Bruce Sterling
[email protected]
GURPS' LABOUR LOST
Some months ago, I wrote an article about the raid on Steve
Jackson Games, which appeared in my "Comment" column in the
British science fiction monthly, INTERZONE (#44, Feb 1991).
This updated version, specially re-written for dissemination
by EFF, reflects the somewhat greater knowledge I've gained to
date, in the course of research on an upcoming nonfiction book,
THE HACKER CRACKDOWN: Law and Disorder on the Electronic
Frontier. The bizarre events suffered by Mr. Jackson and his
co-workers, in my own home town of Austin, Texas, were directly
responsible for my decision to put science fiction aside and to
tackle the purportedly real world of computer crime and
electronic free-expression. The national crackdown on computer
hackers in 1990 was the largest and best-coordinated attack on
computer mischief in American history. There was Arizona's
"Operation Sundevil," the sweeping May 8 nationwide raid
against outlaw bulletin boards. The BellSouth E911 case (of
which the Jackson raid was a small and particularly egregious
part) was coordinated out of Chicago. The New York State
Police were also very active in 1990. All this vigorous law
enforcement activity meant very little to the narrow and
intensely clannish world of science fiction. All we knew --
and this misperception persisted, uncorrected, for months --
was that Mr. Jackson had been raided because of his intention
to publish a gaming book about "cyberpunk" science fiction.
The Jackson raid received extensive coverage in science fiction
news magazines (yes, we have these) and became notorious in the
world of SF as "the Cyberpunk Bust." My INTERZONE article
attempted to make the Jackson case intelligible to the British
SF audience. What possible reason could lead an American
federal law enforcement agency to raid the headquarters of a
science-fiction gaming company? Why did armed teams of city
police, corporate security men, and federal agents roust two
Texan computer-hackers from their beds at dawn, and then
deliberately confiscate thousands of dollars' worth of computer
equipment, including the hackers' common household telephones?
Why was an unpublished book called G.U.R.P.S. Cyberpunk seized
by the US Secret Service and declared "a manual for computer
crime?" These weird events were not parodies or fantasies; no,
this was real. The first order of business in untangling this
bizarre drama is to understand the players -- who come in
entire teams.
Dramatis Personae
Player One: The Law Enforcement Agencies.
