nd so this woman can do
her job? For a hundred grand we could buy every computer cop in
America an Amiga. There aren't that many of 'em.

Computers. The lust, the hunger, for computers. The loyalty they
inspire, the intense sense of possessiveness. The culture they have
bred. I myself am sitting in downtown Phoenix, Arizona because it
suddenly occurred to me that the police might--just MIGHT--come and
take away my computer. The prospect of this, the mere IMPLIED THREAT,
was unbearable. It literally changed my life. It was changing the
lives of many others. Eventually it would change everybody's life.

Gail Thackeray was one of the top computer-crime people in America.
And I was just some novelist, and yet I had a better computer than
hers. PRACTICALLY EVERYBODY I KNEW had a better computer than Gail
Thackeray and her feeble laptop 286. It was like sending the sheriff
in to clean up Dodge City and arming her with a slingshot cut from an
old rubber tire.

But then again, you don't need a howitzer to enforce the law. You can
do a lot just with a badge. With a badge alone, you can basically
wreak havoc, take a terrible vengeance on wrongdoers. Ninety percent
of "computer crime investigation" is just "crime investigation:" names,
places, dossiers, modus operandi, search warrants, victims,
complainants, informants....

What will computer crime look like in ten years? Will it get better?
Did "Sundevil" send 'em reeling back in confusion?

It'll be like it is now, only worse, she tells me with perfect
conviction. Still there in the background, ticking along, changing
with the times: the criminal underworld. It'll be like drugs are.
Like our problems with alcohol. All the cops and laws in the world
never solved our problems with alcohol. If there's something people
want, a certain percentage of them are just going to take it. Fifteen
percent of the populace will never steal. Fifteen percent will steal
most anything not nailed down. The battle is for the hearts and minds
of the remaining seventy percent.

And criminals catch on fast. If there's not "too steep a learning
curve"--if it doesn't require a baffling amount of expertise and
practice--then criminals are often some of the first through the gate
of a new technology. Especially if it helps them to hide. They have
tons of cash, criminals. The new communications tech--like pagers,
cellular phones, faxes, Federal Express--were pioneered by rich