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...)

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.

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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)

Customer Reviews

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

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.

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