ier Mid-American--all were to have their role in the great hacker
dragnet of 1990. After years of being battered and pushed around, the
telcos had, at least in a small way, seized the initiative again.
After years of turmoil, telcos and government officials were once again
to work smoothly in concert in defense of the System. Optimism
blossomed; enthusiasm grew on all sides; the prospective taste of
vengeance was sweet.

#

From the beginning--even before the crackdown had a name--secrecy was a
big problem. There were many good reasons for secrecy in the hacker
crackdown. Hackers and code-thieves were wily prey, slinking back to
their bedrooms and basements and destroying vital incriminating
evidence at the first hint of trouble. Furthermore, the crimes
themselves were heavily technical and difficult to describe, even to
police--much less to the general public.

When such crimes HAD been described intelligibly to the public, in the
past, that very publicity had tended to INCREASE the crimes enormously.
Telco officials, while painfully aware of the vulnerabilities of their
systems, were anxious not to publicize those weaknesses. Experience
showed them that those weaknesses, once discovered, would be pitilessly
exploited by tens of thousands of people--not only by professional
grifters and by underground hackers and phone phreaks, but by many
otherwise more-or-less honest everyday folks, who regarded stealing
service from the faceless, soulless "Phone Company" as a kind of
harmless indoor sport. When it came to protecting their interests,
telcos had long since given up on general public sympathy for "the
Voice with a Smile." Nowadays the telco's "Voice" was very likely to
be a computer's; and the American public showed much less of the proper
respect and gratitude due the fine public service bequeathed them by
Dr. Bell and Mr. Vail. The more efficient, high-tech, computerized,
and impersonal the telcos became, it seemed, the more they were met by
sullen public resentment and amoral greed.

Telco officials wanted to punish the phone-phreak underground, in as
public and exemplary a manner as possible. They wanted to make dire
examples of the worst offenders, to seize the ringleaders and
intimidate the small fry, to discourage and frighten the wacky
hobbyists, and send the professional grifters to jail. To do all this,
publicity was vital.

Yet operational secrecy was even more so. If word got out that a
n