First Postscript, 1997

When I ventured into the Citicorp Center on December 6, 1996, I expected to be ignored by the regulars of the 2600 meeting. Reporters are not a popular among hackers. John Markoff of The New York Times is probably the least popular journalist to ever write about hackers. His front-page stories on the pursuit and capture of Kevin Mitnick, and the book he co-authored with Tsutomu Shimomura, the California computer security consultant who helped the FBI track down and arrest Mitnick, have been criticized heavily by other journalists who covered the story and hackers who say Markoff blew the story out of proportion.

With that in mind, I didn't reveal my true reason for attending the meeting until I had talked with several people there. In hacker parlance, I was lurking — listening in an attempt to learn what I could. Once I made it clear to the people who would become my sources — Defrag, Comport, Vandal, Avirex, and a handful of others not mentioned in the story — that I was interested in more than quick, sensational story, they opened up. However they only did so after checking and double-checking my credentials, which apparently included calling several members of the faculty of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism to confirm that I was indeed a student at the school. (This link ought to put an end to any lingering doubts.)These checks of my credibility were performed with my blessing. Had I not given such permission, I would have been checked out anyway.

In order to maintain regular contact with some of my sources, Vandal and Avirex in particular, I had to develop a routine involving the use of their pagers. Neither one of them ever gave me their phone numbers, only their pager numbers. Contacting Avirex involved calling him on his pager and hoping he would respond by leaving a message on my home phone voice mail. This caused some frustration, especially when I was in a hurry. For our first interview, Avirex was nearly two hours late, and never did show for a second interview we had arranged. (I was later to be told his mother had taken ill.)

Eventually I came to be in regular email contact with Vandal and Avirex, but the addresses they gave me were only email forwarding services, and not their true email addresses. Occasionally I would get sudden phone calls from Vandal, sometimes very late at night, which had no clear purpose. Perhaps he was bored, or keyed up on caffeine or both.

One assumption the reader may make in reading this story is that I have a background in computer programming. I don't. Nor do I think such a background is required for writing about technology. I am fascinated by what computers can do and by the potential benefits and pitfalls in the growth of the Internet. I don't think you need a computer science degree to understand how they work. Curiosity is a virtue for both a hacker and a reporter.

I expect that I'll remain in contact with the hackers I met at the Citicorp Center. For good or ill, there are going to be more well-publicized hacking incidents making the news in the coming years. I want to be covering the beat when they happen. In August, hackers from around the country will converge on New York for the Beyond Hope Conference, the eagerly awaited follow-up to 1994's Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) Conference. With any luck, I'll be there.

I am indebted, of course, to those reporters who have gone before me. Steven Levy's landmark work "Hackers" is widely praised for its explanation of the hacker ethic. Josh Quittner and Michelle Slattalla's "Masters of Deception" is considered a classic by hackers and non-hackers alike. Bruce Sterling's "The Hacker Crackdown" was also useful.

I also owe a debt of thanks to the several anonymous hackers who have posted their various essays on hacking and phreaking to thousands of sites on the World Wide Web. I never met Revelation, for example, whose documents I quoted several times in the story. He never responded to any email message I sent him, yet his documents speak for themselves, and for the hacking community as a whole.

Finally, I must acknowledge the cooperation of the 2600 hackers — Defrag, Comport, Vandal and Avirex. To them I can only say: "Thanks guys. It was phun."