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political radicals to suggest incipient Nazism within the state. Phreaking, a mostly apolitical pastime, was adopted by the radical movement. It was an odd mix, this bunch of high-tech junkies and the theatrical revolutionaries of the far left. But it was all part of the counterculture.

Draper himself was adopted by the guru of the whole revolutionary movement. Shortly after his arrest, he was contacted by Abbie Hoffman, the co-founder of the Youth International Party Line (YIPL). Hoffman invited Draper to attend the group's 1972 National Convention in Miami and offered to organize a campaign fund for his defence.

Hoffman was at the time the best-known political activist in America. An anti-Vietnam War campaigner, a defendant in the Chicago Seven trial, he had floated YIPL in 1971 as the technical offshoot of his radical Yippie Party. Hoffman had decided that communications would be an important factor in his revolution and had committed the party to the 'liberation' of Ma Bell, inevitably attacked as a fascist organization whose influence needed to be stemmed.

YIPL produced the first underground phreaker newsletter, initially under its own name. In September 1973 it became TAP, the Technological Assistance Program. The newsletter provided its readers with information on telephone tapping and phreaking techniques, and agitated against the profits being made by Ma Bell.

Draper went to the YIPL Convention, at his own expense, but came back empty handed. It was, according to Draper, 'a total waste of time', and the defence fund was never organized. But ironically, while the political posturing of the radicals had little discernible effect on the world, the new dimensions of technology — represented, if imperfectly, by the phreakers — would engender a genuine revolution.

Before he went to jail, Draper was an habitué of the People's Computer Company (PCC), which met in Menlo Park in the Bay Area. It had been started in 1972 with the aim of demystifying computers. It was a highly informal association, with no members as such; the twenty-five or so enthusiasts who gathered at PCC meetings would be instructed in the mysteries of computing, using an old second-

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