Underground

Underground is the compelling true story of the rise of the computer
underground and the crimes of an elite group of hackers who took on the
forces of the establishment.

Tracing an international ring of computer hackers which spanned three
continents and nearly a decade of computer crime, author Suelette
Dreyfus weaves a gripping tale against a backdrop of cutting edge
technology. Underground uncovers the previously hidden story behind
hackers from 8LGM, The Realm, the publishers of International Subversive
and other linked Internet hacking groups. These elite hackers were the
cream of the international computer underground and broke into tens of
thousands of computers, belonging to some of the world's most prestigious
institutions including Citibank, the Pentagon, NATO, the FT 100, NASA,
Lockheed-Martin, Deutsche Telekom and Australian Telecom. After hacking
the Defence Data Network's NIC, some had total control over the most
important computers on the Internet - computers which would let them
stop communications across the entire net. They divised methods of
making free and untraceable telephone calls to hide their activities,
invented worms, stalked, hacked and thumbed their noses at security
experts such as Eugene Spafford & Cliff Stoll and reporters from the
New York Times. They monitored the police -- while the police monitored
them. The hackers came from all walks of life, gathering on-line in
Germany from Australia, Europe, the UK, the US and Canada, to pursue
their targets with an obsessive fervour.

Irreverent, sometimes brilliant and always obsessed, many of the hackers
found themselves addicted to their illegal behaviour. Some fell to drug
addiction and madness, others were convicted and jailed for their crimes.

Riveting as the finest detective novel and meticously researched,
Underground follows the hackers through their crimes, their betrayals,
the hunt, raids and investigations by the Australian Federal Police,
the FBI, the Secret Service, the DST (French Secret Service) and Scotland
Yard, and the resulting trials; their life on remand, on the run accross
America, in prison, mental hospital and beyond.

Based on more than two years of writing and research drawn from hundreds
of exclusive interviews and telephone intercepts and over 30,000 pages
of court documents, Underground is the first hacking book published out
of Australia and the only one to delve into the mind and world of the
international computer hacker. Critically aclaimed, it has been said
that Underground is the only book to examine the computer underground
with real depth and insight.