Since then, my interests have turned more towards net theory and critique (whose hasn't?), so mostly I read nettime (.org) and try to catch up on net.theorists.french like Foucault, Baudrillard, and Virilio (ok, he's Italian). If I'm feeling rich, maybe I'll buy the Manuel Castells books.
BENEDIKT, MICHAEL, ed. CYBERSPACE: FIRST STEPS. (MIT Press, 1991) early compilation of essays on the theory of cyberspace. Well-written, but a lot of work to wade through.
BRAND, STEWART. OUTLAWS, MUSICIANS, LOVERS, AND SPIES: THE FUTURE OF CONTROL. WHOLE EARTH REVIEW #67. SUMMER 1990 Article consists of an outline for a book that will never be written because it is too busy writing itself. A published book would only be a dated snapshot of an ongoing saga (1999 note: Wrong. He wrote a number of books about the "New Economy" being out of control, and, like wow man, natural, so there's like, no alternative).
COATE, JOHN. THE WELL TURNS FIVE. WHOLE EARTH REVIEW #67. SUMMER 1990 Excerpt from the newsletter of the Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, the coolest network in the world, outside of usenet. Inhabited by all kinds, leans heavily toward those who became hippies for the right reasons, made money, and didn't turn into yuppies. This combination of attitude, money, and connectivity bodes well for freedom of existence on the Net. (1999 note. Argh! Fuck, I can't believe I wrote this. So next year the WELL will turn 15. Planned electronic communities have come and gone, replaced by mailing lists and webrings. An improvement I think.)
ORVITZ, ROBERT. THE USENET UNDERGROUND. WHOLE EARTH REVIEW #65. WINTER 1989 Tells about the network formed by hackers a few years ago, now a thriving alternative to Compuserve (Cyber-Suburbia) and ARPAnet and Internet (both limited to university/corporate/ government users only) (1999 note: not any more. Usenet's still around, though you have to check that your ISP offers news service, since it's not a profit center.)
LEVY, STEPHEN. HACKERS: HEROES OF THE COMPUTER REVOLUTION Paperback, in print. The history of hacking (old-style), from the 1950s to the mid '80s.
SAFFO, PAUL. DESPERATELY SEEKING CYBERSPACE. PERSONAL COMPUTING, MAY 1989 Column. "Gosh, what a strange world we live in!"
STERLING, BRUCE. THE HACKER CRACKDOWN: LAW AND DISORDER ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER (Bantam, 1992). Just buy it, already. (2000. It's been available as a free text download for some time now. It's a good portrait of the climate of paranoia that led to government and popular hysteria over hackers.)
STOLL, CLIFFORD. THE CUCKOO'S EGG: STALKING THE WILY HACKER. Paperback. Account of capture of members of West German group the Chaos Computer Club who allegedly tried to sell American military secrets to the Soviet Union. While I'm glad someone put a stop to it, I don't like Stoll's attitude that (his masters') computers are sacred and all hackers are bad. The ringleader of the Chaos Club killed himself and the other three got two-year suspended sentences. (1999: Stoll's still using this as a credential as "expert," while the dead guy was used as a Horrible Example of dealing with the KGB, since his death was a little mysterious. It came out recently that he was really depressed and obsessed with the number 23. The CCC is still around and even got one of its members elected to the ICANN board, on ther hellraiser ticket.)
TAP $1 to PO Box 20264, Louisville, Ky 40250 - Magazine for phone phreaking, continuing the Youth International Party Line broadsheets from the early '70s. (1999: long defunct, but you can probably find this material online now.)
TOUGH, PAUL AND HITT, JACK. TERMINAL DELINQUENTS. ESQUIRE, DEC 1990 - They hung out with a couple of hackers (Phiber Optik and Acid Phreak). Somewhat detailed. Also look for an article in SPIN from a few months before, with a profile of one of the two. (1999: Phiber Optik--that is, Mark Abene--did time and was released in 1997).
2600: THE HACKER QUARTERLY - well worth your time and money. Even if you never use the information given here, it's comforting to know that the Powers That Be don't know what the fuck's going on, either. (1999: Still going strong, championing the cause of Kevin Mitnick, a onetime hacker who's still being treated like a terrorist. 2000: Mitnick was released this summer and allowed limited computer access.)
VARIOUS. IS COMPUTER HACKING A CRIME? HARPER'S, MARCH 1990. Online forum discussion moderated by Paul Tough. Incl. Clifford Stoll, John Perry Barlow, Phiber Optik, et. al. (1999: the law is pretty clear on this. It's not illegal to invent hacking tools--yet--but the 1999 Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes it illegal to crack copy-protection. Sure, that'll work.)
WHITE, RON AND SECKLOW, STEVE. LAPTOP EMERGENCY TOOLKIT. PC/COMPUTING AUG 1990 - The burglar's tools of tomorrow. Superseded by hotels adding modem jacks for business travelers as of 1993. (and in 1999, it's hard to find a U.S. motel that DOESN'T have one.)
WIRED Magazine - occasionally, when they don't have a corporate rebel on the cover. (1999: after Louis Rossetto left, the corporate butt-kissing continued, but Wired dropped the radical libertarian ideology. Now they're just a business magazine.)
_______________Texas Monthly, Jan 1993. Fictionalized account of a "hacking duel" between Phiber Optik (East Coast, MOD) and Erik Bloodaxe (Gulf Coast, LOD). (1999: a few years later, Josh Quittner wrote in Wired that the MOD-LOD squabble started because of a racial slur. Please.)
There are listings for a ton of articles on computer hacking on CD-ROM in the local university library. The articles date from 1987 to Sept 1990. A quick scan of these articles shows that groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation are spending money to educate the public and lobby against Draconian computer crime laws. Also included are the monthly forums of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM), comprising letters to the editor of Communications of the ACM. Fascinating even to non-compgeeks. As you may have guessed, I have a strong libertarian streak, and it shows in my relief that hackers exist to bedevil the bureaucracies and prevent the latter from ever daring to believe that the people can be tamed. They weren't the Revolution, but at least they're another face of the inherent wildness under the surface of the USA, or something like that.
(1999: I'm more socially-minded now. Honest. Stupid laws are still being passed. The Clipper Chip is dead, but the U.S. government STILL won't allow export of strong encryption. PGP is available worldwide.)
(2000: The US government is a little less stupid about encryption, but requires ISPs to tap customers' connections. The ISPs are inclined to do this anyway and the debate has shifted to copyright enforcement on the part of pimps. There are some really bad laws out there and it's getting worse. I predict balkanization of the internet in a few years.)