private-sector professional societies, and have a commendable
subcultural esprit-de-corps. And in the well-manned Secret
Service, they have willing national-level assistance.
PLAYER TWO: The Telephone Companies.
In the early 80s, after years of bitter federal court battle,
America's telephone monopoly was pulverized. "Ma Bell," the
national phone company, became AT&T, AT&T Industries, and the
regional "Baby Bells," all purportedly independent companies,
who compete with new communications companies and other
long-distance providers. As a class, however, they are all
sorely harassed by fraudsters, phone phreaks, and computer
hackers, and they all maintain computer-security experts. In a
lot of cases these "corporate security divisions" consist of
just one or two guys, who drifted into the work from
backgrounds in traditional security or law enforcement. But,
linked by specialized security trade journals and private
sector trade groups, they all know one another.
PLAYER THREE: The Computer Hackers.
The American "hacker" elite consists of about a hundred people,
who all know one another. These are the people who know enough
about computer intrusion to baffle corporate security and alarm
police (and who, furthermore, are willing to put their
intrusion skills into actual practice). The somewhat
older subculture of "phone-phreaking," once native only to the
phone system, has blended into hackerdom as phones have become
digital and computers have been netted-together by
telephones. "Phone phreaks," always tarred with the stigma of
rip-off artists, are nowadays increasingly hacking PBX systems
and cellular phones. These practices, unlike
computer-intrusion, offer direct and easy profit to
fraudsters. There are legions of minor "hackers," such as the
"kodez kidz," who purloin telephone access codes to make free
(i.e., stolen) phone calls. Code theft can be done with home
computers, and almost looks like real "hacking," though "kodez
kidz" are regarded with lordly contempt by the elite. "Warez
d00dz," who copy and pirate computer games and software, are a
thriving subspecies of "hacker," but they played no real role
in the crackdown of 1990 or the Jackson case. As for the dire
minority who create computer viruses, the less said the
better. The princes of hackerdom skate the phone-lines, and
computer networks, as a lifestyle. They hang out in loose,
modem-connected gangs like the "Legion of Doom" and the
"Masters of Destruction." The craft of hacking is taught
through "bulletin board systems," personal computers that carry
electronic mail and can be accessed by phone. Hacker bulletin
boards generally sport grim, scary, sci-fi heavy metal names
