in 1880. He did five years in
prison, got out, and was still boodling at the age of seventy-four.

#

Anyone with an interest in Operation Sundevil--or in American
computer-crime generally--could scarcely miss the presence of Gail
Thackeray, Assistant Attorney General of the State of Arizona.
Computer-crime training manuals often cited Thackeray's group and her
work; she was the highest-ranking state official to specialize in
computer-related offenses. Her name had been on the Sundevil press
release (though modestly ranked well after the local federal
prosecuting attorney and the head of the Phoenix Secret Service office).

As public commentary, and controversy, began to mount about the Hacker
Crackdown, this Arizonan state official began to take a higher and
higher public profile. Though uttering almost nothing specific about
the Sundevil operation itself, she coined some of the most striking
soundbites of the growing propaganda war: "Agents are operating in good
faith, and I don't think you can say that for the hacker community,"
was one. Another was the memorable "I am not a mad dog prosecutor"
(Houston Chronicle, Sept 2, 1990.) In the meantime, the Secret Service
maintained its usual extreme discretion; the Chicago Unit, smarting
from the backlash of the Steve Jackson scandal, had gone completely to
earth.

As I collated my growing pile of newspaper clippings, Gail Thackeray
ranked as a comparative fount of public knowledge on police operations.

I decided that I had to get to know Gail Thackeray. I wrote to her at
the Arizona Attorney General's Office. Not only did she kindly reply
to me, but, to my astonishment, she knew very well what "cyberpunk"
science fiction was.

Shortly after this, Gail Thackeray lost her job. And I temporarily
misplaced my own career as a science-fiction writer, to become a
full-time computer-crime journalist. In early March, 1991, I flew to
Phoenix, Arizona, to interview Gail Thackeray for my book on the hacker
crackdown.

#

"Credit cards didn't used to cost anything to get," says Gail
Thackeray. "Now they cost forty bucks--and that's all just to cover
the costs from RIP-OFF ARTISTS."

Electronic nuisance criminals are parasites. One by one they're not
much harm, no big deal. But they never come just one by one. They
come in swarms, heaps, legions, sometimes whole subcultures. And they
bite. Every time we buy a credit card today, we lose a little
financial