"Operation Sundevil," the Phoenix-inspired crackdown of May8,1990, concentrated on telephone code-fraud and credit-cardabuse, and followed this seizure plan with some success. Boardswent down all over America, terrifying the underground andswiftly depriving them of at least some of their criminalinstruments. It also saddled analysts with some 24,000 floppydisks, and confronted harried Justice Department prosecutorswith the daunting challenge of a gigantic nationwide hackershow-trial involving highly technical issues in dozens ofjurisdictions. As of July 1991, it must be questioned whetherthe climate is right for an action of this sort, especiallysince several of the most promising prosecutees have alreadybeen jailed on other charges.

"Sundevil" aroused many dicey legal and constitutionalquestions, but at least its organizers were spared the spectacleof seizure victims loudly proclaiming their innocence -- (if oneexcepts Bruce Esquibel, sysop of "Dr. Ripco," an anarchist boardin Chicago).

The activities of March 1, 1990, however, including the Jacksoncase, were the inspiration of the Chicago-based Computer Fraudand Abuse Task Force. At telco urging, the Chicago group werepursuing the purportedly vital "E911 document" with headlongenergy. As legal evidence, this proprietary Bell Southdocument was to prove a very weak reed in the Craig Neidorftrial, which ended in a humiliating dismissal and a triumph forNeidorf. As of March 1990, however, this purloined data-fileseemed a red-hot chunk of contraband, and the decision was madeto track it down wherever it might have gone, and to shut downany board that had touched it -- or even come close to it.

In the meantime, however -- early 1990 -- Mr. Loyd Blankenship,an employee of Steve Jackson Games, an accomplished hacker, anda sometime member and file-writer for the Legion of Doom, wascontemplating a "cyberpunk" simulation-module for theflourishing GURPS gaming-system.

The time seemed ripe for such a product, which had already beenproven in the marketplace. The first games-company out of thegate, with a product boldly called "Cyberpunk" in defiance ofpossible infringement-of-copyright suits, had been an upstartgroup called R. Talsorian. Talsorian's "Cyberpunk" was a fairlydecent game, but the mechanics of the simulation system sucked,and the nerds who wrote the manual were the kimd of half-hiptwits who wrote their own fake rock lyrics and, worse yet,published them. The game sold like crazy, though.

The next "cyberpunk" game had been the even more successful"Shadowrun" by FASA Corporation. The mechanics of this gamewere fine, but the scenario was rendered moronic by lamefantasy elements like orcs, dwarves, trolls, magicians, anddragons -- all highly ideologically-incorrect, according to thehard-edged, high-tech standards of cyberpunk science fiction.No true cyberpunk fan could play this game without vomiting,despite FASA's nifty T-shirts and street-samurai lead figurines.

Lured by the scent of money, other game companies were champingat the bit. Blankenship reasoned that the time had come for areal "Cyberpunk" gaming-book -- one that the princes ofcomputer-mischief in the Legion of Doom could play withoutlaughing themselves sick. This book, GURPS Cyberpunk, wouldreek of culturally on-line authenticity.

Hot discussion soon raged on the Steve Jackson Games electronicbulletin board, the "Illuminati BBS." This board was namedafter a bestselling SJG card-game, involving antisocial sectsand cults who war covertly for the domination of the world.Gamers and hackers alike loved this board, with its meticulouslydetailed discussions of pastimes like SJG's "Car Wars," in whichsouped-up armored hot-rods with rocket-launchers and heavymachine-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 sedatehusband and author, had last entered a public phone-boothwithout a supply of pocket-change. However, his intellectualinterest in computer-security remained intense. He was pleasedto notice the presence on "Phoenix" of Henry Kluepfel, aphone-company security professional for Bellcore. Suchcontacts were risky for telco employees; at least one suchgentleman who reached out to the hacker underground had beenaccused of divided loyalties and summarily fired. Kluepfel, onthe other hand, was bravely engaging in friendly banter withheavy-dude hackers and eager telephone-wannabes. Blankenshipdid nothing to spook him away, and Kluepfel, for his part,passed dark warnings about "Phoenix Project" to the Chicagogroup. "Phoenix Project" glowed with the radioactive presenceof the E911 document, passed there in a copy of Craig Neidorf'selectronic hacker fan-magazine, Phrack.

"Illuminati" was prominently mentioned on the Phoenix Project.Phoenix users were urged to visit Illuminati, to discuss theupcoming "cyberpunk" game and possibly lend their expertise.It was also frankly hoped that they would spend some money onSJG games.

Illuminati and Phoenix had become two ripe pumpkins on thecriminal vine.

Hacker busts were nothing new. They had always been somewhatproblematic for the authorities. The offenders were generallyhigh-IQ white juveniles with no criminal record. Publicsympathy for the phone companies was limited at best. Trialsoften ended in puzzled dismissals or a slap on the wrist. Butthe harassment suffered by "the business community" -- alwaysthe best friend of law enforcement -- was real, and highlyannoying both financially and in its sheer irritation to thetarget corporation.

Through long experience, law enforcement had come up with anunorthodox but workable tactic. This was to avoid any trial atall, or even an arrest. Instead, somber teams of grim policewould swoop upon the teenage suspect's home and box up hiscomputer as "evidence." If he was a good boy, and promisedcontritely to stay out of trouble forthwith, the highlyexpensive equipment might be returned to him in short order. Ifhe was a hard-case, though, too bad. His toys could stayboxed-up and locked away for a couple of years.

The busts in Austin were an intensification of thistried-and-true technique. There were adults involved in thiscase, though, reeking of a hardened bad-attitude. The supposedthreat to the 911 system, apparently posed by the E911 document,had nerved law enforcement to extraordinary effort. The 911system is, of course, the emergency dialling system used by thepolice themselves. Any threat to it was a direct and insolenthacker menace to the electronic home-turf of American lawenforcement.

Had Steve Jackson been arrested and directly accused of a plotto destroy the 911 system, the resultant embarrassment wouldlikely have been sharp, but brief. The Chicago group, instead,chose total operational security. They may have suspected thattheir search for E911, once publicized, would cause that"dangerous" document to spread like wildfire throughout theunderground. Instead, they allowed the misapprehension tospread that they had raided Steve Jackson to stop thepublication of a book: GURPS Cyberpunk. This was a gravepublic-relations blunder which caused the darkest fears andsuspicions to spread -- not in the hacker underground, butamong the general public.

On March 1, 1990, 21-year-old hacker Chris Goggans (aka "ErikBloodaxe") was wakened by a police revolver levelled at hishead. He watched, jittery, as Secret Service agentsappropriated his 300 baud terminal and, rifling his files,discovered his treasured source-code for the notorious InternetWorm. Goggans, a co-sysop of "Phoenix Project" and a wilyoperator, had suspected that something of the like might becoming. All his best equipment had been hidden away elsewhere.They took his phone, though, and considered hauling away hishefty arcade-style Pac-Man game, before deciding that it wassimply too heavy. Goggans was not arrested. To date, he hasnever been charged with a crime. The police still have whatthey took, though.