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been smothered. The word ‘conspiracy’ is used less and less, and the whole notion of military or industrial espionage is now anachronistic. The supposedly sensitive E911 file was proven to be available to anyone who wanted it.

Even the computer bombs, the specific catalyst for the whole crackdown, have been quietly forgotten. No one has been officially charged with planting the bombs, and it is unlikely anyone ever will be. Everyone in the underworld’s hall of mirrors, of course, knows who did it; the only problem is, they all finger different people.

As for Fry Guy, he denies any responsibility for the bombs: ‘They’re just pointless destruction. I can’t understand why anyone would do it. I’m not malicious or destructive: I only do things for gain.’

That was Fry Guy’s downfall: he operated for gain. When he was raided the Secret Service found more than a hundred ‘access devices’ in his possession – credit card numbers, telephone calling cards. He could never be charged with planting the bombs, and no one was able to pin the Florida incidents on him, but he was caught red-handed on the credit card fraud. Following his arrest, it was estimated that his little scam had netted him $6,000 that year. He is now on probation, his equipment confiscated. But if you ask why he hacked, he still sighs: ‘It’s the greatest thing in the world.’

New technology requires new approaches. The reactions of the authorities to the computer underworld show a dependence on old ideas. Hacking becomes breaking and entering; role-playing games become conspiracies; exploration becomes espionage. The dated terms obliterate the difference between the ‘bad’ hackers and the ‘good’ hackers.

And there is a difference. Society might tolerate some activities of the computer underground. Hackers are mostly explorers, exercising intellectual curiosity. Undoubtedly, they will break into computers, sometimes causing ancillary damage or taking up system time, and probably they will exploit the telecom systems to do so. But their intent, for the most part, is not malicious.

On the other hand, the black arts of virus writing and hacking to

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