"The Hacker Crackdown"
One morning in early 1990, US Secret Service agents brandishing an unsigned search warrant entered the building of Steve Jackson Games Inc., and proceeded to haul off its computer equipment. The SS accused Mr. Jackson of conspiring to publish a "manual on computer crime." The "manual" was actually a simulation game book based on concepts found in cyberpunk science fiction. Steve Jackson was never charged with any crime, but the confiscation of his business equipment sent his company into a financial tailspin, resulting in layoffs that canned half his workforce. (As of this writing, Steve Jackson Games' computer equipment remains in confiscation.)
"The Hacker Crackdown" analyzes the elements and events leading up to the Jackson raid (and some other very weird and scary hacker busts), and examines the shock waves still reverberating throughout the digital community.
Science fiction author-cum-journalist Bruce Sterling hung out with the major players of the story: telco employees, computer hackers, simulation gamers, science fiction writers, civil libertarians, and law enforcement agencies. He watched them work and party, and listened to them talk to each other about their jobs and about the other players in the game.
He also studied the complex feedback loops that linked the groups. The victims - telephone companies that become unwitting hosts for illegal hacking - use law enforcement agencies to censor people who point out programming holes in their networks. The computer-crime law-enforcement community is a curious mixture of ladder-climbers and "good-guy" hackers, who, in eagerness for promotions, will readily raid the homes and offices of the people who equate the use of their modems with first amendment rights.
The computer underground, a grab-bag of malicious pranksters, armchair anarchists, and believers in technology, is as much at war with itself as it is with everybody else. The civil libertarians, who've set up the Electronic Frontier Foundation as a way to establish rules that everyone can agree with, are winning friends and enemies on all sides.
Not directly connected to the system, but definitely tweaking the knobs of the hysteria meter, are the disinfotainment media (a.k.a. "Hard Copy"), who bend the truth so as to terrify their audience. It's Sterling's departure from this brand of hype journalism that makes _The Hacker Crackdown_ so enjoyable. His active participation with all the players makes for a book that presents a balanced and deep understanding of what's really happening in the computer underground.
Hacker Crackdown, by Bruce Sterling, 1992, $23, from Bantam, 800-223- 6834 x9479 or 212-492-9479.
STREET CRED
The Machines Take Over War in the Age of Intelligent Machines Homebrew VR
Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier
The Law Catches Up
