ence (g science)
Technical Writers (g tec) Telecommunications(g tele)
Usenet (g usenet) Video (g vid)
Virtual Reality (g vr)

The WELL Itself
---------------

Deeper (g deeper) Entry (g ent)
General (g gentech) Help (g help)
Hosts (g hosts) Policy (g policy)
System News (g news) Test (g test)

The list itself is dazzling, bringing to the untutored eye a dizzying
impression of a bizarre milieu of mountain-climbing Hawaiian holistic
photographers trading true-life confessions with bisexual
word-processing Tibetans.

But this confusion is more apparent than real. Each of these
conferences was a little cyberspace world in itself, comprising dozens
and perhaps hundreds of sub-topics. Each conference was commonly
frequented by a fairly small, fairly like-minded community of perhaps a
few dozen people. It was humanly impossible to encompass the entire
Well (especially since access to the Well's mainframe computer was
billed by the hour). Most long-time users contented themselves with a
few favorite topical neighborhoods, with the occasional foray elsewhere
for a taste of exotica. But especially important news items, and hot
topical debates, could catch the attention of the entire Well community.

Like any community, the Well had its celebrities, and John Perry
Barlow, the silver-tongued and silver-modemed lyricist of the Grateful
Dead, ranked prominently among them. It was here on the Well that
Barlow posted his true-life tale of computer-crime encounter with the
FBI.

The story, as might be expected, created a great stir. The Well was
already primed for hacker controversy. In December 1989, Harper's
magazine had hosted a debate on the Well about the ethics of illicit
computer intrusion. While over forty various computer-mavens took
part, Barlow proved a star in the debate. So did "Acid Phreak" and
"Phiber Optik," a pair of young New York hacker-phreaks whose skills at
telco switching-station intrusion were matched only by their apparently
limitless hunger for fame. The advent of these two boldly swaggering
outlaws in the precincts of the Well created a sensation akin to that
of Black Panthers at a cocktail party for the radically chic.

Phiber Optik in particular was to seize the day in 1990. A devotee of
the