The Hacker Crackdown: Law And Disorder On The Electronic Frontier

The Hacker Crackdown was current affairs when it was first published, now it's a fascinating little slice of history. I was aware of the basic facts of the early days of the internet, bulletin boards, phone phreking and hacking but Sterling brings it all to life and carefully balances the story, bringing in voices from the telcos, law enforcement, civil libertarians and the underground...more

The Hacker Crackdown was current affairs when it was first published, now it's a fascinating little slice of history. I was aware of the basic facts of the early days of the internet, bulletin boards, phone phreking and hacking but Sterling brings it all to life and carefully balances the story, bringing in voices from the telcos, law enforcement, civil libertarians and the underground hackers themselves. And for free stuff nerds, this was the first book published by a major publishing house to get a simultaneous free, proto-creative commons type release on the internet. It's floating about all over, I read it at stuff.mit.edu/hacker/hacker minus one star because it did drag a little in places, but really that's a minor quibble.   hide

Ce livre fait partie de ma découverte des origines de la culture internet. Un très bon essai, très bien écrit, sur l'un des premiers tournants libertaires du net et la mise en place de l'appareil juridique pour le contrer, se couplant à l'étude sur le travail d'un écrivain dans un champ nouveau en formation. Un livre fascinant.

The author provides a free downloadable version in text files. Furthermore, the royalties from print copies are donated. His publisher did not like this but it is his copyright and he chose to èopen sourceè it.

Amazing book on the historical origins of computer crime...