Conference noted::hackers_v1

"Shockwave Rider", by John Brunner  1975

	This is a very good sci-fi book about a time in the future where
all currency has been completely replaced by EFT systems.  Our hero, a 
renegade "super hacker", tries to drop out of society, but because of the 
excellent record-keeping systems of the governments, he has a very hard 
time disappearing.  Until.....

-joet

"Valentina" by Joseph H. Delaney and Marc Stiegler  (Baen books, 1984).

Valentina is a sentient program that lives in whatever nodes of the WORLDnet
(successor to Enet) it can find free CPU time and disk space in -- but has
to flee from time to time when the non-hackers try to get rid of it.

Along the same lines as .2 is "The Adolescence of P1". I don't remember
the author or publisher.

A college hacker creates a program to creep through a network he thinks has
about 7 nodes. It's equipped with some threat detection software, as well
as status reporting code to tell him how many nodes it's in. When it reports
8 he figures it's broken and sets out to see why. The program detects him
as a threat and bounces him from the system. He forgets about it. Three years
later, the system at his new job comes to a grinding halt with a console
message summoning him to the computer room. The number reported is now around
2500.

The book all takes place in IBM 360/370 genre installations. The factual
matter is reasonably good about IBMs hardware/software architecture. What's
amusing are the examples of the system owners who, in attempting to purge
the hack, do the one thing that really loses control of the system for them.

						Brian

Non-fiction:

Tracy Kidder, The Soul of a New Machine. Atlantic Monthly Press.
	Boston: 1981.

Basically about hackers at Data General.

Science Fiction:

Vernor Vinge, True Names. Bluejay Books, Inc. New York: 1984.
	with an afterword by Marvin Minsky.

Speculation on the future of ADVENTURE-like games.  As these games
get more complex, and people start interfacing to them via elecrodes
attached to the skull; computers and databases around the world
start protecting themselves not by mere passwords, but by complex
fantasy scenarios, with traps designed to "kill" or prevent access
by those people not knowing the proper algorithm for getting to
the desired target.

Naturally, hackers produce significantly better simulations than
do the normal people, and the "electronic world" starts being run
by these hackers, presenting themselves as witches and warlocks
with fantasy names and personalities like Mr. Slippery, The Mailman,
and DON.MAC. The only way the government can stop these people
is by finding out their true names, since their electronic entry into
the system is too carefully guarded.

But then one hacker senses the quiet takeover by another entity...

non-fiction:

Steven Levy, Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution.
	Anchor Press: 1984.

See notes 72 and 77 for reviews.

Here are a bunch:

Intruder, by Louis Charbonneau.  Berkley 1982.  A hacker takes revenge on a town
that wronged him by taking over the central city computer and causing a lot
of trouble.

Michaelmas, by Algis Budrys.  Berkley 1977.  Michaelmas is a network news
reporter and, in secret, a world-net hacker.  The whole book takes place over
a period of 24 hours, as he discovers and blocks one of the stranger
threats to the world.  Highly recommended.

Web of Angles, by John M. Ford.  Pocket Books, 1980.  "True Names" on a
galactic scale, and the Geisthounds - rather horrible anti-hacker devices.
Recommended.

Several books by James Hogan, including Two Faces of Tomorrow (Ballentine
1979) - testing an advanced AI program - and Code of the Lifemaker (Ballentine
1983) - encounter with a race of intelligent machines.

A for Andromeda and Andromeda Breakthrough, by Fred Hoyle and John Elliot.
Fawcett Crest, 1962 and 1964.  A message is received from an extra-terrestrial
source.  It turns out to be the specs for a computer, and a program for it.
The computer is build and gradually begins to take over the world.  It is
destroyed - or is it?  Should it be?  Written originally for British TV.
Highly recommended.

Two by Michael McCollum:  Life Probe and Ora:Cle (Ballentine 1983 and
Berkely 1984).  Life Probe is about an encounter with a probe from another
civilization, run by an AI.  One of the better descriptions of an AI.
Ora:Cle is about a member of a group of computer-linked experts who find
themselves under attack - for no apparent reason.  Also present are a very
strange group of aliens, who may or may not be involved.  Life Probe:
recommended.

Oops, my mistake:  Ora:Cle is is actually by the next author on my list,
Kevin O'Donnell.  He is also the author of Mayflies (Berkley 1979).  A
man awakens to find that he died in an accident - and his brain is now
in control of an inter-galactic ship.  An "overmind", an AI, keeps watch
over him.  Then things start to go wrong...  MUCH better than the cover
blurb makes it out to be; recommended.

Neuromancer, by William Gibons.  Ace 1984.  "Case was the best interface
cowboy who ever ran Earth's computer matrix.  Then he double-crossed the
wrong people..."  Hacking on a grand scale.  And behind it all, someone -
who? - called Wintermind.  Highly recommended.

Colis, by Roger Zelazny and Fred Saberhagen.  Don BelPatri had a happy if
somewhat unquestioned life.  Then memories - and talents - start to reappear.
Just what do you call telepathy that works between man and computer net?

							-- Jerry

re: .7
I should make clear that all the books I listed are ones I liked; the
"recommended" and "highly recommended" ratings are for "unusual merit".

Also, "Coils" is "recommended".
							-- Jerry

I just finished "The American Magic" (Author Ronald Lewis?), about the US
cryptographic effort against (primarily) Japan in WWII.   They 'hacked'
their way into the ciphers - even some of the terminology is the same - 
trojan horses for example is the phrase they used for giving info to some
one so that they would transmit it in a secure cipher, thus you knew what
was being transmitted which helped you crack the cipher!

/Bevin

That's a "known plaintext" attack; any cypher which breaks under that kind
of attack isn't "secure" according to today's state of the art...

	Paul