Bruce Sterling
bruces@well.sf.ca.us
Literary Freeware: Not for Commercial Use
THE HACKER CRACKDOWN
Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier
by Bruce Sterling
CONTENTS
Chronology of the Hacker Crackdown
A Brief History of Telephony / Bell's Golden Vaporware / Universal Service/
Wild Boys and Wire Women / The Electronic Communities / The Ungentle
Giant / The Breakup / In Defense of the System / The Crash PostMortem /
Landslides in Cyberspace
Steal This Phone / Phreaking and Hacking / The View From Under the
Floorboards / Boards: Core of the Underground / Phile Phun / The Rake's
the Legion / Terminus / Phile 9-1-1 / War Games / Real Cyberpunk
Crooked Boards / The World's Biggest Hacker Bust / Teach Them a Lesson /
The U.S. Secret Service / The Secret Service Battles the Boodlers / A Walk
Downtown / FCIC: The Cutting-Edge Mess / Cyberspace Rangers / FLETC:
Training the Hacker-Trackers
NuPrometheus + FBI = Grateful Dead / Whole Earth + Computer Revolution =
WELL / Phiber RunsUnderground and Acid Spikes the Well / The Trial o
Knight Lightning / Shadowhawk Plummets to Earth / Kyrie in the
Confessional / $79,499 / A Scholar Investigates / Computers, Freedom, and
Electronic Afterword to *The Hacker Crackdown,* New Years' Day 1994
