Patrick Coughlin, Dark Side of the Boom with Rainy Day Books

Hear from a cybersecurity and technology expert on this timely subject! Join Rainy Day Books in-store to discuss Dark Side of the Boom with author Patrick Coughlin and moderator David Hudnall. This event includes a conversation between Patrick and David along with an opportunity to get your book signed and personalized. "As Patrick Coughlin says in his incisive and elegant book, there are only two kinds of people in the world today: those who have been scammed and those who will soon be scammed. Read him for a compelling history of how we got to this terrifying place, and to defend yourself properly for the inevitability." - Vanessa Grigoriadis, contributing writer at Vanity Fair and the New York Times The Book Dark Side of the Boom: How Scammers Hijacked the AI Revolution A cybersecurity veteran reveals how organized criminal networks hijacked the AI revolution to run the fastest-growing criminal enterprise on the planet, and what families can do to fight back. The same psychological triggers that fuel tech adoption– urgency, authority, trust– are being weaponized by scammers in the AI era. Dark Side of the Boom makes the case that scam susceptibility isn't about carelessness but about how our brains are wired, and offers practical frameworks for protection. Patrick Coughlin draws on 20+ years of cybersecurity leadership and the personal experience of watching his own mother targeted by an AI voice-clone scam to explain why this is a human psychology problem, not a technology problem. Dark Side of the Boom tells the story of how artificial intelligence has supercharged the global scam economy– from deepfake voice clones to industrialized fraud compounds in Southeast Asia– through the lens of one family's devastating loss. Part investigation, part call to action, Patrick Coughlin exposes the human psychology scammers exploit, the institutions that have failed to respond, and the new rituals we need to protect ourselves when seeing and hearing are no longer believing. The Author Patrick Coughlin (COG-lin) spent more than twenty years building teams, products, and companies that protect governments and Fortune 500 enterprises from the most sophisticated cyber threats. He co-founded TruSTAR Technology, a security intelligence platform acquired by Splunk, and now leads Savi Security, where his team built Scamwise, a free tool that gives anyone an instant assessment of a suspicious message. When his 73-year-old mother was targeted by an AI-powered voice impersonation scam, Patrick turned his expertise toward a question most cybersecurity professionals never ask: why do smart, capable people fall for scams in the first place? What he found wasn't a technology problem: it was a human psychology problem, fueled by criminal organizations operating at a scale most people can't imagine. His debut book, Dark Side of the Boom: How Scammers Hijacked the AI Revolution (Fast Company Press), exposes the networks behind the global scam epidemic, the psychological tactics they've weaponized, and what families and communities can do to fight back. Patrick is a Georgetown, St. Andrews, and Stanford alum. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, son, and dog. Patrick on LinkedIn The Moderator David Hudnall is the metro columnist for The Kansas City Star. His work fuses investigative reporting and opinion pieces on politics, crime, business and other forces shaping Kansas City. He joined the paper in 2021 after serving as editor of alternative weeklies in Kansas City and Phoenix. Please Note: There are no refunds for this event. If you are unable to attend, your book will be available for pickup at Rainy Day Books starting the following day. If you are not local, we'll be happy to mail it to you upon request. Thank you for your support! We will hold your event book in-store for a maximum of 6 months following the event. If you have not retrieved your book in that time period, it will be donated.