"Proving once again that truth is stranger than fiction, this gripping book chronicles the rise of a gang of computer hackers, a group known by the acronym MOD, Masters of Deception.
"The members of this group are teenage boys who come from some of New York City's poorest neighbourhoods. They souped-up their primitive personal computers, perfected their skills and became, in the late 1980s, the most sophisticated computer hackers in the world.
"But at the heart of the book is an intense gang warfare that erupted when a hacker group from Texas 'dissed' the MOD gang on a computer bulletin board. The escalations build up into an electronic battle of amazing proportions." [jacket blurb, UK pbk, 1995]
"It's good to know about this kind of stuff. Hackers are our first and last line of defense. So, we'd better know just who we're dealing with. Michelle Slatalla and Joshua Quittner do an admirable job of filling us in. Names we may have come across in the cyberverse come alive in these pages.
"We are virtually there through the whole adventure -- the hunt and the chase. We meet the young and determined hackers on their own turf, hanging out with the whizz kids. This is the wild west of cyberspace, the showdown at OK corral, the new marshall riding into town, the prying, spying, and eavesdropping. And we discover the secrets of the phone company, the commercial networks, the Information America Peoplesnooper (tm), and lots more. We learn about Dial Number Recorders and what they can do. We discover that our fate is at the mercy of the curious -- the plainly inquisitive and the dangerously pervasive. In short, this book presents us with the truth. While we're enjoying the new information frontier, there's a battle raging under the surface.
"Despite the immature nature of some of the hackers, I know who I was rooting for. And despite the feeling of vulnerability, I certainly would rather rub elbows with Phiber Optik and The Wing than spend time with the NSA. But then, maybe I'm just too nervous about Big Brother." --Henry W.Targowski (in Mark/Space , 8 June 1995).
