| New York Hackers: The New
Generation By Arik Hesseldahl Contents
Prepared text of the Al Gore speech in
which he first uses the phrase "information superhighway" as vice president.
Footnote 1: Gore cannot take credit for originating the phrase,
only for popularizing it. His earliest public use of the phrase appears to be in
a guest opinion peice he wrote for The Washington Post on July 15, 1990, when
Gore was still a Senator from Tennessee: "Just as the interstate highway system
made sense for a postwar America with lots of new automobiles clogging crooked
two-lane roads, a nationwide network of information superhighways now is needed
to move the vast quantities of data that are creating a kind of information
gridlock."
| Friday, December 6, 1996. 6
p.m.
I am not the only newcomer at the December 2600 meeting. Others are waiting near the pay phone the
Citicorp Center Barnes and Noble Bookstore. They too have read the meeting announcement on the back page
of latest issue of 2600 and are waiting for some kind of acknowledgment that they are in the right place on
the appointed day. Four young men and one woman, about old enough to be college freshmen or sophomores
talk quietly as they glance at the articles in the five-inch by eight-inch magazine. Their waiting pays off
as a large guy with a head of long and bushy, dark hair appears and informs the group that the meeting is
starting downstairs. His name is Vince, but he prefers being called Defrag. Defrag is a friendly, humorous 18-year old who looks to be about 25. He tries to make
everyone feel welcome. He stands about 5 feet eight inches tall, and carries a solid frame. His open manner
of welcoming the newcomers is a bit disarming at first. Perhaps they expected a more secretive meeting.
But there is nothing secretive or subtle about smiling, hand-shaking Defrag. For the moment he is about as
close to being a leader as any one person can be at a 2600 meeting. The group follows him downstairs to a
crowded table where another group of newcomers, mostly young men, are waiting, some drinking coffee or
cappuccino. "What's your handle?" is the greeting of the hour. For a hacker, a handle is an alternative
name, not unlike the creative names of CB radio enthusiasts used in the 1970s. Their handles come from
characters in Japanese science fiction cartoons (Gundam), punk rock groups, (Minor Threat), the names of
well-known firearms (Uzi), virii (Ebola). Defrag takes his name from a personal computer software
product. "So what's your handle?" one of the group asks me. Caught off guard, my brain kicks into
sudden high-gear. "Zero. You can call me Zero," I say, practically placing a newbie's dunce cap on my
head in the process. But that's what I am ... a newbie. Someone who knows practically nothing about all
this. Defrag then leads the group out into the mall area of the building where a second group of people
arriving, led by Comport, Defrag's 20-year old cousin. Defrag tells Comport that WebTV — the latest technological toy du jour intended to bring
the unsettled, uncivilized Internet to the masses — has set up a sales booth. Now you no longer need a
personal computer to surf the World Wide Web, all you need is a phone line, a TV and a WebTV box. Curiosity
about the new gadget is sufficient to move the entire group upstairs to the booth. Once there, they meet a
pretty red-haired saleswoman named Marion. "With WebTV you'll be able to connect to the Internet
through a 33 dot six modem, surf the World Wide Web and send and receive email..." she starts, giving a
well-rehearsed sales pitch. Then the questions begin. "What version of HTML does it support? 2.0 or
3.0? What kind of browser does it use? What kind of mail client does it have? Who's the provider?...."
Seemingly technologically illiterate beyond the parameters of her script, Marion cedes control of the
demonstration to Comport. As the machine attempts to connects to the Internet, the WebTV screen shows an
animated graphic of a scrolling highway with a city off in the distance. "Look, it's the information
superhighway," Comport says, mocking the now laughably stale nickname for the Internet coined by
Vice-President Al Gore in 1994.1 But the connection doesn't work. Marion can't explain it, so Comport
reprograms the WebTV box to dial the number of an Internet service provider he knows by heart, but again
the connection fails. He sets down the keyboard and shifts around to the opposite side of the display booth to
examine the cables running into the back of the machine. Though he's curious about WebTV's claims, he's not
so curious that he wants to spend any more time with it. "Get me away from this thing before I start
thinking," he says. With Citicorp building security looking on, it seems an odd coincidence that the
machine, which had been connecting to the Internet perfectly all day, suddenly stops working only minutes
before the 2600 meeting is to begin. The rumor will later circulate that as a precaution, either a Citicorp
security official or someone connected to WebTV, severed WebTV's ability to connect to the Internet.
Though related to Defrag, Comport looks nothing like his cousin. He has a wiry medium build and thick,
straight black hair that reaches to the bottom of his ears. Under a black leather jacket, he wears a plaid
flannel shirt buttoned to the top, and carries a backpack slung over one shoulder. He is not a stereotypical
nerd, but rather an intense presence at the meeting who loves to debate and argue and theorize about
computers in a fast, powerful voice which he uses authoritatively. Quieter people in the room are drawn to
listen in on his conversations and debates about mother boards and Unix boxes and computer security. He
gives the impression that he is both informed and intelligent, and prepared to prove it. After the WebTV
diversion, the meeting begins in earnest, and more regulars arrive. A tall, blonde-haired college student
from Long Island dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans, his handle is Gundam, passes around the first
issue of his new 'zine: TIP (The Information Project.) He solicits donations of pocket change to help cover
the cost of copies. One of TIP's contributors is Iconoclast, a gangly teen, maybe 16 or 17 years old, with
short brown hair and thick glasses and a reputation for trashing — foraging through trash dumpsters
of telephone, computer and cellular phone companies for discarded printout, technical manuals or anything
else that might prove useful. In his hands are several pages mapping out a network of computers linking
airports and some general information the network. He didn't even know the network existed until he
happened upon these documents while digging through a NYNEX trash dumpster. He won't say exactly where
he found it. Groups of younger kids show up. A boy appearing to be about 13 wearing jeans so baggy they
look as they might slip right off his bony frame is accompanied by two girls, one with long blue hair hidden
by a green stocking cap, the other with orange hair that match the color of her bargain basement polyester
pants. They are of a generation used to seeing computers in the classroom and at home. Their favorite toys
may have been — may still be — video games. They send and receive email as though it has
never been a novelty. To them it never has been. But hacking is something new. There is much to be learned
about such things as Unix, the computer language that is the lifeblood of the Internet. The teenaged trio join
six or seven kids crowding around a tall, handsome adult who appears to be in his mid-20s, wearing a
leather jacket and a fedora. His handle is Master Chemist, and he is scrawling out a rough diagram of a Unix
box explaining how files are arranged and what each one does. The teens are fascinated. This is not
something they will learn in school, it is rather something forbidden, something someone does not want
them to know.
Circulating from one group to another is a hacker known as Vandal. He already knows Unix, and is an
accomplished hacker. He talks easily with Defrag and Comport, who both make reference to Vandal's
unspecified "bag of tricks." He has clout here, and he knows it.
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