The Social Organization of the Computer Underground

The Social Organization of the Computer Underground is the culmination of a years-long study to understand, from the inside, the culture of 1980s phone phreaks, computer hackers, and software pirates. Its publication in 1989 coincided with a nationwide Secret Service "hacker crackdown" that was so over-reaching and egregious that it inspired the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation to protect civil liberties in cyberspace.

This 20th Anniversary Edition adds a new introduction that provides never before revealed background information about the seminal research study, which was the first to analyze the "computer underground" from the perspective of its most elite and active members. It's a look back at illicit computer culture before the Internet and World Wide Web. To a time when clandestine bulletin boards, phone brides, and arcane text files were state of the art, and the golden age of hacking was in full bloom.