Book details of 'The Mezonic Agenda: Hacking the Presidency'

Title	The Mezonic Agenda: Hacking the Presidency
Author(s)	Dr. Herbert Thompson, Spyros Nomikos
ISBN	1931836833
Language	English
Published	September 2004
Publisher	Syngress

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The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of 'The Mezonic Agenda: Hacking the Presidency':

Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
Using a fictional story and premise to examine serious security concerns seems to be getting more popular. This one purports to discuss the issues surrounding electronic voting. As a piece of fiction, the book isn't very good. The dialogue is stilted, the writing and sentence construction is often jarringly awkward, and the plotting, description, and story subtext are simplistic and formulaic, making the occasional intrusions of "reality" (which would otherwise give depth to the narrative and characters) odd and unwelcome. Characterization is telegraphed in strange ways: the e-voting analyst's name is Chad, someone driven insane by personal tragedy is called Payne, and a turncoat politician is Shift. (The copy editing is reasonable, at least as far as spelling is concerned, but there is a very strange, and repeated, typographical error of "Davis'ss".) There are a number of mistakes that would have thriller aficionados rolling in the aisles: Amsterdam isn't a member country of Interpol because it isn't a country, Interpol is not an investigative agency (they do communications and liaison), and subliminal advertising has proven to be extremely undependable. The technical content is uneven. There are good bits: the description of buffer-overflows doesn't handle all cases but is clear. The example of SQL injection is missing pieces, but isn't bad. A lot of it is realistic, but there are frequent over-simplifications. Reverse engineering is not just the finding of buffer overflow exploits. Various types of blackhats are grouped in one undifferentiated lump. Silly errors are made, such as a conflict in IP addressing between pages 39 and 44. The importance of a paper trail is mentioned, but somewhat peripherally. The book itself does not mention the bulk of the problems with, and reservations about, electronic voting systems, although an appendix touches on many of them briefly. Probably the biggest problem relates to why the analyst is proceeding in the way he does: without being able to review source code, any problems that you do find will be largely by accident. And, of course, in any kind of software review you can prove the presence of bugs, but never their absence. As fiction the book doesn't work very well. As a review of the problems involved with electronic voting there is a lot of verbiage to get through in order to find the few points of interest. copyright Robert M. Slade, 2004
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Book description:

There’s a vulnerability in the tabulation software used by the Federal Elections Committee, and millions of votes are about to be changed! In six days Chad Davis will testify before Congress on the security, stability, and safety of Advice Software Inc.'s e-vote software. He is a world-renowned expert on software security, and his testimony will determine if the software will be implemented for use during the 2004 United States Presidential Elections. After his speech at an RSA conference in Amsterdam, he is handed a cryptic CD with information on the software from notorious hacker Baff Lexicon. Davis and his friend from the FBI must use their knowledge of buffer overflows, format string vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits to penetrate physical and cyber defenses, ultimately uncovering Advice's plot to fix the US presidential elections. What is the software's secret? What are the motives that drive Advice Software's CEO and what is his connection to a secret society destined to avenge the 9/11 attacks against the US Hack Along. You may win a trip to Las Vegas. Want to get involved? Embedded in the plot of The Mezonic Agenda is a fully interactive game that tests your security and hacking skills. Decrypt the contents of the book and CD, then manipulate the mock election results to elect yourself President of The United States. Election will be held in early 2005. What’s on the CD? The CD contains just three files, but they literally hold the key to the election. One file simply reads: "For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry." Successful decryption reveals additional files and clues, bringing you ever-closer to hacking the Presidency.