America's telephone monopoly was pulverized. "Ma Bell," thenational phone company, became AT&T, AT&T Industries, and theregional "Baby Bells," all purportedly independent companies,who compete with new communications companies and otherlong-distance providers. As a class, however, they are allsorely harassed by fraudsters, phone phreaks, and computerhackers, and they all maintain computer-security experts. In alot of cases these "corporate security divisions" consist ofjust one or two guys, who drifted into the work from backgroundsin traditional security or law enforcement. But, linked byspecialized security trade journals and private sector tradegroups, they all know one another.

PLAYER THREE: The Computer Hackers.

The American "hacker" elite consists of about a hundred people,who all know one another. These are the people who know enoughabout computer intrusion to baffle corporate security and alarmpolice (and who, furthermore, are willing to put their intrusionskills into actual practice). The somewhat oldersubculture of "phone-phreaking," once native only to the phonesystem, has blended into hackerdom as phones have become digitaland computers have been netted-together by telephones. "Phonephreaks," always tarred with the stigma of rip-off artists, arenowadays increasingly hacking PBX systems and cellular phones.These practices, unlike computer-intrusion, offer direct andeasy profit to fraudsters.

There are legions of minor "hackers," such as the "kodez kidz,"who purloin telephone access codes to make free (i.e., stolen)phone calls. Code theft can be done with home computers, andalmost looks like real "hacking," though "kodez kidz" areregarded with lordly contempt by the elite. "Warez d00dz," whocopy and pirate computer games and software, are a thrivingsubspecies of "hacker," but they played no real role in the