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The Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "On January 15, 1990, AT&T's long-distance telephone switching system crashed..." (more)
Key Phrases: anarchy files, telco security, telco people, Secret Service, Legion of Doom, New York (more...)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)

Price: $7.50 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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  Hardcover, September 30, 1992 -- $3.44 $0.01
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Frequently Bought Together

The Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier + Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace + The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage
Price For All Three: $32.80

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  • This item: The Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier by Bruce Sterling

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  • The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage by Cliff Stoll

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Bruce Sterling's classic work highlights the 1990 assault on hackers, when law-enforcement officials successfully arrested scores of suspected illicit hackers and other computer-based law-breakers. These raids became symbolic of the debate between fighting serious computer crime and protecting civil liberties. However, The Hacker Crackdown is about far more than a series of police sting operations. It's a lively tour of three cyberspace subcultures--the hacker underworld, the realm of the cybercops, and the idealistic culture of the cybercivil libertarians.

Sterling begins his story at the birth of cyberspace: the invention of the telephone. We meet the first hackers--teenage boys hired as telephone operators--who used their technical mastery, low threshold for boredom, and love of pranks to wreak havoc across the phone lines. From phone-related hi-jinks, Sterling takes us into the broader world of hacking and introduces many of the culprits--some who are fighting for a cause, some who are in it for kicks, and some who are traditional criminals after a fast buck. Sterling then details the triumphs and frustrations of the people forced to deal with the illicit hackers and tells how they developed their own subculture as cybercops. Sterling raises the ethical and legal issues of online law enforcement by questioning what rights are given to suspects and to those who have private e-mail stored on suspects' computers. Additionally, Sterling shows how the online civil liberties movement rose from seemingly unlikely places, such as the counterculture surrounding the Grateful Dead. The Hacker Crackdown informs you of the issues surrounding computer crime and the people on all sides of those issues.



From Publishers Weekly

Cyberpunk novelist Sterling (Involution Ocean) has produced by far the most stylish report from the computer outlaw culture since Steven Levy's Hackers. In jazzy New Journalism proE;e, sounding like Tom Wolfe reporting on a gunfight at the Cybernetic Corral, Sterling makes readers feel at home with the hackers, marshals, rebels and bureaucrats of the electronic frontier. He opens with a social history of the telephone in order to explain how the Jan. 15, 1990, crash of AT&T's long-distance switching system led to a crackdown on high-tech outlaws suspected of using their knowledge of eyberspace to invade the phone company's and other corporations' supposedly secure networks. After explaining the nature of eyberspace forms like electronic bulletin boards in detail, Sterling makes the hackers-who live in the ether between terminals under noms de nets such as VaxCat-as vivid as Wyatt Earp and Doe Holliday. His book goes a long way towards explaining the emerging digital world and its ethos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

  • Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Bantam (November 1, 1993)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 055356370X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553563702
  • Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #604,423 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

39 Reviews
5 star:
 (14)
4 star:
 (13)
3 star:
 (6)
2 star:
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (39 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Distingushed, Accurate, Superior to Government Story, April 7, 2000
By Robert D. Steele (Oakton, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER)   
This is one of three books I trust on hackers and hacking (Levy and Turkle are the other two trusted authors). Bruce, a very distinguished author in WIRED and science fiction circles, went to great lengths to investigate and understand what was happening between hackers exploring corporate systems, corporate security officials that were clueless and seeking scorched earth revenge, and Secret Service investigators that were equally clueless and willing to testify erroneously to judges that the hackers had caused grave damage to national security. Bruce is a true investigative journalist with a deep understanding of both technical and cultural matters, and I consider him superior to anyone in government on the facts of the matter.

Update of 31 May 08 to add links:
The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit, Twentieth Anniversary Edition
Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
Information Payoff: The Transformation of Work in the Electronic Age
Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace (Helix Books)
The Unfinished Revolution: Human-Centered Computers and What They Can Do For Us
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad...I guess it depends what you're looking for., June 15, 1998
By A Customer
I bought this book hoping for a little more technical information. Not that I was looking for a "step-by-step" hacking manual, but I had hoped to read a little more about the techniques that were used to commit the "crimes" and those used to catch them.

Having said that, the book was still an interesting read, with plenty of background information. The civil liberties section was particularly interesting, especially when you consider where we are today on that matter; same old questions, even 6 years after this book was published.

In short: a tough read, but some interesting facts.

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11 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars The history of politics going dataland, January 13, 1999
By A Customer
An exciting read - if you are in any way interested in the early development of the electronic side of our world, right the place were you read this now.

Hacking - OK, sounds like a good selling story.

But this is also about traditions of e-commerce: the phone companies. And about democracy: government vs. civil libertarians meeting on the electronic frontier, both exploring.

It is the history of the settling of cyberspace (how I hated this word until I read this book!).

Yes, history. Although it is less than a decade ago, the times of adventurous exploration are "long" ago, and books _have_ to be read about this.

Example: You read this book about people making their first unsecure steps into cyberspace, and then some day you recognize one of its main actors, Jerry Barlow, in the news speaking for the EFF, now an important organization in the world of civil liberties, but just in its early founding days, when mentioned in "The Hacker Crackdown"

Shurely our children will have excerpts from this in their history books at school :)

-Ulf

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading on computers, freedom and privacy.
Bruce Sterling of Cyberpunk fame takes a journalistic approach to researching law and disorder on the electronic frontier by examining two specific events in depth : the 1990... Read more
Published on September 28, 2006 by Hubert Anglade

5.0 out of 5 stars Very worthwile...
A very lively, interesting, and well-written (by Bruce Sterling no less) summer read for those interested in the history of phone phreaking and computer exploration and mischief... Read more
Published on September 16, 2006 by B. Bush

4.0 out of 5 stars EXCELENT BOOK UNTIL THE ''UNDERGROUND'' PART
this is an excellent book until the ''underground'' part. But it forgot to talk about the cybergang ''Master Of Deception'' the opponent of Legion Of Doom.
Published on May 8, 2005 by Lauro Otacilio C. Sousa

5.0 out of 5 stars Learned more about the phone in 12 hours than in 12 years
I learned more about the telephone in 12 hours than 12 years of school life. The dates and times depicted in this book happened during a time when I'd been 'off-line' with the... Read more
Published on July 24, 2004 by David Brenneman

5.0 out of 5 stars A near-complete retrospective history of cyberculture...
Sterling's book is a must-read for anyone genuinely interested in the roots of Cyberculture. It documents everything from old-school phone phreaks to the 1990 crash of AT&T... Read more
Published on December 25, 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars Dated but interesting.
Not checking the publish date, I bought "Hacker Crackdown" thinking it would be a high-tech dossier of a select group of computer hackers. Read more
Published on September 17, 2002 by David Fazio

4.0 out of 5 stars I'm biased, but I think it's great
It would be hard for me to write an unbiased view of this book, so I might as well be up front with why I was predisposed to like it. Read more
Published on September 11, 2002 by Glen Engel Cox

2.0 out of 5 stars A little bit dry
I've read most of the hacker history books and this one reads like a textbook at times. Probably should cut 1/3 out of it to make it flow better.
Published on March 31, 2002

4.0 out of 5 stars A fun read...
This is a fun read for geeks or anyone interested in hacker culture,or early internet culture. The book is published literally minutes before the internet explosion in the early... Read more
Published on January 16, 2002 by Mark Twain

5.0 out of 5 stars Distinguished, Accurate Look At Computer Hacking
Bruce Sterling's "Hacker Crackdown" is a thoughtful, occasionally mesmering, look at the early days of computer hacking. Read more
Published on November 20, 2001 by John Kwok

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