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Hack to The Future. How World Governments Relentlessly Pursue and Domesticate Hackers. Edition No. 1

  • Book

  • 336 Pages
  • November 2024
  • Region: Global
  • John Wiley and Sons Ltd
  • ID: 5943843

Understand the history of hacking culture and the genesis of a powerful modern subculture

In Hack to the Future: How World Governments Relentlessly Pursue and Domesticate Hackers, veteran information security professional Emily Crose delivers a deep dive into the history of the United States government's nuanced relationship with hacker culture and the role the latter has played in the former's domestic policy and geopolitics. In the book, you'll learn about significant events that have changed the way the hacking community has been perceived by the public, the state, and other hackers.

The author explains how the US government managed to weaponize a subculture widely seen as misanthropic and awkward into a lever of geopolitical power. You'll also discover how:

  • The release of the Morris worm and the Melissa virus changed the way hackers were seen and treated in the United States
  • Different government agencies, including the National Security Agency and NASA treated - and were treated by - domestic hackers
  • Hacking went from being an exclusive hobby for socially awkward nerds to a substantial lever of geopolitical power in just a few decades

Perfect for anyone with an interest in hacking, tech, infosec, and geopolitics, Hack to the Future is a must-read for those who seek to better their understanding of the history of hacking culture and how we got to where we are today.

Table of Contents

Introduction xv

Part 1 The Pre-Broadband Era 1

Chapter 1 A Subculture Explained 3

Defining a Community 7

Common Hacking Virtues 8

Curiosity 8

Mischief 9

Defiance 10

Perseverance 10

Terms 11

Hackers and Secrecy 15

Summary 17

Chapter 2 Uncle Sam and Technology 19

World War I 21

Codebreaking 22

The Cold War 23

Foreign Intelligence 25

The INTs 26

Sigint 26

Comint 27

Humint 27

Central Intelligence Agency 28

Computer Scientists of Operation Paperclip 28

National Security Agency 30

Federal Bureau of Investigation 31

Advanced Research Projects Agency 32

The Development of ARPANET 32

ARPANET in Practice 34

Packet Switching 34

National Aeronautics and Space Administration 35

NASA Hackers 35

A Leak in the Walled Garden 38

Chapter 3 Commercializing Technology 39

Telephony 39

The Phone Phreakers 40

One Whistle to Rule Them All 44

Blue and Red Boxes 45

Rock Stars Are Born 47

The Missing Stair 49

The Personal Computer 50

Altair 8800 50

Apple I and II 51

Communities 52

Community Memory 52

Jude Milhon 54

Age of the Bulletin Board System 55

Party Lines 58

Chapter 4 Digital Disruption 61

Viral Genesis 64

Creeper and Reaper 65

Wabbits 67

Virus or Not? 69

Xerparc 70

Government in the 1970s 72

Law Enforcement 74

The ARPANET Spam Incident 78

Chapter 5 Hacker Rehabilitation 81

Dark Dante and the ARPANET Breach 82

The Los Alamos National Labs Breach 85

The 414s 87

Shaping the Hacker Image 89

Congressional Testimony 89

The Morris Worm 91

Legal Implications of Hacking 95

WANK and OILZ 96

Investigation 99

Hacktivism 100

Chapter 6 On the Other Side of The Wall 101

Soviet Intelligence 104

A “Closed Society” 106

Glasnost and Perestroika 106

Computers and Telecommunications 107

Soviet Phreaking 108

Building a Soviet Internet 110

Soviet Programming 112

Soviet Understanding of Hacking 113

Post-Soviet Russia 113

A New Class of Criminal 114

Chapter 7 Hackers of the World, Unite! 117

Project Cybersyn 118

Get Me Beer! 119

Building the Network 120

Operation Condor 121

Project Cybersyn’s Epitaph 122

Chaos Computer Club 123

Chaos Computer Club France 126

Building Teletext 128

The Prestel Hack 129

Overseas Cooperation 131

The Australian Scene 131

AFP Tracking of Realm 132

Chapter 8 Electronic Delinquents 135

Digital Spycraft 136

Protecting America’s Defense Networks 137

American Code Making 138

Church and Pike 139

The Rainbow Series 141

The Clipper Chip 142

Prosecuting the 414s 144

Hackers on Trial 145

Operation Sundevil 147

Sundevil Blowback 148

The Crypto Wars 150

Digital Bullets 151

Chapter 9 Hackers Go Mainstream 153

Computer Fraud and Abuse 154

Kevin “Dark Dante” Poulsen 155

Kevin “Condor” Mitnick 157

Fugitive Mitnick 157

Free Kevin 159

Fallout from the Arrests 159

Forging the Hacker Image 161

1960’s Movie Hackers 161

1980’s Movie Hackers 162

Falken’s Maze 163

Matthew Broderick 163

1990’s Movie Hackers 166

Hackers 167

Chapter 10 The DEF CON Effect 171

An Internet for Everyone 172

A Great Migration 174

Web Defacements 175

Y2k 176

Hacker Conferences 177

The Business of Hacking 180

Spot the Fed 182

Part 2 The Post-Broadband Era 189

Chapter 11 In from the Cold 191

Hackers Meet Congress 192

Development of the Red Team 195

Operation Cybersnare 196

Thinking About the Future 198

Evident Surprise and Eligible Receiver 201

Chapter 12 Anonymous 205

USA PATRIOT Act 207

Project Chanology 208

HBGary 212

Chapter 13 Spy vs. Spy 219

“Collateral Murder” 220

Chapter 14 Cybernetting Society 231

Consumer Electronics 232

A Politicized Internet 234

Global Instability 236

Arab Spring 237

Operation Tunisia 238

The Syrian Electronic Army 240

The Euromaidan Protests 245

Chapter 15 Hackers Unleashed 247

Solar Sunrise 248

Advanced Persistent Threat 250

Emergence of Chinese Hacking 254

American Elite 255

A New Domain 258

Chapter 16 Cyberwar 261

Operation Uphold Democracy 264

Cyberwarfare in Concept 266

Stuxnet 268

Combatant Hackers 270

Ukrainian Blackouts 273

Chapter 17 Politics As Usual 279

Memetic Warfare 281

Election Interference 283

Hacking Elections at DEF CON 287

Epilogue 291

Cisa 292

Pillar II 294

Cyberwarfare in the 2020s 296

The Way from Here 297

Acknowledgments 299

About the Author 301

Index 303

Authors

Emily Crose