The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier

Written by Bruce Sterling

Narrated by Tom Parks

The bestselling cyberpunk author “has produced by far the most stylish report from the computer outlaw culture since Steven Levy’s Hackers” (Publishers Weekly).

Bruce Sterling delves into the world of high-tech crime and punishment in one of the first books to explore the cyberspace breaches that threaten national security. From the crash of AT&T’s long-distance switching system to corporate cyberattacks, he investigates government and law enforcement efforts to break the back of America’s electronic underground in the 1990s. In this modern classic, “Sterling makes the hackers—who live in the ether between terminals under noms de net such as VaxCat—as vivid as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. His book goes a long way towards explaining the emerging digital world and its ethos” (Publishers Weekly).

This edition features a new preface by the author that analyzes the sobering increase in computer crime over the twenty-five years since The Hacker Crackdown was first published.

“Offbeat and brilliant.” —Booklist

“Thoroughly researched, this account of the government’s crackdown on the nebulous but growing computer-underground provides a thoughtful report on the laws and rights being defined on the virtual frontier of cyberspace. . . . An enjoyable, informative, and (as the first mainstream treatment of the subject) potentially important book . . . Sterling is a fine and knowledgeable guide to this strange new world.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A well-balanced look at this new group of civil libertarians. Written with humor and intelligence, this book is highly recommended.” —Library Journal

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781713562672

Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction writer, born in Brownsville, Texas on April 14, 1954. His first published fiction appeared in the late 1970s, but he came to real prominence in the early 1980s as one of several writers associated with the "cyberpunk" tendency, and as that movement's chief theoretician and pamphleteer. He also edited the anthology Mirrorshades (1986), which still stands as a definitive document of that period in SF. His novel Islands in the Net (1988) won the John W. Campbell Award for best SF novel of the year; he has also won two Hugo awards, for the stories "Bicycle Repairman" (1996) and "Taklamakan" (1998). His 1990 collaboration with William Gibson, The Difference Engine, was an important work of early steampunk/neo-Victoriana. In 2009, he published The Caryatids. In 1992 he published The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, heralding a second career as a journalist covering social, legal, and artistic matters in the digital world. The first issue of Wired magazine, in 1993, featured his face on its cover; today, their web site hosts his long-running blog, Beyond the Beyond.

Reviews for The Hacker Crackdown

[lyndatrue · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I bought this the second it became available, standing in line to do so. This may be one of the most significant books from the era, and describes how it was back in the wild days of the internet, and also shows some of the abuses (and there were plenty) when law enforcement decided to take notice, and shut things down. It's an incredible and still timely book, even though the events it documents are now long ago. It was published in 1992, more than 25 years ago. The technology is drastically different, but the approaches by law enforcement haven't really changed.It's been years since I picked the book up, but it immediately sucked me in. I don't know of another book about technology that is still as relevant as this one. It's worth your time to read.

[ballfresno · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Glad I read it. A real nostalgia trip. A bit rambly in places and probably not best read on an e-reader due to several large excerpts from reports. However, a good record of some interesting times in the early days of the Internet (early for the lay public, that is).

[sgarnell_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A true accounting of hacking in the 1990's. It may read a bit like an action SF, but this is history. A must read for all Cyberpunk fans of Sterling.

[omarius_22 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cyberpunk SF author Bruce Sterling does a neat job with this journalistic work, covering the angles from the busted ("hackers" and otherwise), the cops, and the electronic-age civil libertarian movement spawned by the Great Hacker Crackdown of 1990.