This book gathers narratives about the careers of three
notorious crackers into a clear-eyed but sympathetic portrait of
hackerdom's dark side. The principals are Kevin Mitnick, "Pengo"
and "Hagbard" of the Chaos Computer Club, and Robert T. Morris
(see RTM, sense 2) . Markoff and Hafner
focus as much on their psychologies and motivations as on the
details of their exploits, but don't slight the latter. The
result is a balanced and fascinating account, particularly useful
when read immediately before or after Cliff Stoll's The Cuckoo's Egg. It is
especially instructive to compare RTM, a true hacker who
blundered, with the sociopathic phone-freak Mitnick and the
alienated, drug-addled crackers who made the Chaos Club
notorious. The gulf between wizard
and wannabee has seldom been made
more obvious.