Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession from the Electronic Frontier Read Free

were interviewed for this work, and many others who helped in providing documents so vital for fact checking. Often this help invovled spending a considerable amount of time explaining complex technical or legal matters. I want to express my gratitude to all these people, some of whom prefer to remain anonymous, for their willingness to dig through the files in search of yet one more report and their patience in answering yet one more question.

    I want to thank the members of the computer underground, past and present, who were interviewed for this book. Most gave me extraordinary access to their lives, for which I am very grateful.

    I also want to thank Julian Assange for his tireless research efforts.
    His superb technical expertise and first-rate research is evidence by the immense number of details which are included in this book.

    Three exceptional women -- Fiona Inglis, Deb Callaghan and Jennifer Byrne -- believed in my vision for this book and helped me to bring it to fruition. Carl Harrison-Ford’s excellent editing job streamlined a large and difficult manuscript despite the tight deadline. Thank you also to Judy Brookes.

    I am also very grateful to the following people and organisations for their help (in no particular order): John McMahon, Ron Tencati, Kevin Oberman, Ray Kaplan, the New York Daily News library staff, the New York Post library staff, Bow Street Magistrates Court staff, Southwark Court staff, the US Secret Service, the Black Mountain Police, Michael Rosenberg, Michael Rosen, Melbourne Magistrates Court staff, D.L
    Sellers & Co. staff, Victorian County Court staff, Paul Galbally, Mark Dorset, Suburbia.net, Freeside Communications, Greg Hooper, H&S
    Support Services, Peter Andrews, Kevin Thompson, Andrew Weaver, Mukhtar Hussain, Midnight Oil, Helen Meredith, Ivan Himmelhoch, Michael Hall, Donn Ferris, Victorian State Library staff, News Limited library staff (Sydney), Allan Young, Ed DeHart, Annette Seeber, Arthur Arkin, Doug Barnes, Jeremy Porter, James McNabb, Carolyn Ford, ATA, Domini Banfield, Alistair Kelman, Ann-Maree Moodie, Jane Hutchinson, Catherine Murphy, Norma Hawkins, N. Llewelyn, Christine Assange, Russel Brand, Matthew Bishop, Matthew Cox, Michele Ziehlky, Andrew James, Brendan McGrath, Warner Chappell Music Australia, News Limited, Pearson Williams Solicitors, Tami Friedman, the Free Software Foundation (GNU Project), and the US Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability.

    Finally, I would like to thank my family, whose unfailing support, advice and encouragement have made this book possible.
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INTRODUCTION
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    My great aunt used to paint underwater.

    Piling on the weighty diving gear used in 1939 and looking like something out of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, Lucie slowly sank below the surface, with palette, special paints and canvas in hand. She settled on the ocean floor, arranged her weighted painter’s easel and allowed herself to become completely enveloped by another world. Red and white striped fish darted around fields of blue-green coral and blue-lipped giant clams. Lionfish drifted by, gracefully waving their dangerous feathered spines. Striped green moray eels peered at her from their rock crevice homes.

    Lucie dived and painted everywhere. The Sulu Archipelago. Mexico.
    Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Hawaii. Borneo. Sometimes she was the first white woman seen by the Pacific villagers she lived with for months on end.

    As a child, I was entranced by her stories of the unknown world below the ocean’s surface, and the strange and wonderful cultures she met on her journeys. I grew up in awe of her chosen task: to capture on canvas the essence of a world utterly foreign to her own.

    New technology--revolutionary for its time--had allowed her to do this. Using a compressor, or sometimes just a hand pump connected to air