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
About the Author :
EMILY CROSE is a senior technical director at Sophos Labs. She works on Linux runtime threat detection and has over a decade’s experience in the field of information security. She served in the U.S. intelligence community for seven years before entering the private sector and is the co-founder of Hacking History, a project investigating the United States government’s handling of the hacking community.
