource.

I have asked Hakin9 magazine editor to drop any promotion from this guy (who  seems to have reserved the very first ad page in the magazine for many months, so he has the money for his fraudulent business).

BillV, The Bruce Schneier blog thread I posted a while back said the guy's a CEH is there a way to have that confirmed or denied?

Aramando,

I'm sorry to hear that.

Chris Gates has just posted that his article for EHNet http://www.ethicalhacker.net/content/view/106/24/ has been plagiarized by Gregory Evans. Chapter 9 (Web browser as attack point) of his book contains the above article by Chris Gates. Check the screenshots http://twitpic.com/1xm5yc

Just noticed that he also copied an article from one of my favorite website dedoimedo.com http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/backtrack.html Reporting the website author now.

Yep, certainly. Checking on it.

This guy is very unprofessional and has been making many people in infosec community mad. Just look at http://search.twitter.com/search?q=ligatt Its a little sad.
His interview: http://dev.geek-crack.com/7.mp3

Indeed, unprofessionally. Already looking forward how this one 'ends'.

me too. the IT security world is too small to get away with such "pranks".

Gregory D. Evans is NOT a Certified Ethical Hacker/CEH.

If you come across anything where he states he is (some have said they've seen videos with him mention it), please let me know.

And on that note, I wonder what else he might claim to be....

I didn't find any reference where he himself said that he's CEH, however, I found these links
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/cyberhoodwatch/2009/10/05/gregory-evans-the-interview
http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/penetration-testing-why-you-need-a-certified-ethical-hacker-975342.html

BillV Does EC-COUNCIL allow CEH exam questions to be re-used by other companies or for other security challenges?
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/LIGATT-Security-International-Presents-the-First-Annual-LIGATT-Challenge-989708.htm

Here's a press release from LIGATT Security International


http://www.pr.com/press-release/136338

Also,
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=54047679&blogId=482206101

and this http://studio-5.financialcontent.com/freelunch/?GUID=8022455&Page=MEDIAVIEWER

Thanks for the links. I will check them out in just a second, but I want to point this out....

So I found this link, and think it's absolutely unbelievable. I certainly don't want to stereotype or anything, but he's playing the race card... how ridiculous. Where does this come into play? Haha, wow...

http://www.nationalcybersecurity.com/articles/441/1/How-Can-Computer-Nerds-Be-Racist/Page1.html (http://www.nationalcybersecurity.com/articles/441/1/How-Can-Computer-Nerds-Be-Racist/Page1.html)

Check this link for more updates
http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2010/06/4305/

Listening to the podcast interview here presently:

http://dev.geek-crack.com/7.mp3

This guy is amazing. I don't think there's a single word out of his mouth so far that could even remotely be considered to be true. Arrggghh it's hurting me just to listen to him.

http://attrition.org/errata/charlatan/gregory_evans/ligatt11/

He is speaking at a Chamber of Commerce here in the ATL area. Lets just say they did no review or research on this guy. Now they are eduacted.  ;D

Wow! So now poeple are racist for calling him out on his lack of ethics. This guy is a straight up clown. If he really holds any certifications, they will be stripped as pretty much every certification has a code of ethics.

http://thecyberwars.com/
I wonder who "TheReferee" is...
And it looks like he is removing comments that are against him.

If anyone listens to the Exotic Liability Podcast episode 64's starting song is a beauty. Please note the discussions in the podcast may offend some people.

If you haven't seen this yet, be prepared.  It's about time this came out.

http://www.cbsatlanta.com/local-video/index.html?grabnetworks_video_id=4539270 (http://www.cbsatlanta.com/local-video/index.html?grabnetworks_video_id=4539270)

I'd seen the stuff at attrition but just found http://ligattleaks.blogs.ru/

Such a trainwreck!

Don't be so hard on this guy, he is a REAL hacker!

The proof: he is quite good at Social Engineering!  :D

Its pretty entertaining, do a search on twitter for @LIGATT -- people bitch about him every day about some shady thing he's up to.

Rofl.

While we are on the topic of suspicious and untrustworthy individuals, may I ask for opinions on this?

"A page from my notebook:

All of my certifications and experience are 100% factual. The projects that I am working on are way above your pay grades. I am actively working on these projects:

National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education
Manhattan Cyber Project
Black & Berg Megacommunity

You can view the Megacommunity here:
Black & Berg Cybersecurity Consulting, LLC's Photos - Wall Photos | Facebook

You can join the Megacommunity here:
[link removed] - avalible upon request

I have organized a private Cyberarmy and you are welcome to join us. If you decide not to participate please get OUT OF MY WAY! I am taking the Black & Berg Megacommunity to the Whitehouse. You are welcome to join me.

Joe Black CISSP CISM NSA-4011 Security+
Certified Ethical Hacker
Christian In Action
A US citizen with the ability to obtain a Security Clearance
Senior Cybersecurity Advisor / CEO
Black & Berg Cybersecurity Consulting, LLC
Black & Berg Cybersecurity Consulting, LLC | Good Business is Good Security
Black & Berg Security Consulting, LLC | Facebook
W: (402) 608-1783
Stop | Think | Connect
DoD CAGE Code 5ZUU4
Joe Black (josephblack) on about.me"

BTW he is stealing a quote from a recent movie: "I'm CEO Bitch". Mr. Ethical Hacker apparently doesnt care about copyright infringement.

From friends on Facebook, this morning...  I know Tom saw this, too, lol!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3Ms8UZnOoA&feature=player_embedded#at=121

Good to see that he's been getting all the negative exposure he deserves.

Just reading up on it. Seems today they posted a statement on his website.

http://www.ligattsecurity.com/general/responds-cbs-false-report

It amazes me that he is still trying to deny everything.  One would think that the "alleged" plagiarism that has already been proved in a heartbeat would be undeniable, but still he persists.

Actually if it wasn't for that book I bet none of the rest of the stuff would have come out. 

Why hasnt he been sued? By the copyright holders I mean.

Because he is legit. Haven't you seen his youtube videos!

bwahahahahaha!!!  Both ouch and wow!