Summary, Analysis, and Review of Nick Bilton's American Kingpin
The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road
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Summary, Analysis, and Review of Nick Bilton's American Kingpin
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Narrated by:
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Michael Gilboe
About this listen
Please note: This is an analysis and key takeaways of the book and not the original book.
Start Publishing Notes' Summary, Analysis, and Review of Nick Bilton's American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road includes a summary of the book, review, analysis and key takeaways, and detailed "about the author" section.
Preview: American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton tells the story of Ross Ulbricht, the founder of an illegal website that helped people buy and sell illicit goods anonymously. The author traces how Ross transformed his nascent idea for an "eBay for drugs" on the dark web into a multimillion dollar business, as well as the team of crafty feds who brought him down - and ultimately put him behind bars for life.
Ross was a 24-year-old graduate student at Penn State when he met his girlfriend, Julia. He was politically active on campus to the point where his libertarianism distracted him from his studies, which led to a dismissal from his PhD program in 2010. Julia quit school and followed him to Austin, Texas, where his family lived. After a handful of failed business ventures, Ross began working long hours to develop an idea he'd been toying with for some time: an online marketplace where people could buy and sell anything from drugs to guns without fearing for their safety or privacy. The recent invention of bitcoin had made his pipe dream realistic, and he was so excited that he worked long hours teaching himself the code he needed to build the site. By 2011, it was ready. Using an alias, Ross left a few messages advertising its existence on drug-related forums. That's all it took to launch his website, the Silk Road.
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Best Read in Print Format
- By Alfredo Ramirez on 11-22-14
By: Glenn Greenwald
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The Filter Bubble
- What the Internet Is Hiding from You
- By: Eli Pariser
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 309
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 255
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Story4 out of 5 stars 251
In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Now in the top 3 best books I've ever read
- By Brian Esserlieu on 05-26-11
By: Eli Pariser
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The Formula
- How Algorithms Solve all our Problems…and Create More
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 447
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 389
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Story4 out of 5 stars 388
A fascinating guided tour of the complex, fast-moving, and influential world of algorithms - what they are, why they’re such powerful predictors of human behavior, and where they’re headed next. Algorithms exert an extraordinary level of influence on our everyday lives - from dating websites and financial trading floors, through to online retailing and internet searches - Google's search algorithm is now a more closely guarded commercial secret than the recipe for Coca-Cola.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not about algorithms. Not an original book.
- By Landon Rordam on 12-02-14
By: Luke Dormehl
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Republic of Lies
- American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power
- By: Anna Merlan
- Narrated by: Suehyla El-Attar, Anna Merlan - introduction
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 289
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 264
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 261
American society has always been fertile ground for conspiracy theories, but with the election of Donald Trump, previously outlandish ideas suddenly attained legitimacy. Trump himself is a conspiracy enthusiast: from his claim that global warming is a Chinese hoax to the accusations of “fake news”, he has fanned the flames of suspicion. But it was not by the power of one man alone that these ideas gained new power. Republic of Lies looks beyond the caricatures of conspiracy theorists to explain their tenacity.
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5 out of 5 stars
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even-handed and thought-provoking
- By Lenny Pozner on 04-17-19
By: Anna Merlan
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Kingpin
- How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground
- By: Kevin Poulsen
- Narrated by: Eric Michael Summerer
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,853
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,651
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,650
The word spread through the hacking underground like some unstoppable new virus: Someone - some brilliant, audacious crook - had just staged a hostile takeover of an online criminal network that siphoned billions of dollars from the U.S. economy. The FBI rushed to launch an ambitious undercover operation aimed at tracking down this new kingpin. Other agencies around the world deployed dozens of moles and double agents.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This should be a movie
- By Hijenks on 05-19-15
By: Kevin Poulsen
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Inside Scientology
- The Story of America's Most Secretive Religion
- By: Janet Reitman
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,167
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,848
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Story4 out of 5 stars 1,865
Scientology, created in 1954 by a prolific sci-fi writer named L. Ron Hubbard, claims to be the world's fastest-growing religion, with millions of members around the world and huge financial holdings. Its celebrity believers keep its profile high, and its teams of "volunteer ministers" offer aid at disaster sites such as Haiti and the World Trade Center. But Scientology is also a notably closed faith, harassing journalists and others through litigation and intimidation, even infiltrating the highest levels of government to further its goals.
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5 out of 5 stars
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My cup of tea.
- By MWMcCabe on 08-09-11
By: Janet Reitman
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Technically Wrong
- Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
- By: Sara Wachter-Boettcher
- Narrated by: Andrea Emmes
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 149
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 137
Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask how all these digital products are designed, or why. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares. Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Pretty good but not complete
- By Casey on 10-29-17
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Cyber Wars
- Hacks That Shocked the Business World
- By: Charles Arthur
- Narrated by: Joe Jameson
- Length: 7 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 52
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 46
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 45
Cyber Wars gives you the dramatic inside stories of some of the world's biggest cyber attacks. These are the game-changing hacks that make organisations around the world tremble and leaders stop and consider just how safe they really are. Charles Arthur provides a gripping account of why each hack happened, what techniques were used, what the consequences were and how they could have been prevented. Cyber attacks are some of the most frightening threats currently facing business leaders, and this book provides a deep insight into understanding how they work.
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4 out of 5 stars
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For the security professional and average joe
- By Quella on 01-11-19
By: Charles Arthur
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Battlefield America
- The War on the American People
- By: John W. Whitehead, Ron Paul - foreword
- Narrated by: Eric G. Dove
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 239
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 210
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 212
In Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the follow-up to his award-winning book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead paints a terrifying portrait of a nation at war with itself and which is on the verge of undermining the basic freedoms guaranteed to the citizenry in the Constitution. Indeed, police have been transformed into extensions of the military, towns and cities have become battlefields.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic.
- By jack on 07-02-15
By: John W. Whitehead, and others
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Who Controls the Internet
- Illusions of a Borderless World
- By: Jack Goldsmith, Tim Wu
- Narrated by: Bob Loza
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 142
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 76
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Story4 out of 5 stars 75
Is the Internet erasing national borders? Who's really in control of what's happening on the Net--Internet engineers, rogue programmers, the United Nations, or powerful countries?In this provocative new book, Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu tell the fascinating story of the Internet's challenge to governmental rule in the 1990s, and the ensuing battles with governments around the world.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Mostly delves into questions of law
- By Amazon Customer on 05-07-11
By: Jack Goldsmith, and others
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Unwarranted
- Policing Without Permission
- By: Barry Friedman
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 13 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 32
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story5 out of 5 stars 29
In June 2013, documents leaked by Edward Snowden sparked widespread debate about secret government surveillance of Americans. Just over a year later, the shooting of Michael Brown, a black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, set off protests and triggered concern about militarization and discriminatory policing. In Unwarranted, Barry Friedman argues that these two seemingly disparate events are connected - and that the problem is not so much the policing agencies as it is the rest of us.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Insightful book
- By laserpro on 03-02-17
By: Barry Friedman
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Smarter Than You Think
- How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better
- By: Clive Thompson
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
In Smarter Than You Think, Thompson documents how every technological innovation - from the printing press to the telegraph - has provoked the very same anxieties that plague us today. We panic that life will never be the same, that our attentions are eroding, that culture is being trivialized. But as in the past, we adapt, learning to use the new and retaining what’s good of the old.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Title should be Getting Smarter Through Technology
- By A. Yoshida on 03-10-17
By: Clive Thompson
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Program or Be Programmed
- Ten Commands for a Digital Age
- By: Douglas Rushkoff
- Narrated by: Douglas Rushkoff
- Length: 3 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 161
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 140
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Story4 out of 5 stars 137
In 10 chapters, composed of 10 "commands", Rushkoff provides cyber enthusiasts and technophobes alike with the guidelines to navigate the digital new universe. In this spirited, accessible poetics of new media, Rushkoff picks up where Marshall McLuhan left off, helping listeners to recognize programming as the new literacy of the digital age - and as a template through which to see beyond social conventions and power structures that have vexed us for centuries.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good book, but with some crazy ranting
- By Bjarne on 02-05-15
By: Douglas Rushkoff
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The Plot to Hack America
- How Putin's Cyberspies and WikiLeaks Tried to Steal the 2016 Election
- By: Malcolm Nance
- Narrated by: Gregory Itzin
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 860
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 765
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 760
In April 2016, computer technicians at the Democratic National Committee discovered that someone had accessed the organization's computer servers and conducted a theft that is best described as Watergate 2.0. In the weeks that followed, the nation's top computer security experts discovered that the cyber thieves had helped themselves to everything: sensitive documents, emails, donor information, even voice mails.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Short and Terrifying
- By Teadrinker on 03-19-17
By: Malcolm Nance
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This Machine Kills Secrets
- How Wikileakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information
- By: Andy Greenberg
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 110
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4 out of 5 stars 100
The machine that kills secrets is a powerful cryptographic code that hides the identities of leakers and hacktivists as they spill the private files of government agencies and corporations bringing us into a new age of whistle blowing. With unrivaled access to figures like Julian Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and Jacob Applebaum, investigative journalist Andy Greenberg unveils the group that brought the world WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, and BalkanLeaks.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good writing, a little outdated by now
- By Sam on 08-08-15
By: Andy Greenberg
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The Skripal Files
- The Life and Near Death of a Russian Spy
- By: Mark Urban
- Narrated by: Mark Urban
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 28
The Skripal Files is a remarkable and definitive account of Sergei Skripal’s story, which lays bare the new spy war between Russia and the West. Mark Urban, the diplomatic and defense editor for the BBC, met with Skripal in the months before his poisoning, learning about his career in Russian military intelligence, how he became a British agent, his imprisonment in Russia, and the events that led to his release. Skripal’s first-hand accounts and experiences reveal the high stakes of a new spy game that harks back to the chilliest days of the Cold War.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Facinating story and very relevant
- By Sheri on 06-25-24
By: Mark Urban
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Twitter and Tear Gas
- The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest
- By: Zeynep Tufekci
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 111
An incisive observer, writer, and participant in today's social movements, Zeynep Tufekci explains in this accessible and compelling book the nuanced trajectories of modern protests - how they form, how they operate differently from past protests, and why they have difficulty persisting in their long-term quests for change.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Insightful but frustrating
- By James on 03-11-18
By: Zeynep Tufekci