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The Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier Mass Market Paperback – November 1, 1993

by Bruce Sterling (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 48 ratings
See all formats and editions
A journalist investigates the past, present, and future of computer crimes, as he attends a hacker convention, documents the extent of the computer crimes, and presents intriguing facts about hackers and their misdoings.
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  1. Print length
    336 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Bantam
  4. Publication date
    November 1, 1993
  5. Dimensions
    4.17 x 0.85 x 6.87 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    055356370X
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0553563702
  8. See all details
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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.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bantam; Reprint edition (November 1, 1993)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 055356370X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0553563702
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.17 x 0.85 x 6.87 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 48 ratings

About the author

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Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling

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Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Bruce Sterling, author, journalist, editor, and critic,

was born in 1954. Best known for his ten science fiction

novels, he also writes short stories, book reviews,

design criticism, opinion columns, and introductions

for books ranging from Ernst Juenger to Jules Verne.

His nonfiction works include THE HACKER CRACKDOWN:

LAW AND DISORDER ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER (1992),

TOMORROW NOW: ENVISIONING THE NEXT FIFTY YEARS (2003),

and SHAPING THINGS (2005).

He is a contributing editor of WIRED magazine

and writes a weblog. During 2005,

he was the "Visionary in Residence" at Art Center

College of Design in Pasadena. In 2008 he

was the Guest Curator for the Share Festival

of Digital Art and Culture in Torino, Italy,

and the Visionary in Residence at the Sandberg

Instituut in Amsterdam. In 2011 he returned to

Art Center as "Visionary in Residence" to run

a special project on Augmented Reality.

He has appeared in ABC's Nightline, BBC's The Late Show,

CBC's Morningside, on MTV and TechTV, and in Time,

Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, the New York Times,

Fortune, Nature, I.D., Metropolis, Technology Review,

Der Spiegel, La Stampa, La Repubblica, and many other venues.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
48 global ratings

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Customers find the book enjoyable and engaging. They appreciate the story's quality and context, describing it as a good read about society and how the government created it.

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5 customers mention "Readability"5 positive0 negative

Customers find the book readable and enjoyable.

"Awesome book! Can't speak highly enough of it. Brings me back to a time in life when I first got interested in Information Technology and hacking...." Read more

"This is a fun read for geeks or anyone interested in hacker culture,or early internet culture...." Read more

"Bruce Sterling is a decent journalist. i enjoyed the book a lot. if you want to learn about this stuff from this time period this is a great read." Read more

"its a great book at first its a little boring but after passing chapter2 its starts to get alot faster and better,i picked it up because iv been a..." Read more

3 customers mention "Story quality"3 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the story. They find it engaging and appreciate the context.

"...This book tells a very cool story about society and how the government created their own task force to put s few hackers away. Must read this book!" Read more

"...I am only 40 pages in and the context is great, but i am literally pulling the pages apart to read them" Read more

"good story..." Read more

Top reviews from the United States

  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Must read this book!
    Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Awesome book! Can't speak highly enough of it. Brings me back to a time in life when I first got interested in Information Technology and hacking. There are a lot of similarities with the industry between then and now, but a lot has changed technologically. This book tells a very cool story about society and how the government created their own task force to put s few hackers away. Must read this book!
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Ruben
    5.0 out of 5 stars The truth about hackers and social collaboration on-line
    Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    In a time where Facebook is the principal way of on-line communication, this book shows us how it all began and the real meaning behind the term "hacker", which Hollywood has deformed so much that it has become a synonym of criminal.
    One person found this helpful
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  • CT
    4.0 out of 5 stars A fun read...
    Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2002
    Verified Purchase
    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 90's. So, most of the activity documented takes place on bbs's (bulletin boards) and not the actual internet. The internet is mentioned, but within its original academic/scientific context that we now think of as the roots of the internet.
    Its interesting that this 'culture' had just reached the level of warranting an entire book right before it outgrew its own technology and expanded into the realm of the internet.
    Don't expect any of Sterling's brilliant literary creativity in this one; just good journalism and documentation. He gives his rationalization for doing the project as his feeling threatened by the possiblity he would be targeted by frightened and misinformed federal agents, as was a fellow cyberpunk fiction writer and game-maker friend of his. All in all, its a fun read with a good punchline...
    3 people found this helpful
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  • D
    5.0 out of 5 stars great book
    Reviewed in the United States on January 21, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    Bruce Sterling is a decent journalist. i enjoyed the book a lot. if you want to learn about this stuff from this time period this is a great read.
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  • jon
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on February 19, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Top 5 favorite books of all time
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  • adamorl
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    great thanks
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  • Richard Bejtlich
    5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best historical "hacker scene" accounts
    Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2010
    Bruce Sterling's book The Hacker Crackdown (THC) captures the spirit and history of the "hacker scene" in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Having lived through that period with my C-64 and first 386 PC, I thought the author accurately describes what it was like for computer users during that era. THC is one of my favorite books on hacker activity because it combines a narrative with the author's accounts of interactions with key individuals. THC expertly tells several stories from multiple perspectives -- hacker, law enforcement, security professional, telecom operator, even homeless man-on-the-street! The author also manages to not offend technically-minded readers while describing material for non-technical audiences.

    I found the last line of the book to be especially prescient: "It is the End of the Amateurs." This statement applies to offensive as well as defensive players in digital security. Consider the focus of THC: the hunt by law enforcement officials for, essentially, bit players in the digital underground. The offenders were basically joyriders (who no doubt caused plenty of headaches for security professionals) who didn't materially profit from their actions. The offenders also did not serve foreign masters for purposes of espionage. On the other side, many of the defenders were only discovering digital crime and pioneering incident response tradecraft in the heat of battle. In brief, THC is about amateur offenders vs amateur defenders. For the last five to ten years, digital security has been almost strictly a matter of professional offenders (criminal and state-sponsored) vs professional defenders (corporate, military, and improved law enforcement).

    The bottom line is that anyone involved with digital security will enjoy reading The Hacker Crackdown.
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Robert
    2.0 out of 5 stars Binding is messed up and makes it unreadable
    Reviewed in the United States on February 2, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    I have not read the whole book yet as I just received it - but the binding on it is screwed, almost makes it unreadable. Most of the words on the pages on the left run PAST the binding and you can not complete the words unless you really think about them and continue down to the next line, or completely ruin the binding by pulling it apart. Forget about the words on the right pages unless you rip the ping completely. They could have made the book like a quarter inch wider and made it more accessible for reading. I am only 40 pages in and the context is great, but i am literally pulling the pages apart to read them
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • 山本　登
    5.0 out of 5 stars 有用
    Reviewed in Japan on April 12, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    初期のセキュリティ侵害事件を扱った本ですので、貴重な資料として保管しています。
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  • Bookworm
    4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book
    Reviewed in Germany on July 13, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    The book itself is great fun to read. The only thing that bothered me was the rather small print, hence only 4 stars.
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  • Oetterli Rene
    3.0 out of 5 stars so so la la
    Reviewed in Germany on August 10, 2013
    Verified Purchase
    i expected much much more, and was then quite disappointed about it. very dry way of stringed together information. it's a pity
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