Approaching Zero: The Extraordinary Underworld of Hackers, Phreakers, Virus Writers, and Keyboard Criminals

Entertaining but hardly comprehensive, this study offers a somewhat European angle on the ``technological counterculture.'' The authors draw on interviews and technical literature to examine the techniques of American and British phreakers (who tap into phone systems), profile ``Captain Zap''--Pennsylvanian Ian Murphy, the first American computer hacker to be prosecuted--and describe the biggest international gathering of hackers, which took place in Amsterdam in 1989. Particularly interesting is an account of how Bulgaria, a would-be high-tech power, spawned hackers and a flood of computer viruses--approximately 200 since 1988. But Clough, an English accountant who has specialized in international computer security, and Mungo, an American freelance journalist, rarely offer in-depth portraits of their subjects, nor is their treatment sufficiently thorough to lend credence to their warning that we ``may no longer be able to trust technology.'' (Mar.)