dulous (such as myself) that this stuff is
ACTUALLY GOING ON OUT THERE. It's a small world, computer crime. A
young world. Gail Thackeray, a trim blonde Baby-Boomer who favors
Grand Canyon white-water rafting to kill some slow time, is one of the
world's most senior, most veteran "hacker-trackers." Her mentor was
Donn Parker, the California think-tank theorist who got it all started
'way back in the mid-70s, the "grandfather of the field," "the great
bald eagle of computer crime."

And what she has learned, Gail Thackeray teaches. Endlessly.
Tirelessly. To anybody. To Secret Service agents and state police, at
the Glynco, Georgia federal training center. To local police, on
"roadshows" with her slide projector and notebook. To corporate
security personnel. To journalists. To parents.

Even CROOKS look to Gail Thackeray for advice. Phone-phreaks call her
at the office. They know very well who she is. They pump her for
information on what the cops are up to, how much they know. Sometimes
whole CROWDS of phone phreaks, hanging out on illegal conference calls,
will call Gail Thackeray up. They taunt her. And, as always, they
boast. Phone-phreaks, real stone phone-phreaks, simply CANNOT SHUT UP.
They natter on for hours.

Left to themselves, they mostly talk about the intricacies of
ripping-off phones; it's about as interesting as listening to
hot-rodders talk about suspension and distributor-caps. They also
gossip cruelly about each other. And when talking to Gail Thackeray,
they incriminate themselves. "I have tapes," Thackeray says coolly.

Phone phreaks just talk like crazy. "Dial-Tone" out in Alabama has
been known to spend half-an-hour simply reading stolen phone-codes
aloud into voice-mail answering machines. Hundreds, thousands of
numbers, recited in a monotone, without a break--an eerie phenomenon.
When arrested, it's a rare phone phreak who doesn't inform at endless
length on everybody he knows.

Hackers are no better. What other group of criminals, she asks
rhetorically, publishes newsletters and holds conventions? She seems
deeply nettled by the sheer brazenness of this behavior, though to an
outsider, this activity might make one wonder whether hackers should be
considered "criminals" at all. Skateboarders have magazines, and they
trespass a lot. Hot rod people have magazines and they break speed
limits and sometimes kill people....

I ask her whether it would be any loss to soci