"Hacker Crackdown.Part 3 LAW AND ORDER" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sterling Bruce)

Bruce Sterling
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Literary Freeware: Not for Commercial Use

THE HACKER CRACKDOWN: Law and Disorder
on the Electronic Frontier

PART THREE: LAW AND ORDER


Of the various anti-hacker activities of 1990,
"Operation Sundevil" had by far the highest public
profile. The sweeping, nationwide computer
seizures of May 8, 1990 were unprecedented in
scope and highly, if rather selectively, publicized.

Unlike the efforts of the Chicago Computer
Fraud and Abuse Task Force, "Operation Sundevil"
was not intended to combat "hacking" in the sense
of computer intrusion or sophisticated raids on telco
switching stations. Nor did it have anything to do
with hacker misdeeds with AT&T's software, or with
Southern Bell's proprietary documents.

Instead, "Operation Sundevil" was a crackdown
on those traditional scourges of the digital
underground: credit-card theft and telephone code
abuse. The ambitious activities out of Chicago, and
the somewhat lesser-known but vigorous anti-
hacker actions of the New York State Police in 1990,
were never a part of "Operation Sundevil" per se,
which was based in Arizona.

Nevertheless, after the spectacular May 8 raids,
the public, misled by police secrecy, hacker panic,
and a puzzled national press-corps, conflated all
aspects of the nationwide crackdown in 1990 under
the blanket term "Operation Sundevil." "Sundevil" is
still the best-known synonym for the crackdown of
1990. But the Arizona organizers of "Sundevil" did
not really deserve this reputation -- any more, for
instance, than all hackers deserve a reputation as
"hackers."

There was some justice in this confused
perception, though. For one thing, the confusion
was abetted by the Washington office of the Secret
Service, who responded to Freedom of Information
Act requests on "Operation Sundevil" by referring