The Hank show :

Title :

The Hank show : how a house-painting, drug-running DEA informant built the machine that rules our lives / McKenzie Funk.

Title:

The Hank show :

Author:

Funk, McKenzie

Format:

Books

Physical Description:

viii, 296 pages ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

ISBN:

9781250209276

Production / Publication Information:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 2023.

Contents:

Prologue: Analog -- Author's interlude -- Mr. John Adams -- Descent -- A half-dozen chickens -- The paranoid style in American computing -- Sunshine -- Pattern recognition -- Private/public -- The purge list -- 9/13 -- Never forget -- Fish in a barrel -- A spill at the refinery -- The social graph -- The last fucking one -- The epidemiology of violence -- Permanent ID -- The score -- Desaparecidos -- The violence of epidemiology -- Epilogue: ones and zeroes -- A note on sources -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index.

Summary:

"The bizarre and captivating story of the most important person you've never heard of. The world we live in today, where everything is tracked by corporations and governments, originates with one manic, elusive, utterly unique man--as prone to bullying as he was to fits of surpassing generosity and surprising genius. His name was Hank Asher, and his life was a strange and spectacular show that changed the course of the future. In The Hank Show, critically acclaimed author and journalist McKenzie Funk relates Asher's stranger-than-fiction story-he careened from drug-running pilot to alleged CIA asset, only to be reborn as the pioneering computer programmer known as the father of data fusion. He was the billionaire whose creations now power a new reality where your every move is tracked by police departments, intelligence agencies, political parties, and financial firms alike. But his success was not without setbacks. He truly lived nine lives, on top of the world one minute, only to be forced out of the companies he founded and blamed for data breaches resulting in major lawsuits and market chaos. In the vein of the blockbuster movie Catch Me if You Can, this spellbinding work of narrative nonfiction propels you forward on a forty year journey of intrigue and innovation, from Colombia to the White House and from Silicon Valley to the 2016 Trump campaign, focusing a lens on the dark side of American business and its impact on the everyday fabric of our modern lives"--

Bibliography note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Language:

English

Genre:

Biography.

Biographies.

Personal Subject:

Asher, Hank, 1951-2013.

Subject Term:

Businesspeople -- United States -- Biography.

Multisensor data fusion -- United States.

Data privacy -- United States.

Criminal investigation -- United States -- Data processing.

Data mining -- United States.

Data mining in law enforcement -- United States.

BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economics / General.

Holds: Copies:

Available:*

Material Type	Library	Call Number	Item Barcode	Location
Book	Searching... Westford - J.V. Fletcher Library	338.092 FUN	31990005191619	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Amesbury Public Library	338.092 FUN	32114002805597	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Andover - Memorial Hall Library	338.092 FUN	31330009414263	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Chelmsford Public Library	338.092/FUNK	31480011734834	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Dracut - Moses Greeley Parker Memorial Library	338.092/FUN	31482003100503	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Groton Public Library	338.092 FUN	37003702026353	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Haverhill Public Library	BIOG/ASHER H	31479007670838	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Lawrence Public Library	BIO ASH	31549005062848	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Middleton - Flint Public Library	338.092 FUNK	32126001952436	Searching... Unknown
Book	Searching... Newburyport Public Library	338.092 FUN	32128004233012	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

The bizarre and captivating story of the most important person you've never heard of.

The world we live in today, where everything is tracked by corporations and governments, originates with one manic, elusive, utterly unique man--as prone to bullying as he was to fits of surpassing generosity and surprising genius. His name was Hank Asher, and his life was a strange and spectacular show that changed the course of the future.

In The Hank Show, critically acclaimed author and journalist McKenzie Funk relates Asher's stranger-than-fiction story--he careened from drug-running pilot to alleged CIA asset, only to be reborn as the pioneering computer programmer known as the father of data fusion. He was the multimillionaire whose creations now power a new reality where your every move is tracked by police departments, intelligence agencies, political parties, and financial firms alike. But his success was not without setbacks. He truly lived nine lives, on top of the world one minute, only to be forced out of the companies he founded and blamed for data breaches resulting in major lawsuits and market chaos.

In the vein of the blockbuster movie Catch Me if You Can , this spellbinding work of narrative nonfiction propels you forward on a forty year journey of intrigue and innovation, from Colombia to the White House and from Silicon Valley to the 2016 Trump campaign, focusing a lens on the dark side of American business and its impact on the everyday fabric of our modern lives.

Reviews (3)

Kirkus Review

A biography of the influential yet largely unknown "father of data fusion." Journalist Funk, author of Windfall, diligently exposes the legacy of Hank Asher (1951-2013), an entrepreneur who built an advanced data-processing empire from the ground up. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with colleagues, friends, and family members, the author reveals Asher's origin story. Funk describes his "profane but charming" demeanor as similar to that of Donald Trump, and he chronicles Asher's drug-running operation in the Caribbean. For the people who interacted with him, there was "little middle ground"--he was either loved or hated. Funk ably tracks the inception and rise of Asher's "identity machines" from the 1980s, as he built military-grade supercomputers from consumer PCs. In the 1990s, one of Asher's companies, Database Technologies, was involved in the creation of an exclusionary database that purged voter registration rolls and skewed the 2000 presidential election. Asher capitalized on the exploding amounts of digital data during the great internet boom; after 9/11, he retooled his company, Seisint, to identify possible violent extremists living in the U.S. From his massive mansion in Boca Raton, Florida, he promoted his database, known as the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX), which represented the beginning of an ominous new era of analytics targeting a citizen's propensity for criminality. Federal and state agencies, newly invigorated by the war on terrorism, latched on to the potential of the MATRIX technology, regardless of its real-world likelihood to be exploited as "predictive policing." Asher, who died at 61 after dwindling many of his assets, survives today through the legacy of his tech wizardry, which echoes through our current systems of investigative policing and numerous other data networks. Readers concerned with the modern dismantling of personal privacy and rampant data-gathering will be riveted by this meticulous report. A deeply unsettling exposé of an exploitative tech genius. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Human memory may be finite but the networks, algorithms, and data fusion that keep all of our records online and searchable are infinite. Every bad decision, mistake, problem, and unfortunate circumstance is forever remembered by machinery built largely by a manic but gifted programmer named Hank Asher. Funk presents the history of data gathering, digital surveillance, and supercomputers largely through Asher's life story, which included stints running drugs and working with the CIA. Asher purportedly built his programming machine to catch bad guys, but its development was never really up for debate, nor open to a vote by the people it so easily tracks and categorizes. This is an account of how the lives of everyday Americans became transparent to the government, insurance companies, banks, fraudsters, and others. Funk pulls back the curtain on the opaque process of digital tracking, which most people do not want, but is nonetheless our reality. Excellent storytelling and impeccable research temper the paranoia that knowledge of Asher's machines might provoke.

Library Journal Review

Award-winning journalist Funk's (Windfall) latest book is part biography and part "big data" history told through the adult life of Hank Asher (1951--2013). Big data is defined as large sets of information that can be computationally searched and analyzed to reveal patterns, trends, and associations. Law enforcement, governments, and private businesses use it to make policy decisions, which has raised privacy concerns. In the 1970s, Asher was a house painter and drug runner, who, after run-ins with law enforcement, became an informant for the DEA. By the 1980s, Asher rethought his career path and became interested in how he could make money using computers to analyze data. The author does not make judgments about Asher or the use of big data, but he does describe how it has evolved and become profitable for many. Funk has obviously done his research; there are 249 endnotes, grouped by chapter, at the end of the book. VERDICT A timely book that reads like a Hunter S. Thompson adventure. A recommended purchase for libraries with computer science, public policy, or current events collections.--John Napp

Prologue: Analog	1
Author's Interlude: What He Had on Me, and Why I Care	3
Act I White Noise (1951-2000)
1 Mr. John Adams	15
2 Descent	24
3 A Half-Dozen Chickens	39
4 The Paranoid Style in American Computing	53
5 Sunshine	64
6 Pattern Recognition	72
7 Private/Public	82
8 The Purge List	94
Act II The Matrix (2001-12)
9 9/13	105
10 Never Forget	118
11 Fish in a Barrel	136
12 A Spill at the Refinery	143
13 The Social Graph	149
14 The Last Fucking One	162
Act III The Show Goes on (2012-)
15 The Epidemiology of Violence	177
16 Permanent ID	190
17 The Score	200
18 Desaparecidos	212
19 The Violence of Epidemiology	226
Epilogue: Ones and Zeroes	242
A Note on Sources	251
Notes	252
Acknowledgments	282
Index	287

Available:*

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

Summary

Reviews (3)

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

Library Journal Review

Table of Contents