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never followed up the accusation that Acid Phreak had dropped a computer bomb in an AT&T switch, as the Secret Service had originally suggested.

But given all the effort, this was a modest pay-off — hardly justification for a mass crackdown. Even the Operation Sundevil busts of 8 May — which the Foundation called a use of 'force and terror which would have been more appropriate to the apprehension of urban guerrillas than barely post-pubescent computer nerds' — have yielded remarkably few indictments.

As for the Phoenix Project, it too was probably a false alarm. The vaunted rebirth of hacking, which convinced the Secret Service there was a nation-wide conspiracy, may not have been what it seemed. The project's organizers had, after all, exhorted hackers to welcome the new age 'with the use of every LEGAL means available.' A sympathetic interpretation of the Phoenix Project would suggest that older hackers were taking a lead by counselling others not to break the law. It was a timely warning: the Computer Fraud and Misuse Act had entered the statute books two years previously; jail sentences had already been handed out to hackers. The practice was no longer being viewed tolerantly, and the Phoenix Project's organizers expected a crackdown by the authorities. They got that right at least.

Gail Thackeray defends Operation Sundevil. She notes that 'eighty per cent of those arrested were adults [over eighteen years old]' — hardly post-pubescents. And, she says, more indictments are being prepared. In Phoenix, where Thackeray now works as a Maricopa Deputy County Attorney, dealing with the aftermath of the busts, she is presently preparing four cases. The delay, she explains, has come about because of the sheer weight of evidence: more than 20,000 diskettes have been examined, which has taken the authorities over twelve months.

But perhaps indictments were never the point. Sundevil was a search and seizure operation; the quarantined computers and diskettes will be held until the material can be analysed. Only at that point will the indictments, if any, be handed down.

The authorities are in no rush. While the computers are in their possession the Cyberpunks are out of action.

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