n on May 9. "Dr. Ripco," sysop of an outlaw
board with the misfortune to exist in Chicago itself, was also
arrested--on illegal weapons charges. Local units also arrested a
19-year-old female phone phreak named "Electra" in Pennsylvania, and a
male juvenile in California. Federal agents however were not seeking
arrests, but computers.

Hackers are generally not indicted (if at all) until the evidence in
their seized computers is evaluated--a process that can take weeks,
months--even years. When hackers are arrested on the spot, it's
generally an arrest for other reasons. Drugs and/or illegal weapons
show up in a good third of anti-hacker computer seizures (though not
during Sundevil).

That scofflaw teenage hackers (or their parents) should have marijuana
in their homes is probably not a shocking revelation, but the
surprisingly common presence of illegal firearms in hacker dens is a
bit disquieting. A Personal Computer can be a great equalizer for the
techno-cowboy--much like that more traditional American "Great
Equalizer," the Personal Sixgun. Maybe it's not all that surprising
that some guy obsessed with power through illicit technology would also
have a few illicit high-velocity-impact devices around. An element of
the digital underground particularly dotes on those "anarchy philes,"
and this element tends to shade into the crackpot milieu of
survivalists, gun-nuts, anarcho-leftists and the ultra-libertarian
right-wing.

This is not to say that hacker raids to date have uncovered any major
crack-dens or illegal arsenals; but Secret Service agents do not regard
"hackers" as "just kids." They regard hackers as unpredictable people,
bright and slippery. It doesn't help matters that the hacker himself
has been "hiding behind his keyboard" all this time. Commonly, police
have no idea what he looks like. This makes him an unknown quantity,
someone best treated with proper caution.

To date, no hacker has come out shooting, though they do sometimes brag
on boards that they will do just that. Threats of this sort are taken
seriously. Secret Service hacker raids tend to be swift,
comprehensive, well-manned (even over-manned); and agents generally
burst through every door in the home at once, sometimes with drawn
guns. Any potential resistance is swiftly quelled. Hacker raids are
usually raids on people's homes. It can be a very dangerous business
to raid an American home; people can panic when stranger