Hacker Crackdown | Page 4

a lot of
wise things to say about the manuscript. Betsy deserves genuine credit for this book,
credit that editors too rarely get.
The critics were very kind to THE HACKER CRACKDOWN, and commercially the
book has done well. On the other hand, I didn't write this book in order to squeeze every
last nickel and dime out of the mitts of impoverished sixteen-year-old cyberpunk high-
school-students. Teenagers don't have any money--no, not even enough for HACKER
CRACKDOWN. That's a major reason why they sometimes succumb to the temptation to
do things they shouldn't, such as swiping my books out of libraries. Kids: this one is all
yours, all right? Go give the paper copy back. *8-)
Well-meaning, public-spirited civil libertarians don't have much money, either. And it
seems almost criminal to snatch cash out of the hands of America's grotesquely underpaid
electronic law enforcement community.
If you're a computer cop, a hacker, or an electronic civil liberties activist, you are the

target audience for this book. I wrote this book because I wanted to help you, and help
other people understand you and your unique, uhm, problems. I wrote this book to aid
your activities, and to contribute to the public discussion of important political issues. In
giving the text away in this fashion, I am directly contributing to the book's ultimate aim:
to help civilize cyberspace.
Information WANTS to be free. And the information inside this book longs for freedom
with a peculiar intensity. I genuinely believe that the natural habitat of this book is inside
an electronic network. That may not be the easiest direct method to generate revenue for
the book's author, but that doesn't matter; this is where this book belongs by its nature.
I've written other books--plenty of other books--and I'll write more and I am writing more,
but this one is special. I am making THE HACKER CRACKDOWN available
electronically as widely as I can conveniently manage, and if you like the book, and think
it is useful, then I urge you to do the same with it.
You can copy this electronic book. Copy the heck out of it, be my guest, and give those
copies to anybody who wants them. The nascent world of cyberspace is full of sysadmins,
teachers, trainers, cybrarians, netgurus, and various species of cybernetic activist. If
you're one of those people, I know about you, and I know the hassle you go through to try
to help people learn about the electronic frontier. I hope that possessing this book in
electronic form will lessen your troubles. Granted, this treatment of our electronic social
spectrum not the ultimate in academic rigor. And politically, it has something to offend
and trouble almost everyone. But hey, I'm told it's readable, and at least the price is right.
You can upload the book onto bulletin board systems, or Internet nodes, or electronic
discussion groups. Go right ahead and do that, I am giving you express permission right
now. Enjoy yourself.
You can put the book on disks and give the disks away, as long as you don't take any
money for it.
But this book is not public domain. You can't copyright it in your own name. I own the
copyright. Attempts to pirate this book and make money from selling it may involve you
in a serious litigative snarl. Believe me, for the pittance you might wring out of such an
action, it's really not worth it. This book don't "belong" to you. In an odd but very
genuine way, I feel it doesn't "belong" to me, either. It's a book about the people of
cyberspace, and distributing it in this way is the best way I know to actually make this
information available, freely and easily, to all the people of cyberspace--including people
far outside the borders of the United States, who otherwise may never have a chance to
see any edition of the book, and who may perhaps learn something useful from this
strange story of distant, obscure, but portentous events in so-called "American
cyberspace."
This electronic book is now literary freeware. It now belongs to the emergent realm of
alternative information economics. You have no right to make this electronic book part of
the conventional flow of commerce. Let it be part of the flow of knowledge: there's a
difference. I've divided the book into four sections, so that it is less ungainly for upload

and download; if there's a section of particular relevance to you and your colleagues, feel
free to reproduce that one and skip the rest.
Just make more when you need them, and give them to whoever might want them.
Now have fun.
Bruce [email protected]

CHRONOLOGY OF THE HACKER CRACKDOWN
1865 U.S. Secret Service (USSS) founded.
1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone.
1878 First