Hackers: Crime and the Digital Sublime (Paperback)

Twenty five years ago when I was starting out in my career as a computer barrister I ran into an elderly Queen's Counsel and got chatting. "I'll have none of your computery Kelman" he replied when I started talking about technology. 'Computery' was a word the QC made up on the spot which exactly matched his way of thinking - computers were magical and "computery" was like sorcery - a black art perpetrated by young dangerous wizards who did not know they place.

Dr Taylor's book takes the reader into this world where the establishment were frightened and yet fascinated by the 'computery', where young immature men (for it was mainly men) sought to use hacking to raise their social prestige and where hysteria and hype created a modern day Salem with show trials on both sides of the Atlantic. But while some of the hackers deserve to be considered young investigative journalists a large number engaged in primitive tribal rituals using their technical abilities in arcane coding for the pursuit of power without responsibility.

Dr Taylor documents this phenomenon and a revealing picture of the late twentieth century "new barbarian" culture (to use a phrase popularised by Professor Ian Angell of the London School of Academics). How society will embrace and extend its power over hackers with share options, main board directorships and new academic posts instead of punitive sanctions is the unwritten text of a latent follow-up volume.

This book on hackers is the first major intellectually rigorous study of this social phenomenon. I can commend it as required reading for anyone who is interested in the way society approaches threats which undermine the pecking order of society. Filled with quotes from the hackers themselves and visionary authors it is a mind expanding piece of literature which teaches while it entertains. Buy it....

I liked one hacker's defence of hacking into telephone systems to get free phone calls and internet access, that 'the lines are already in place, and the electrons don't care how far they travel,' which is true and stupid at the same time. (Seems to me that admitting that you're ripping off big phone companies should be OK, since the big phone companies doubtless rip people off all the time. But the 'electrons don't care' argument is sweeter).

I might have liked more on activist hackers, who mess up the websites of businesses or organisations that they disagree with; and the book lacks a political angle in general. Or perhaps the book reveals that hackers are less politically motivated than you might think. One or the other.

Taylor is very good on hacking culture, and hackers as people. He also provides a detailed analysis of the mixed relationship between hackers and the computer security industry. It's a well put-together book that you can actually read for pleasure. No, really. Good work.