If you like the electronic version of the book, do buy the paper version. Why? For starters, it's not only much easier to read on the bus, its much easier to read full stop. It's also easier to thumb through, highlight, scribble on, dribble on, and show off. It never needs batteries. It can run on solar power and candles. It looks sexy on your bookshelf, by your bed and in your bed. If you are a male geek, the book comes with a girl-magnet guarantee. The paper version is much easier to lend to a prospective girlfriend. When she's finished reading the book, ask her which hacker thrilled her to pieces. Then nod knowingly, and say coyly `Well, I've never admitted this to anyone except the author and the Feds, but ..'
And the most important reason to purchase a paper copy? Because buying the printed edition of the book lets the author continue to write more fine books like this one.
Enjoy!
Suelette Dreyfus
January 2001
suelette@iq.org
Researcher's introduction.
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth" — Oscar Wilde
"What is essential is invisible to the eye" — Antoine De Saint-Exupery
"But, how do you *know* it happened like that?" — Reader
Due of the seamless nature of `Underground' this is a reasonable question to ask, although hints can be found at the back of the book in the Bibliography and Endnotes. The simple answer to this question is that we conducted over a hundred interviews and collected around 40,000 pages of primary documentation; telephone intercepts, data intercepts, log-files, witness statements, confessions, judgements. Telephone dialog and on-line discussions are drawn directly from the latter. Every significant hacking incident mentioned in this book has reams of primary documentation behind it. System X included.