PositiveThe New York TimesFrom the beginning, Menn’s book on the story of the Cult of the Dead Cow reads as personally and politically sympathetic to its main characters, who go from young members of the hacker underground to mixing among the elite of the security world in big business. Menn may assume the reader to be equally sympathetic. If that’s the case, I am not its natural audience. To me, someone like Beto is a viscerally off-putting neoliberal-on-a-skateboard ... Beneath the radical language and underground aesthetic is an ideological and political shallowness. Strip away the newness and novelty of the technological tactics and you find the same old machinations of military and capitalist power, which no plucky hacktivist can disrupt without risking their life, freedom and reputation ... this book is not a polemic, nor is it an attempt to theorize its subject...It is primarily a work of storytelling and as that, it stands as an invaluable resource. The tale of this small but influential group is a hugely important piece of the puzzle for anyone who wants to understand the forces shaping the internet age.
