Boards are mysterious. Boards are conspiratorial. Boards have been accused of harboring: Satanists, anarchists, thieves, child pornographers, Aryan nazis, religious cultists, drug dealers -- and, of course, software pirates, phone phreaks, and hackers. Underground hacker boards were scarcely reassuring, since they often sported terrifying sci-fi heavy-metal names, like "Speed Demon Elite," "Demon Roach Underground," and "Black Ice." (Modern hacker boards tend to feature defiant titles like "Uncensored BBS," "Free Speech," and "Fifth Amendment.")

Underground boards carry stuff as vile and scary as, say, 60s-era underground newspapers -- from the time when Yippies hit Chicago and ROLLING STONE gave away free roach-clips to subscribers. "Anarchy files" are popular features on outlaw boards, detailing how to build pipe-bombs, how to make Molotovs, how to brew methedrine and LSD, how to break and enter buildings, how to blow up bridges, the easiest ways to kill someone with a single blow of a blunt object -- and these boards bug straight people a lot. Never mind that all this data is publicly available in public libraries where it is protected by the First Amendment. There is something about its being on a computer -- where any teenage geek with a modem and keyboard can read it, and print it out, and spread it around, free as air -- there is something about that, that is creepy.

"Brad" is a New Age pagan from Saint Louis who runs a service known as "WEIRDBASE," available on an international network of boards called "FidoNet." Brad was mired in an interminable scandal when his readers formed a spontaneous underground railroad to help a New Age warlock smuggle his teenage daughter out of Texas, away from his fundamentalist Christian in-laws, who were utterly convinced that he had murdered his wife and intended to sacrifice his daughter to -- *Satan*! The scandal made local TV in Saint Louis. Cops came around and grilled Brad. The patchouli stench of Aleister Crowley hung heavy in the air. There was just no end to the hassle.