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610 lines
32 KiB
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610 lines
32 KiB
Plaintext
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GURPS LABOR LOST: The Cyberpunk Bust
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by Bruce Sterling
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Copyright (c) by Bruce Sterling, 1991.
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Reprinted by permission of the author.
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Some months ago, I wrote an article about the raid on Steve Jackson
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Games, which appeared in my "Comment" column in the British science
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fiction monthly, Interzone(#44, February 1991). This updated version,
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specially re-written for dissemination by EFF, reflects the somewhat
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greater knowledge I've gained to date, in the course of research on an
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upcoming nonfiction book, The Hacker Crackdown: The True Story of the
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Digital Dragnet of 1990 and the Start of the Electronic Frontier
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Foundation.
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The bizarre events suffered by Mr. Jackson and his co-workers, in my
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own home town of Austin, Texas, were directly responsible for my
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decision to put science fiction aside and to tackle the purportedly
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real world of computer crime and electronic free-expression.
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The national crackdown on computer hackers in 1990 was the largest and
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best-coordinated attack on computer mischief in American history.
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There was Arizona's "Operation Sundevil," the sweeping May 8
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nationwide raid against outlaw bulletin boards. The BellSouth E911
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case (of which the Jackson raid was a small and particularly egregious
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part) was coordinated out of Chicago. The New York State Police were
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also very active in 1990.
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All this vigorous law enforcement activity meant very little to the
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narrow and intensely clannish world of science fiction. All we knew
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- and this perception persisted, uncorrected, for months - was that
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Mr. Jackson had been raided because of his intention to publish a
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gaming book about "cyberpunk" science fiction. The Jackson raid
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received extensive coverage in science fiction news magazines (yes, we
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have these) and became notorious in the world of SF as "the Cyberpunk
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Bust." My INTERZONE article attempted to make the Jackson case
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intelligible to the British SF audience.
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What possible reason could lead an American federal law enforcement
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agency to raid the headquarters of a science-fiction gaming company?
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Why did armed teams of city police, corporate security men, and
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federal agents roust two Texan computer hackers from their beds at
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dawn, and then confiscate thousands of dollars' worth of computer
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equipment, including the hackers' common household telephones? Why
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was an unpublished book called GURPS Cyberpunk seized by the US Secret
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Service and declared "a manual for computer crime?" These weird
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events were not parodies or fantasies; no, this was real.
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The first order of business in untangling this bizarre drama is to
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know the players - who come in entire teams.
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PLAYER ONE: The Law Enforcement Agencies.
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America's defense against the threat of computer crime is a confusing
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hodgepodge of state, municipal, and federal agencies. Ranked first,
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by size and power, are the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the
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National Security Agency (NSA), and the Federal Bureau of
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Investigation (FBI), large, potent and secretive organizations who,
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luckily, play almost no role in the Jackson story.
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The second rank of such agencies include the Internal Revenue Service
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(IRS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the
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Justice Department, the Department of Labor, and various branches of
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the defense establishment, especially the Air Force Office of Special
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Investigations (AFOSI). Premier among these groups, however, is the
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highly-motivated US Secret Service (USSS),the suited, mirrorshades-
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toting, heavily-armed bodyguards of the President of the United
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States.
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Guarding high-ranking federal officials and foreign dignitaries is a
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hazardous, challenging and eminently necessary task, which has won
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USSS a high public profile. But Abraham Lincoln created this oldest
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of federal law enforcement agencies in order to foil counterfeiting.
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Due to the historical tribulations of the Treasury Department (of
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which USSS is a part), the Secret Service also guards historical
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documents, analyzes forgeries, combats wire fraud, and battles
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"computer fraud and abuse." These may seem unrelated assignments,
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but the Secret Service is fiercely aware of its duties. It is also
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jealous of its bureaucratic turf, especially in computer-crime, where
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it formally shares jurisdiction with its traditional rival, the
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Johnny-come-lately FBI.
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As the use of plastic money has spread, and their long-established
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role as protectors of the currency has faded in importance, the Secret
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Service has moved aggressively into the realm of electronic crime.
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Unlike the lordly NSA, CIA, and FBI, which generally can't be bothered
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with domestic computer mischief, the Secret Service is noted for its
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street-level enthusiasm.
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The third-rank of law enforcement are the local "dedicated computer
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crime units." There are few such groups, pitifully under staffed.
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They struggle hard for funding and the vital light of publicity. It's
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difficult to make white-collar computer crimes seem pressing, to an
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American public that lives in terror of armed and violent street-
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crime.
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These local groups are small - often, one or two officers, computer
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hobbyists, who have drifted into electronic crimebusting because they
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alone are game to devote time and effort to bringing law to the
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electronic frontier. California's Silicon Valley has three computer-
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crime units. There are others in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Maryland,
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Texas, Colorado, and a formerly very active one in Arizona - all told,
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though, perhaps only fifty people nationwide.
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The locals do have one great advantage, though. They all know one
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another. Though scattered across the country, they are linked by both
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public-sector and private-sector professional societies, and have a
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commendable subcultural esprit-de-corps. And in the well-manned
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Secret Service, they have willing national-level assistance.
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PLAYER TWO: The Telephone Companies.
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In the early 80s, after years of bitter federal court battle,
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America's telephone monopoly was pulverized. "Ma Bell," the national
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phone company, became AT&T, AT&T Industries, and the regional "Baby
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Bells," all purportedly independent companies, who compete with new
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communications companies and other long-distance providers. As a
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class, however, they are all sorely harassed by fraudsters, phone
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phreaks, and computer hackers, and they all maintain computer-security
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experts. In a lot of cases these "corporate security divisions"
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consist of just one or two guys, who drifted into the work from
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backgrounds in traditional security or law enforcement. But, linked
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by specialized security trade journals and private sector trade
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groups, they all know one another.
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PLAYER THREE: The Computer Hackers.
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The American "hacker" elite consists of about a hundred people, who
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all know one another. These are the people who know enough about
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computer intrusion to baffle corporate security and alarm police (and
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who, furthermore, are willing to put their intrusion skills into
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actual practice). The somewhat older subculture of "phone-
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phreaking," once native only to the phone system, has blended into
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hackerdom as phones have become digital and computers have been
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netted-together by telephones. "Phone phreaks," always tarred with
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the stigma of rip-off artists, are nowadays increasingly hacking PBX
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systems and cellular phones. These practices, unlike computer-
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intrusion, offer easy profit to fraudsters.
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There are legions of minor "hackers," such as the "kodez kidz," who
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purloin telephone access codes to make free (i.e., stolen) phone
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calls. Code theft can be done with home computers, and almost looks
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like real "hacking," though "kodez kidz" are regarded with lordly
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contempt by the elite. "Warez d00dz," who copy and pirate computer
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games and software, are a thriving subspecies of "hacker," but they
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played no real role in the crackdown of 1990 or the Jackson case. As
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for the dire minority who create computer viruses, the less said the
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better.
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The princes of hackerdom skate the phone-lines, and computer networks,
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as a lifestyle. They hang out in loose, modem-connected gangs like
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the "Legion of Doom" and the "Masters of Destruction." The craft of
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hacking is taught through "bulletin board systems," personal computers
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that carry electronic mail and can be accessed by phone. Hacker
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bulletin boards generally sport grim, scary, sci-fi heavy metal names
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like BLACK ICE - PRIVATE or SPEED DEMON ELITE. Hackers themselves
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often adopt romantic and highly suspicious tough-guy monickers like
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"Necron 99," "Prime Suspect," "Erik Bloodaxe," "Malefactor" and "Phase
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Jitter." This can be seen as a kind of cyberpunk folk-poetry - after
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all, baseball players also have colorful nicknames. But so do the
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Mafia and the Medellin Cartel.
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PLAYER FOUR: The Simulation Gamers.
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Wargames and role-playing adventures are an old and honored pastime,
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much favored by professional military strategists and H.G. Wells, and
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now played by hundreds of thousands of enthusiasts throughout North
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America, Europe and Japan. In today's market, many simulation games
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are computerized, making simulation gaming a favorite pastime of
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hackers, who dote on arcane intellectual challenges and the thrill of
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doing simulated mischief.
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Modern simulation games frequently have a heavily science-fictional
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cast. Over the past decade or so, fueled by very respectable
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royalties, the world of simulation gaming has increasingly permeated
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the world of science-fiction publishing. TSR, Inc., proprietors of
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the best-known role-playing game, "Dungeons and Dragons," own the
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venerable science-fiction magazine "Amazing." Gaming-books, once
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restricted to hobby outlets, now commonly appear in chain-stores like
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B. Dalton's and Waldenbooks, and sell vigorously.
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Steve Jackson Games, Inc., of Austin, Texas, is a games company of the
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middle rank. In early 1990, it employed fifteen people. In 1989, SJG
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grossed about half a million dollars. SJG's Austin headquarters is a
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modest two-story brick office-suite, cluttered with phones,
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photocopiers, fax machines and computers. A publisher's digs, it
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bustles with semi-organized activity and is littered with glossy
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promotional brochures and dog-eared SF novels. Attached to the
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offices is a large tin-roofed warehouse piled twenty feet high with
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cardboard boxes of games and books. This building was the site of the
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"Cyberpunk Bust."
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A look at the company's wares, neatly stacked on endless rows of cheap
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shelving, quickly shows SJG's long involvement with the Science
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Fiction community. SJG's main product, the Generic Universal Role-
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Playing System or GURPS, features licensed and adapted works from many
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genre writers. There is GURPS Witch World, GURPS Conan, GURPS
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Riverworld, GURPS Horseclans, many names eminently familiar to SF
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fans. (GURPS Difference Engine is currently in the works.) GURPS
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Cyberpunk, however, was to be another story entirely.
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PLAYER FIVE: The Science Fiction Writers.
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The "cyberpunk" SF writers are a small group of mostly college-
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educated white litterateurs, without conspicuous criminal records,
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scattered throughout the US and Canada. Only one, Rudy Rucker, a
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professor of computer science in Silicon Valley, would rank with even
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the humblest computer hacker. However, these writers all own
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computers and take an intense, public, and somewhat morbid interest in
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the social ramifications of the information industry. Despite their
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small numbers, the "cyberpunk" writers all know one another, and are
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linked by antique print-medium publications with unlikely names like
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Science Fiction Eye, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Omni and
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Interzone.
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PLAYER SIX: The Civil Libertarians.
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This small but rapidly growing group consists of heavily politicized
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computer enthusiasts and heavily cyberneticized political activists: a
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mix of wealthy high-tech entrepreneurs, veteran West Coast
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troublemaking hippies, touchy journalists, and toney East Coast civil
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rights lawyers. They are all getting to know one another.
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We now return to our story. By 1988, law enforcement officials, led
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by contrite teenage informants, had thoroughly permeated the world of
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underground bulletin boards, and were alertly prowling the nets
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compiling dossiers on wrongdoers. While most bulletin board systems
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are utterly harmless, some few had matured into alarming reservoirs of
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forbidden knowledge. One such was BLACK ICE - PRIVATE, located
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"somewhere in the 607 area code," frequented by members of the
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"Legion of Doom" and notorious even among hackers for the violence of
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its rhetoric, which discussed sabotage of phone-lines, drug-
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manufacturing techniques, and the assembly of home-made bombs, as well
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as a plethora of rules-of-thumb for penetrating computer security.
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Of course, the mere discussion of these notions is not illegal - many
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cyberpunk SF stories positively dote on such ideas, as do hundreds of
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spy epics, techno-thrillers and adventure novels. It was no
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coincidence that "ICE," or "Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics,"
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was a term invented by cyberpunk writer Tom Maddox, and "BLACK ICE,"
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or a computer-defense that fries the brain of the unwary trespasser,
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was a coinage of William Gibson.
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A reference manual from the US National Institute of Justice,
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Dedicated Computer Crime Units by J. Thomas McEwen, suggests that
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federal attitudes toward bulletin-board systems are ambivalent at
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best:
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"There are several examples of how bulletin boards have been used in
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support of criminal activities.... (B)ulletin boards were used to
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relay illegally obtained access codes into computer service companies.
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Pedophiles have been known to leave suggestive messages on bulletin
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boards, and other sexually oriented messages have been found on
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bulletin boards. Members of cults and sects have also communicated
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through bulletin boards. While the storing of information on bulletin
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boards may not be illegal, the use of bulletin boards has certainly
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advanced many illegal activities."
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Here is a troubling concept indeed: invisible electronic pornography,
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to be printed out at home and read by sects and cults. It makes a
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mockery of the traditional law-enforcement techniques concerning the
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publication and prosecution of smut. In fact, the prospect of large
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numbers of antisocial conspirators, congregating in cyberspace without
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official oversight of any kind, is enough to trouble the sleep of
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anyone charged with maintaining public order.
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Even the sternest free-speech advocate will likely do some
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headscratching at the prospect of digitized "anarchy files" teaching
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lock-picking, pipe-bombing, martial arts techniques, and highly
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unorthodox uses for shotgun shells, especially when these neat-o
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temptations are distributed freely to any teen (or pre-teen) with a
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modem.
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These may be largely conjectural problems at present, but the use of
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bulletin boards to foment hacker mischief is real. Worse yet, the
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bulletin boards themselves are linked, sharing their audience and
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spreading the wicked knowledge of security flaws in the phone network,
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and in a wide variety of academic, corporate and governmental computer
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systems.
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This strength of the hackers is also a weakness, however. If the
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boards are monitored by alert informants and/or officers, the whole
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wicked tangle can be seized all along its extended electronic vine,
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rather like harvesting pumpkins.
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The war against hackers, including the "Cyberpunk Bust," was primarily
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a war against hacker bulletin boards. It was, first and foremost, an
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attack against the enemy's means of information.
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This basic strategic insight supplied the tactics for the crackdown
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of 1990. The variant groups in the national subculture of cyber-law
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would be kept apprised, persuaded to action, and diplomatically
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martialled into effective strike position. Then, in a burst of energy
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and a glorious blaze of publicity, the whole nest of scofflaws would
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be wrenched up root and branch. Hopefully, the damage would be
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permanent; if not, the swarming wretches would at least keep their
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heads down.
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"Operation Sundevil," the Phoenix-inspired crackdown of May 8,1990,
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concentrated on telephone code-fraud and credit-card abuse, and
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followed this seizure plan with some success. Boards went down all
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over America, terrifying the underground and swiftly depriving them of
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at least some of their criminal instruments. It also saddled analysts
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with some 24,000 floppy disks, and confronted harried Justice
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Department prosecutors with the daunting challenge of a gigantic
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nationwide hacker show-trial involving highly technical issues in
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dozens of jurisdictions. As of July 1991, it must be questioned
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whether the climate is right for an action of this sort, especially
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since several of the most promising prosecutees have already been
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jailed on other charges.
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"Sundevil" aroused many dicey legal and constitutional questions, but
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at least its organizers were spared the spectacle of seizure victims
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loudly proclaiming their innocence - (if one excepts Bruce Esquibel,
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sysop of "Dr. Ripco," an anarchist board in Chicago).
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The activities of March 1, 1990, including the Jackson case, were the
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inspiration of the Chicago-based Computer Fraud and Abuse Task Force.
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At telco urging, the Chicago group were pursuing the purportedly vital
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"E911 document" with headlong energy. As legal evidence, this Bell
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South document was to prove a very weak reed in the Craig Neidorf
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trial, which ended in a humiliating dismissal and a triumph for
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Neidorf. As of March 1990, however, this purloined data-file seemed
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a red-hot chunk of contraband, and the decision was made to track it
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down wherever it might have gone, and to shut down any board that had
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touched it - or even come close to it.
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In the meantime, however - early 1990 - Mr. Loyd Blankenship, an
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employee of Steve Jackson Games, an accomplished hacker, and a
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sometime member and file-writer for the Legion of Doom, was
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contemplating a "cyberpunk" simulation-module for the flourishing
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GURPS gaming-system.
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The time seemed ripe for such a product, which had already been proven
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in the marketplace. The first games-company out of the gate, with a
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product boldly called "Cyberpunk" in defiance of possible
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infringement-of-copyright suits, had been an upstart group called R.
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Talsorian. Talsorian's "Cyberpunk" was a fairly decent game, but the
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mechanics of the simulation system sucked. But the game sold like
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crazy.
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The next "cyberpunk" game had been the even more successful
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"Shadowrun" by FASA Corporation. The mechanics of this game were
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fine, but the scenario was rendered moronic by lame fantasy elements
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like orcs, dwarves, trolls, magicians, and dragons - all highly
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ideologically incorrect, according to the hard-edged, high-tech
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standards of cyberpunk science fiction. No true cyberpunk fan could
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play this game without vomiting, despite FASA's nifty T-shirts and
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street-samurai lead figurines.
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Lured by the scent of money, other game companies were champing at the
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bit. Blankenship reasoned that the time had come for a real
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"Cyberpunk" gaming-book - one that the princes of computer-mischief in
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the Legion of Doom could play without laughing themselves sick. This
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book, GURPS Cyberpunk, would reek of on-line authenticity.
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Hot discussion soon raged on the Steve Jackson Games electronic
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bulletin board, the "Illuminati BBS." This board was named after a
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bestselling SJG card-game, involving antisocial sects and cults who
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war covertly for the domination of the world. Gamers and hackers
|
||
|
alike loved this board, with its meticulously detailed discussions of
|
||
|
pastimes like SJG's "Car Wars," in which souped-up armored hot-rods
|
||
|
with rocket-launchers and heavy machine-guns do battle on the American
|
||
|
highways of the future.
|
||
|
|
||
|
While working, with considerable creative success, for SJG,
|
||
|
Blankenship himself was running his own computer bulletin board, "The
|
||
|
Phoenix Project," from his house. It had been ages - months, anyway -
|
||
|
since Blankenship, an increasingly sedate husband and author, had last
|
||
|
entered a public phone-booth without a supply of pocket-change.
|
||
|
However, his intellectual interest in computer-security remained
|
||
|
intense. He was pleased to notice the presence on "Phoenix" of Henry
|
||
|
Kluepfel, a phone-company security professional for Bellcore. Such
|
||
|
contacts were risky for telco employees; at least one such gentleman
|
||
|
who reached out to the hacker underground has been accused of divided
|
||
|
loyalties and summarily fired. Kluepfel, on the other hand, was
|
||
|
bravely engaging in friendly banter with heavy-dude hackers and eager
|
||
|
telephone-wannabes. Blankenship did nothing to spook him away, and
|
||
|
Kluepfel, for his part, passed dark warnings about "Phoenix Project"
|
||
|
to the Chicago group. "Phoenix Project" glowed with the radioactive
|
||
|
presence of the E911 document, passed there in a copy of Craig
|
||
|
Neidorf's electronic hacker fan-magazine, Phrack.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"Illuminati" was prominently mentioned on the Phoenix Project.
|
||
|
Phoenix users were urged to visit Illuminati, to discuss the upcoming
|
||
|
"cyberpunk" game and possibly lend their expertise. It was also
|
||
|
frankly hoped that they would spend some money on SJG games.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Illuminati and Phoenix had become two ripe pumpkins on the criminal
|
||
|
vine.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Hacker busts were nothing new. They had always been problematic for
|
||
|
the authorities. The offenders were generally high-IQ white juveniles
|
||
|
with no criminal record. Public sympathy for the phone companies was
|
||
|
limited at best. Trials often ended in puzzled dismissals or a slap
|
||
|
on the wrist.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Through long experience, law enforcement had come up with an
|
||
|
unorthodox but workable tactic. This was to avoid any trial at all,
|
||
|
or even an arrest. Instead, somber teams of grim police would swoop
|
||
|
upon the teenage suspect's home and box up his computer as "evidence."
|
||
|
If he was a good boy, and promised contritely to stay out of trouble
|
||
|
forthwith, the highly expensive equipment might be returned to him in
|
||
|
short order. If he was a hard-case, though, his toys could stay
|
||
|
boxed-up and locked away for a couple of years.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The busts in Austin were an intensification of this tried-and-true
|
||
|
technique. There were adults involved in this case, though, reeking
|
||
|
of a hardened bad attitude. The supposed threat to the 911 system,
|
||
|
apparently posed by the E911 document, had nerved law enforcement to
|
||
|
extraordinary effort. The 911 system is the emergency system used by
|
||
|
the police themselves. Any threat to it was a direct, insolent hacker
|
||
|
menace to the electronic home turf of American law enforcement.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Had Steve Jackson been arrested and directly accused of a plot to
|
||
|
destroy the 911 system, the resultant embarrassment would likely have
|
||
|
been sharp, but brief. The Chicago group, instead, chose total
|
||
|
operational security. They may have suspected that their search for
|
||
|
E911, once publicized, would cause that "dangerous" document to spread
|
||
|
like wildfire throughout the underground. Instead, they allowed the
|
||
|
impression to spread that they had raided Steve Jackson to stop the
|
||
|
publication of a book: GURPS Cyberpunk. This was a grave public-
|
||
|
relations blunder which caused the darkest fears and suspicions to
|
||
|
spread - not in the hacker underground, but among the general public.
|
||
|
|
||
|
On March 1, 1990, 21-year-old hacker Chris Goggans (aka "Erik
|
||
|
Bloodaxe") was wakened by a police revolver levelled at his head. He
|
||
|
watched, jittery, as Secret Service agents appropriated his 300 baud
|
||
|
terminal and, rifling his files, discovered his treasured source-code
|
||
|
for the notorious Internet Worm. Goggans, a co-sysop of "Phoenix
|
||
|
Project" and a wily operator, had suspected that something of the like
|
||
|
might be coming. All his best equipment had been hidden away
|
||
|
elsewhere. They took his phone, though, and considered hauling away
|
||
|
his hefty arcade-style Pac-Man game, before deciding that it was
|
||
|
simply too heavy. Goggans was not arrested. To date, he has never
|
||
|
been charged with a crime. The police still have what they took,
|
||
|
though.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Blankenship was less wary. He had shut down "Phoenix" as rumors
|
||
|
reached him of a crackdown coming. Still, a dawn raid rousted him and
|
||
|
his wife from bed in their underwear, and six Secret Service agents,
|
||
|
accompanied by a bemused Austin cop and a corporate security agent
|
||
|
from Bellcore, made a rich haul. Off went the works, into the agents'
|
||
|
white Chevrolet minivan: an IBM PC-AT clone with and a 120-meg hard
|
||
|
disk; a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet II printer; a completely legitimate
|
||
|
and highly expensive SCO-Xenix 286 operating system; Pagemaker disks
|
||
|
and documentation; the Microsoft Word word-processing program; Mrs.
|
||
|
Blankenship's incomplete academic thesis stored on disk; and the
|
||
|
couple's telephone. All this property remains in police custody
|
||
|
today.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The agents then bundled Blankenship into a car and it was off the
|
||
|
Steve Jackson Games in the bleak light of dawn. The fact that this
|
||
|
was a business headquarters, and not a private residence, did not
|
||
|
deter the agents. It was still early; no one was at work yet. The
|
||
|
agents prepared to break down the door, until Blankenship offered his
|
||
|
key.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The exact details of the next events are unclear. The agents would
|
||
|
not let anyone else into the building. Their search warrant, when
|
||
|
produced, was unsigned. Apparently they breakfasted from
|
||
|
"Whataburger," as the litter from hamburgers was later found inside.
|
||
|
They also extensively sampled a bag of jellybeans kept by an SJG
|
||
|
employee. Someone tore a "Dukakis for President" sticker from the
|
||
|
wall.
|
||
|
|
||
|
SJG employees, diligently showing up for the day's work, were met at
|
||
|
the door. They watched in astonishment as agents wielding crowbars
|
||
|
and screwdrivers emerged with captive machines. The agents wore blue
|
||
|
nylon windbreakers with "SECRET SERVICE" stencilled across the back,
|
||
|
with running-shoes and jeans. Confiscating computers can be heavy
|
||
|
physical work.
|
||
|
|
||
|
No one at Steve Jackson Games was arrested. No one was accused of any
|
||
|
crime. There were no charges filed. Everything appropriated was
|
||
|
officially kept as "evidence" of crimes never specified. Steve
|
||
|
Jackson will not face a conspiracy trial over the contents of his
|
||
|
science-fiction gaming book. On the contrary, the raid's organizers
|
||
|
have been accused of grave misdeeds in a civil suit filed by EFF, and
|
||
|
if there is any trial over GURPS Cyberpunk it seems likely to be
|
||
|
theirs.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The day after the raid, Steve Jackson visited the local Secret Service
|
||
|
headquarters with a lawyer in tow. There was trouble over GURPS
|
||
|
Cyberpunk, which had been discovered on the hard-disk of a seized
|
||
|
machine. GURPS Cyberpunk, alleged a Secret Service agent to
|
||
|
astonished businessman Steve Jackson, was "a manual for computer
|
||
|
crime."
|
||
|
|
||
|
"It's science fiction," Jackson said.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"No, this is real." This statement was repeated several times, by
|
||
|
several agents. This is not a fantasy, no, this is real. Jackson's
|
||
|
ominously "accurate" game had passed from pure, obscure, small-scale
|
||
|
fantasy into the impure, highly publicized, large-scale fantasy of the
|
||
|
hacker crackdown. No mention was made of the real reason for the
|
||
|
search, the E911 document. Indeed, this fact was not discovered until
|
||
|
the Jackson search-warrant was unsealed months later. Jackson was
|
||
|
left to believe that his board had been seized because he intended to
|
||
|
publish a science fiction book that law enforcement considered too
|
||
|
dangerous to see print. This misconception was repeated again and
|
||
|
again, for months, to an ever-widening audience. The effect of this
|
||
|
statement on the science fiction community was, to say the least,
|
||
|
striking.
|
||
|
|
||
|
GURPS Cyberpunk, now published and available from Steve Jackson Games
|
||
|
(Box 18957, Austin, Texas 78760), does discuss some of the
|
||
|
commonplaces of computer-hacking, such as searching through trash for
|
||
|
useful clues, or snitching passwords by boldly lying to gullible
|
||
|
users. Reading it won't make you a hacker, any more than reading
|
||
|
Spycatcher will make you an agent of MI5. Still, this bold
|
||
|
insistence by the Secret Service on its authenticity has made GURPS
|
||
|
Cyberpunk the Satanic Verses of simulation gaming, and has made
|
||
|
Steve Jackson the first martyr-to-the-cause for the computer world's
|
||
|
civil libertarians.
|
||
|
|
||
|
From the beginning, Steve Jackson declared that he had committed no
|
||
|
crime, and had nothing to hide. Few believed him, for it seemed
|
||
|
incredible that such a tremendous effort by the government would be
|
||
|
spent on someone entirely innocent.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Surely there were a few stolen long-distance codes in "Illuminati," a
|
||
|
swiped credit-card number or two - something. Those who rallied to
|
||
|
the defense of Jackson were publicly warned that they would be caught
|
||
|
with egg on their face when the real truth came out, "later." But
|
||
|
"later" came and went. The fact is that Jackson was innocent of any
|
||
|
crime. There was no case against him; his activities were entirely
|
||
|
legal. He had simply been consorting with the wrong sort of people.
|
||
|
|
||
|
In fact he was the wrong sort of people. His attitude stank. He
|
||
|
showed no contrition; he scoffed at authority; he gave aid and comfort
|
||
|
to the enemy; he was trouble. Steve Jackson comes from subcultures -
|
||
|
gaming, science fiction - that have always smelled to high heaven of
|
||
|
troubling weirdness and deep-dyed unorthodoxy. He was important
|
||
|
enough to attract repression, but not important enough, apparently, to
|
||
|
deserve a straight answer from those who had raided his property and
|
||
|
destroyed his livelihood.
|
||
|
|
||
|
The American law-enforcement community lacks the manpower and
|
||
|
resources to prosecute hackers successfully on the merits of the cases
|
||
|
against them. The cyber-police to date have settled instead for a
|
||
|
cheap "hack" of the legal system: a quasi-legal tactic of seizure and
|
||
|
"deterrence." Humiliate and harass a few ringleaders, the philosophy
|
||
|
goes, and the rest will fall into line. After all, most hackers are
|
||
|
just kids. The few grown-ups among them are sociopathic geeks, not
|
||
|
real players in the political and legal game. In the final analysis,
|
||
|
a small company like Jackson's lacks the resources to make any real
|
||
|
trouble for the Secret Service.
|
||
|
|
||
|
But Jackson, with his conspiracy-obsessed bulletin board and his seedy
|
||
|
SF-fan computer-freak employees, is not "just a kid." He is a
|
||
|
publisher, and he was battered by the police in the full light of
|
||
|
national publicity, under the shocked gaze of journalists, gaming
|
||
|
fans, libertarian activists and millionaire computer entrepreneurs,
|
||
|
many of whom were not "deterred," but genuinely aghast.
|
||
|
|
||
|
"What," reasons the author, "is to prevent the Secret Service from
|
||
|
carting off my word-processor as 'evidence' of some non-existent
|
||
|
crime?"
|
||
|
|
||
|
"What would I do," thinks the small-press owner, "if someone took my
|
||
|
laser-printer?"
|
||
|
|
||
|
Hence the establishment of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Steve Jackson was provided with a high-powered lawyer specializing in
|
||
|
Constitutional freedom-of-the-press issues. Faced with this, a
|
||
|
markedly un-contrite Secret Service returned Jackson's machinery,
|
||
|
after months of delay - some of it broken, with valuable data lost.
|
||
|
Jackson sustained many thousands of dollars in business losses, from
|
||
|
failure to meet deadlines and loss of computer-assisted production.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Half the employees of Steve Jackson Games were sorrowfully laid-off.
|
||
|
Some had been with the company for years - not statistics, these
|
||
|
people, not "hackers" of any stripe, but bystanders, citizens,
|
||
|
deprived of their livelihoods by the zealousness of the March 1
|
||
|
seizure. Some have since been re-hired - perhaps all will be, if
|
||
|
Jackson can pull his company out of its now persistent financial hole.
|
||
|
Devastated by the raid, the company would surely have collapsed in
|
||
|
short order - but SJG's distributors, touched by the company's plight
|
||
|
and feeling some natural subcultural solidarity, advanced him money to
|
||
|
scrape along.
|
||
|
|
||
|
In retrospect, it is hard to see much good for anyone at all in the
|
||
|
activities of March 1. Perhaps the Jackson case has served as a
|
||
|
warning light for trouble in our legal system; but that's not much
|
||
|
recompense for Jackson himself. His own unsought fame may be
|
||
|
helpful, but it doesn't do much for his unemployed co-workers. In
|
||
|
the meantime, "hackers" have been demonized as a national threat.
|
||
|
"Cyberpunk," a literary term, has become a synonym for computer
|
||
|
criminal. The cyber-police have leapt where angels fear to tread.
|
||
|
And the phone companies have badly overstated their case and deeply
|
||
|
embarrassed their protectors.
|
||
|
|
||
|
Sixteen months later, Steve Jackson suspects he may yet pull through.
|
||
|
Illuminati is still on-line. GURPS Cyberpunk, while it failed to
|
||
|
match Satanic Verses, sold fairly briskly. And Steve Jackson Games
|
||
|
headquarters, the site of the raid, was the site of a Cyberspace
|
||
|
Weenie Roast to launch an Austin Chapter of The Electronic Frontier
|
||
|
Foundation.. -
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|