Toronto Publishers Are Selling Zero-Day Zines
By Syed John
Indie presses with ethics teams now release limited print runs of anonymized exploit stories.
A niche Toronto publisher just launched a zine series called ZERO DAY DIARIES. Each issue anonymizes a real exploit incident—think literary nonfiction about ransomware, told from the responder’s POV. They print 500 copies, sell them at hacker cons, and donate profits to burnout clinics.
It sounds gimmicky until you read one. The prose is brutal, the stakes high, and the redactions ominous. Hackers buy them as trophies; CISOs buy them as training material. It's cyberpunk journalism done right.
We talk about security awareness but rarely make it art. Toronto’s scene just proved that storytelling can be an exploit mitigation tool. Also, nothing says credibility like a zine that smells like fresh ink and caffeine.