Demonized by governments and the media as criminals, glorified within their own subculture as outlaws, hackers have played a major role in the short history of computers and digital culture-and have continually defied our assumptions about technology and secrecy through both legal and illicit means. In Hacker Culture, Douglas Thomas provides an in-depth history of this important and fascinating subculture, contrasting mainstream images of hackers with a detailed firsthand account of the computer underground

Programmers in the 1950s and '60s-"old school" hackers-challenged existing paradigms of computer science. In the 1960s and '70s, hacker subcultures flourished at computer labs on university campuses, making possible the technological revolution of the next decade. Meanwhile, on the streets, computer enthusiasts devised ingenious ways to penetrate AT&T, the Department of Defense, and other corporate entities in order to play pranks (and make free long-distance telephone calls). In the 1980s and '90s, some hackers organized to fight for such causes as open source coding while others wreaked havoc with corporate Web sites.

Even as novels and films (Neuromancer, WarGames, Hackers, and The Matrix) mythologized these "new school" hackers, destructive computer viruses like "Melissa" prompted the passage of stringent antihacking laws around the world. Addressing such issues as the commodification of the hacker ethos by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, the high-profile arrests of prominent hackers, and conflicting self-images among hackers themselves, Thomas finds that popular hacker stereotypes reflect the public's anxieties about the information age far more than they do the reality of hacking.

"an interesting and compelling account of the major role hackers have played in the short history of computers and the digital culture."

- Choice

"Hacker Culture provides an indispensable insight into a history of computing that it has become increasingly important to understand for computer users of all levels and abilities."

- Slashdot.org

"an intelligent and approachable book on one of the most widely discussed and least understood subcultures in recent decades."

- Publishers Weekly

"Combining elements of cultural studies and the history of technology, Thomas has fashioned an illuminating and surprising examination of hackers and their place in contemporary culture."

- Seminary Co-Op Review

"In this highly readable examination of the computer underground, Doug Thomas looks at hacking culture from the inside out. He brings an intellectual's eye to one of the modern age's most compelling topics while acting simultaneously as storyteller, historian and cultural guide par excellence."

- Katie Hafner, author of Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier

". . . .an unusually balanced history of the computer underground and its sensational representation in movies and newspapers. [Thomas's] account starkly shows what hackers have realized all along: Our unease with Kevin Mitnick and his sort actually reflects our discomfort with technology itself."

- San Francisco Chronicle

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