In New York no one harassed pot smokers, but technically, it still wasn't legal, while Amsterdam represented the ultimate counterculture. This was the first time since Maggie had left for the Coast three years ago that Scott felt an independence, a freedom reminiscent of his rebellious teen years.
He gave the taxi driver the address of the Eureka! hotel, on the Amstel. During the half hour fifty guilder ride into downtown, the driver continuously chattered. "Amsterdam has more canals than Venice. Many more. Holland is mostly land reclaimed from the sea. We have the biggest system of dikes in Europe. Don't forget to see our diamond centers." He spoke endlessly with deep pride about his native land.
The Eureka! is a small four story townhouse with only 16 rooms that overlooked the Amstel, the largest canal in Amsterdam, similar to the Grand Canal in Venice. The Times had booked it because it was cheap, but Scott felt instantly at home. After settling in, Scott called the local number that Kirk had given him.
"Hallo?" A thick Dutch accent answered the phone.
"Hello? I'm looking for Jon Gruptmann? This is Scott Mason."
"Ya, this is Jon."
"A mutual friend, Kirk, said I should call you."
"Ah, ya, ya. Repo Man, is it not?" The voice got friendly.
"That's what Kirk calls me."
"Ya, ya. He said you want to attend our meetings. Ya? Is that so?" Jon sounded enthusiastic.
"That's why I swam the Atlantic, all three thousand miles. I would love to!" Jon didn't sound like Scott expected a computer hacker to sound, whatever that was.
"Huh?" Jon asked. "Ah, ya, a joke. Goot. Let me tell you where we meet. The place is small, so it may be very crowded. I hope you do not mind." Jon sounded concerned about Scott's comfort.
"Oh, no. I'm used to inconvenience. I'm sure it will be fine."
"Ya, ya. I expect so. The meetings don't really begin until tomorrow at 9AM. Is that goot for you?"
"Yes, just fine, what's the address?" Scott asked as he readied paper and pen.
"Ya. Go to the warehouse on the corner of Oude Zidjs VoorburgWal and Lange Niezel. It's around from the Oude Kerksplein.Number 44."
"Hold it, I'm writing." Scott scribbled the address phonetically. A necessary trick reporters use when someone is speaking unintel- ligibly. "And then what?"
"Just say you're Repo Man. There's a list. And please remember, we don't use our given names."
"No problem. Fine. Thank you."
"Ya. What do you plan for tonight?" Jon asked happily.
"I hadn't really thought about it," Scott lied.
"Ya, ya. Well, I think you should see our city. Enjoy the unique pleasures Amsterdam has to offer."
"I might take a walk . . . or something."
"Ya, ya, or something. I understand. I will see you tomorrow.Ya?" Jon said laughing.
"Wouldn't miss it for the world."
"Do one favor?" Jon asked. "Watch your wallet. We have many pickpockets."
"Thanks for the warning. See you tomorrow." Click. I grew up inNew York, Scott thought. Pickpockets, big deal.
* * * * *
Scott took a shower to remove the vestiges of the eleven hour trip; an hour ride to Kennedy, an hour and a half at the airport, a half hour on the tarmac, seven hours on the plane, and an hour getting into town.
He dressed casually in the American's travel uniform: jeans, jean jacket and warm sweater. He laced his new Reeboks knowing that Amsterdam is a walking city. Driving would be pure insanity unless the goal is sitting in two hour traffic jams. The single lane streets straddle the miles of canals throughout the inner city which is arranged in a large semi-circular pattern. Down- town, or old Amsterdam, is a dense collection of charming clean, almost pristine 4 story buildings built over a period of several hundred years. That's the word for Amsterdam; charming. From late medieval religious structures to townhouses that are tightly packed on almost every street, to the various Pleins where the young crowds congregate in the evenings, Amsterdam has something for everyone. Anne Frank's house to the Rembrandt Museum to a glass roofed boat trip down the canals through the diamond dis- trict and out into the Zeider Zee. Not to mention those attrac- tions for the more prurient.
He ran down the two flights to the hotel lobby and found the concierge behind the Heineken bar which doubled as a registration desk. He wanted to know where to buy some pot.
"Not to find us selling that here," the Pakistani concierge said in broken English.
"I know. But where . . ." It was an odd feeling to ask which store sold drugs.
"You want Coffee Shop," he helpfully said.
"Coffee Shop?" Scott asked, skeptical of the translation.
"Across bridge, make right, make left." The concierge liberally used his hands to describe the route. "Coffee shop. Very good."
Scott thanked him profusely and made a quick exit thinking that in parts of the U.S., Texas came to mind, such a conversation could be construed as conspiracy. He headed out into the cool damp late morning weather. The air was crisp, clean, a pleasure to breathe deeply. The Amstel canal, not a ripple present, echoed the tranquility that one feels when walking throughout the city. There are only a half dozen or so 'main' streets or boule- vards in Amsterdam and they provide the familiar intense interna- tional commercialism found in any major European city. It is when one begins to explore the back streets, the countless alleys and small passageways; the darkened corridors that provide a short cut to the bridge to the next islet; it is then that one feels the essence of Amsterdam.
Scott crossed over the bridge that spans the wide Amstel con- scious of the small high speed car and scooters that dart about the tiny streets. He turned right as instructed and looked at the street names on the left. While Scott spoke reasonable French, Dutch escaped him. Bakkerstraat. Was that the name? It was just an alley, but there a few feet down on the right was the JPL Coffee Shop. JPL was the only retail establishment on Bakker- straat, and it was unassuming, some might call it derelict, in appearance. From a distance greater than 10 meters, it appeared deserted.
Through the large dirty plate glass window Scott saw a handful of patrons lazing on white wrought iron cafe chairs at small round tables. The Coffee Shop was no larger than a small bedroom. Here goes nothing, Scott thought as he opened the door to enter. No one paid scant attention to him as he crossed over and leaned on the edge of the bar which was reminiscent of a soda fountain. A man in his young twenties came over and amiably introduced him- self as Chris, the proprietor of the establishment. How could he be of service?
"Ah . . . I heard I can buy marijuana here," Scott said.
"Ya, of course. What do you want?" Chris asked.
"Well, just enough for a couple of days, I can't take it back with me you know," Scott laughed nervously.
"Ya. We also have cocaine, and if you need it, I can get you he- roin." Chris gave the sales pitches verbally - there was no printed menu in this Coffee Shop.
"No!" Scott shot back immediately, until he realized that all drugs were legal here, not just pot. He didn't want to offend. "Thanks anyway. Just some grass will do."
"How many grams do you want?"
Grams? How many grams? Scott mused that the metric Europeans thought in grams and Americans still in ounces and pounds. O.K., 28 grams to an ounce . . .
"Two grams," Scott said. "By the way, how late are you open?"Scott pushed his rounded spectacles back up his nose.
"Ah, sometimes 8, sometimes 10, sometimes late," Chris said while bringing a tissue box sized lock box to the top of the bar. He opened it and inside were several bags of pot and a block of aluminum foil the size of a candy bar. "You want hashish?" Chris offered.
Scott shook his head, 'no,' so Chris opened one of the bags in- stead of the candy bar.
"You American?" A voice came from one of the tables. Scott looked around. "Here," the voice said. "Me too." The man got up and approached Scott. "Listen, they got two types of ganja here. Debilitating and Coma. I've made the mistake."
"Ya, we have two kinds," Chris agreed laughing. "This will only get you a little high," he said holding up a bag. "This one," he held up another, "will get you stoned."
"Bullshit," the American said. "Their idea of a little high is catatonic for us. Take my word for it. The Mexican shit we smoke? They'd give it to the dogs."
"You sold me," Scott said holding his hands up in surrender. "Just a little high is fine by me. Two grams, please," he said to Chris pointing at the less potent bag. "Thanks for the warn- ing," he said to the American. "Where you from?" Scott asked.
"Oh, around. I guess you could call Washington my home."
"Yeah," the American nodded. "And you?" He leaned over the back of his chair to face Scott.
"Big Apple. The 'burbs."
"What brings you here?"
"To Europe?" Scott asked.
"Amsterdam. Sin City. Diamonds?"
"No, I wish," Scott laughed. "News. A story brought me here for a couple of days."
Chris finished weighing Scott's purchase on a sensitive digital scale that measured the goods down to the nearest hundredth of a gram. Scott handed Chris $10 in Guilders and pocketed the pot. "Um, where can I get some papers?" Scott asked. Chris pointed to a glass on the bar with a complete selection of assorted paraphernalia.
"Hey, why don't you join me," the American asked. "I've been toAmsterdam before."
"Is it all right to smoke in here?" Scott asked looking around.
"Sure, that's what coffee shops are. The only other thing you can buy in here is sodas. No booze." The American spoke confi- dently as he lit up a joint and passed it to Scott.
"Thanks," Scott coughed as he handed it back. "Oh, I don't thinkI caught your name.
"Oh, just call me Spook."
THE Spook? thought Scott. What incredible synchronicity.
Scott's body instantly tensed up and he felt the adrenaline rush with an associated rise in pulse rate. Was this really the leg- endary Spook?
Is it possible that he fell into a chance meeting with the hacker that Kirk and his friends refer to as the king of hackers? Spook? Gotta stay cool. Could he be that lucky? Was there more than one spook? Scott momentarily daydreamed, remembering how fifteen years before, in Athens, Greece he had opened a taxi door right into the face a lady who turned out to be an ex-high-school girl friend. It is a small world, Scott thought tritely.
"Spook? Are you a spy?" Scott comically asked, careful to dis- guise his real interest.
"If I answer that I'll have to kill you," the Spook laughed out loud in the quiet establishment. "Spy? Hardly. It's just a handle." Spook said guardedly. "What's yours?"
"Mine? Oh, my handle. They call me Repo Man, but it's really Scott Mason. Glad to meet you. Spook," he added handing back the intoxicating cigarette.
BINGO! Scott Mason in hand without even a search. Landing right in his lap. Keep your cool. Dead pan poker face. What unbe- lievable luck. Don't blow it, let's play this for all that it's worth. Your life just got very simple. Give both Homosoto and Mason exactly what they want with no output of energy.
"You said you're a reporter," Spook said inhaling deeply again. "What's the story?" At least he gets high, Spook thought. Mason could have been a real dip-shit nerd. Thank God for small fa- vors.
"There's a hacker conference that I was invited to," Scott said unabashedly. "I'm trying to show the hacker's side of the story. Why they do what they do. How they legitimize it to themselves." Scott's mouth was rapidly drying out so he ordered a Pepsi. "I assume you're a hacker, too," Scott broached the issue carefully.
Spook smiled widely. "Yup. And proud of it."
"You don't care who knows?" Scott asked looking around to see if anyone was paying attention to their conversation. Instead the other patrons were engrossed in chess or huddled conversation. Only Chris, the proprietor listened from behind the bar.
"The Spook is all anyone knows. I like to keep it that way,"Spook said as he laid the roach end of the joint in the ashtray."Not bad, huh?" He asked Scott.
"Christ, no. Kinda hits you between the eyes." Scott rubbed them to clear off the invading fog.
"After a couple of days it won't get you so bad," Spook said."You said you wanted to do a fair story on hackers, right?"
"Fair? A fair story? I can only try. If hackers act and talk like assholes then they'll come across like assholes, no matter what I do. However, if they make a decent case, hold a rational, albeit arguable position, then maybe someone may listen."
"You sound like you don't approve of our activities." The Spook grinned devilishly.
"Honestly, and I shouldn't say this cause this is your grass," Scott said lighting the joint again. "No, I don't approve, but I figure there's at least 10 sides to a story, and I'm here to find that story and present all sides. Hopefully I can even line up a debate or two. Convincing me is not the point; my readers make up their own minds."
The word 'readers' momentarily jolted the Spook until he realized Scott meant newspaper readers, not his team of Van-Ecking eaves- droppers. Spook took the joint from Scott. "You sound like you don't want to approve."
"Having a hard time with all the crap going down with computers these days," Scott agreed. "I guess my attitude comes through in my articles."
"I've never read your stuff," Spook lied.
"Mainly in New York."
"That explains it. Ever been to Amsterdam?"
"No, I was going to get a map and truck around . . ."
"How about I show you around, and try to convince you about the honor of our profession?" Spook asked.
"Great!" Scott agreed. "But what about . . ." He made a motion to his lips as if he was holding a cigarette.
"Legal on the streets."
"You sure?"
"C'mon," Spook said rising from his chair. "Chris, see you later," he promised. Chris reciprocated and invited his two new friends to return any time.
Scott followed Spook up the alley named Bakkerstraat and into the Rembrandt Plein, a huge open square with cafes and street people and hotels. "At night," Spook said, "Rembrandt and another 4 or 5 pleins are the social hub of activity for the younger genera- tion. Wished I had had this when I was a kid. How are your legs?" The Spook amorously ogled the throngs of young women twenty years his junior.
"Fine, why?"
"I'm going to show you Amsterdam."
Scott and the Spook began walking. The Spook knew his way around and described much of the history and heritage of the city, the country and its culture. This kind of educated hacker was not what Scott had expected. He had thought that today's hackers were nerds, the propeller heads of his day, but he was discover- ing through the Spook, that he may have been wrong. Scott remem- bered Clifford Stoll's Hanover Hacker was a well positioned and seemingly upstanding individual who was selling stolen computer information to the KGB. How many nerds would have the gumption to play in that league?
They walked to the outer edge of Old Amsterdam, on the Singel- gracht at the Leidseplein. Without a map or the Spook, Scott would have been totally lost. The streets and canals were all so similar that, as the old phrase goes, you can't tell the players without a scorecard. Scott followed the Spook onto an electric street car. It headed down the Leidsestraat, one of the few heavily commercial streets and across the Amstel again.
The street car proceeded up the Nieuwezuds Voorburgwal, a wide boulevard with masses of activities on both sides. This was tourist madness, thought Scott.
"This is freedom," said the Spook.
"Freedom?" The word instantly conjured his memory of the FreedomLeague, the BBS he suspected was up to no-good. The Spook andFreedom?
"At the end of this street is the Train Station. Thousands of people come through this plaza every day to experience Amsterdam. Get whatever it is out of their system. The drugs, the women, the anarchy of a country that relies upon the integrity of its population to work. Can't you feel it?" The Spook positively glowed as he basked in the aura of the city.
Scott had indeed felt it during their several hours together. An intense sense of independence that came from a generation of democratic socialism. Government regulated drugs, a welfare system that permitted the idle to live nearly as well as the working. Class structures blurred by taxes so extraordinarily high that most everyone lived in similarly comfortable condi- tions. Poverty is almost non-existent.
Yet, as the Spook explained to Scott, "This is not the world for an entrepreneur. That distinction still belongs to the ol' Red, White and Blue. It's almost impossible to make any real money here."
The sun was setting behind the western part of the city, over the church steeples and endless rows of townhouses.
"Hungry yet?" Spook grinned at Scott.
"Hungry? I got a case of the munchies that won't quit. Let's eat." Scott's taste buds were entering panic mode.
"Good," the Spook said as he lit up another joint on the street car. "Let's eat." He hastily leapt off the slow moving vehicle. Scott followed him across the boulevard and dodged cars, busses and bicycles. They stopped in front of a small Indonesian res- taurant, Sarang Mas, ably disguised with a red and white striped awning and darkened windows.
"Ever had Indonesian food?"
"No, well maybe, in New York I guess . . ."
Miles dragged Scott into the unassuming restaurant and the calm- ing strains of Eastern music replaced the city noises on the street outside. The red and white plastic checkered tablecloths severely clashed with the gilt of the pagoda shaped decorations throughout. But only by American tastes. Sarang Mas was a much touted and reputable restaurant with very fine native Indonesian chefs doing the preparations.
"Let me tell you something," the Spook said. "This food is the absolute finest food available, anywhere in the world, bar no idyllic island location, better than a trip to Hershey, Pennsyl- vania to cure a case of the munchies. It's delicate, it's sweet, it's taste bud heaven, it's a thousand points of flavor you've never tried before." The Spook sounded like a hawker on the Home Shopping Network.
"Shut up," Scott joked. "You're just making it worse."
"Think of the oral orgasm that's coming. Anticipation." The waiter had appeared and waited patiently. It was still early and the first seating crowd was two hours away. "Do you mind if I order?"
"No, be my guest. Just make it fast food. Super fast food,"Scott begged.
"Ah, let's have a couple of Sate Kambings to start, ah, and we'll share some Daguig Goreng, and some Kodok Goreng and ah, the Guila Kambing. And," Spook looked at Scott, "a couple of Heinekens?" Scott nodded. "And, if there's any way you could put that order into warp drive, my friend here," he pointed at Scott, "would appreciate it muchly."
"Very good," the dark skinned Indonesian waiter replied as he scurried back to the kitchen.
It still took half an hour for the appetizers to arrive. Scott chewed up three straws and tore two napkins into shreds while waiting.
"What is this," asked Scott as he voraciously dove into the food.
"Does it matter?"
"No," Scott bit into it. "Mmmmmmm . . .Holy shit, that's good, what is it?"
"Goat parts," the Spook said with a straight face.
Scott stopped chewing. "Which goat parts?" he mumbled staring over the top of his round glasses.
"The good parts," said the Spook taking two big bites. "Only the good parts."
"It's nothing like, eyeballs, or lips or . . ." Scott was gross- ing himself out.
"No, no, paysan, eat up. It's safe." The Spook made the Italian gesture for eating. "Most of the time." The Spook chuckled as he ravaged the unidentifiable goat parts on his plate.
Scott looked suspiciously at the Spook, who seemed to be surviv- ing. How bad could it be? It tasted great, phenomenal, but what is it? Fuck it. Scott wolfed down his goat parts in total ecsta- sy. The Spook was right. This was the best tasting food he had had, ever.
The rest of the meal was as sensorally exquisite as the appetiz- er. Scott felt relieved once the waiter had promised that the goat parts were from a goat roast, just like a rib roast or a pork roast. Nothing disgusting like ear lobes. Ecch!
"So you want to know why we do it," said the Spook in between nibbles of Indonesian frog legs. Scott had to think hard to realize that the Spook had shifted the conversation to hacking.
"It had occurred to me," responded Scott. "Why do you do it?"
"I've always liked biology, so hacking became the obvious choice," Spook said laughing. Scott looked perplexed but that didn't interrupt his voracious attack on the indescribably deli- cious foods on his plate.
"How old are you?" Asked the Spook.
"The Big four-oh is in range."
"Good, me too. Remember Marshall McCluhan?"
"The medium is the message guru." Scott had admired him and made considerable effort to attend a few of his highly motivating lectures.
"Exactly. He predicted it 20 years early. The Networked Socie- ty." The Spook paused to toss more food into his mouth. "How much do you know about computers?"
"I'm learning," Scott said modestly. Whenever asked that ques- tion he assumed that he was truly ignorant on the subject despite his engineering degree. It was just that computers had never held the fascination for him that they did for others.
"O.K., let me give you the low down." The Spook sucked down the last of the Heineken and motioned to the waiter for two more. He wiped his lips and placed his napkin beside the well cleaned plate. "At what point does something become alive?"
"Alive?" Scott mused. "When some carbon based molecules get the right combination of gases in the proper proportions of tempera- ture and pressure . . ."
"C'mon, guy. Use your imagination," the Spook scoffed with his eyes twinkling. "Biologically, you're right, but philosophically that's pretty fucking lame. Bart Simpson could come up with better than that." The Spook could be most insulting without even trying. "Let me ask you, is the traffic light system in New York alive?"
"No way!" Retorted Scott. "It's dead as a doornail, programmed for grid lock." They both laughed at the ironic choice for analogy.
"Seriously, in many ways it can be considered alive," the Spook said. "It uses electricity as its source of power or food. Therefore it eats, has a digestive system and has waste product; heat. Agreed?"
Scott nodded. That was a familiar personification for engineer- ing students.
"And, if you turn off the power, it stops functioning. A tempo- rary starvation if you will. It interacts with its environment; in this case with sensors and switches that react to the condi- tions at any particular moment. And lastly, and most important- ly, it has purpose." Scott raised his eyebrows skeptically. "The program, the rules, those are its purpose. It is coinciden- tally the same purpose that its designers had, but nonetheless it has purpose."
"That doesn't make it alive. It can't think, as we do, and there is no ego or personality," Scott said smugly.
"So what? Since when does plankton or slime mold join Mensa?That's sentience." Spook walked right over Scott's comment.
"O.K.," Scott acquiesced. "I'm here to play Devil's Advocate, not make a continent of enemies."
"Listen, you better learn something early on," Spook leaned in over the table. His seriousness caught Scott's attention. "You can disagree with us all you want, that's not a problem, most everyone does. But, we do expect fairness, personal and profes- sional."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning," the dimples in Spook's smiling cheeks radiated cama- raderie. "Don't give up on an argument so early if you believe in it. That's a chicken shit way out of taking a position. Real kindergarten." The Spook finished off his Heineken in two gulps.
Scott's tension eased realizing the Spook wanted the debate, the confrontation. This week could be a lot more fun than he had thought.
"At any rate, can you buy into that, that the traffic systems are alive?" The Spook asked again.
"I'll hold my final judgment in abeyance, but for sake of discus- sion, let's continue," acquiesced Scott.
"Fair enough. In 1947, I think that was the year, some guy said that he doubted there would be world wide market for more than three computers."
Scott choked on his beer. "Three? Ha! What mental moron came up with that?"
"Watson. Thomas Watson, founder of IBM," the Spook said dead pan.
"You're kidding."
"And what about Phil Estridge?"
"Who's that?"
"Another IBM'er," said the Spook. "He was kind of a renegade, worked outside of the mainstream corporate IBM mold. His bosses told him, 'hey, we need a small cheap computer to tie to our bigger computers. This little company Apple is selling too many for us not to get involved. By the way, Corporate Headquarters thinks this project is a total waste of money; they've been against it from the outset. So, you have 8 months.' They gave him 8 months to build a computer that would set standards for generations of machines. And, he pulled it off. Damned shame he died.
"So, here we have IBM miss-call two of the greatest events in their history yet they still found ways to earn tens of billions of dollars. Today we have, oh, around a hundred million comput- ers in the world. That's a shitload of computers. And we're cranking out twelve million more each year.
"Then we tied over fifty million of these computers together. We used local area networks, wide area networks, dedicated phone lines, gate ways, transmission backbones all in an effort to allow more and more computers to talk to each other. With the phone company as the fabric of the interconnection of our comput- ers we have truly become a networked society. Satellites further tighten the weave on the fabric of the Network. With a modem and telephone you have the world at your fingertips." The Spook raised his voice during his passionate monologue.
"Now we can use computers in our cars or boats and use cellular phone links to create absolute networkability. In essence we have a new life form to deal with, the world wide information Network."
"Here's where we definitely diverge," objected Scott, hands in the air. "Arriving at the conclusion that a computer network is a life form, requires a giant leap of faith that I have trouble with."
"Not faith, just understanding," the Spook said with sustained vigor. "We can compare networks to the veins and blood vessels in our bodies. The heart pumps the blood, the lungs replenish it, the other organs feed off of it. The veins serve as the thoroughfares for blood just as networks serve as highways for information. However, the Network is not static, where a fixed road map describes its operation. The Network is in a constant state of flux, in all likelihood never to repeat the same pattern of connections again.
"So you admit," accused Scott, "that a network is just a conduit, one made of copper and silicon just as the vein in a conduit?"
"Yes, a smart conduit," the Spook insisted. "Some conduits are much smarter than others. The Network itself is a set of rules by which information is transmitted over a conductive material. You can't touch a network. Sure, you can touch the computer, the network wire, you can touch the bits and pieces that make up the Network, but you cannot touch the Network. The Network exists as a synergistic byproduct of many dissimilar and physically isolat- ed devices."
"I must admit Spook . . ."
"That's Mister Spook to you earth man," joked the Spook. "Sorry, continue."
"I could probably nickel and dime you into death by boredom on several points, but I will concede that they are arguable and better relegated for a long evening of total disagreement. For the sake of world peace I will not press the issue now."
"How very kind," mocked the Spook. "Let's get out of here, take a walk, and I'll continue your education."
If anyone else spoke to Scott so derogatorily, there would be instant conflict. The Spook, though, didn't raise the defense mechanism in Scott. Spook was actually a likable fellow, if somewhat arrogant.
They walked back down Nieuwezuds Voorburgwal and Beursplein very slowly. The Spook lit up another joint.
"What's this," said Scott appreciatively, "an endless supply?"
"When in Rome!" replied Spook. The brightly lit grand boulevard was a sample of the energy that permeates the Amsterdam night life. The train station was still a hub of activity in the winter darkness of early evening.
"So look at the Network. You can cut off its tentacles, that's better than legs and feet in this case, and they will reappear, reconnect somewhere else. Alternate routing bypasses trouble spots, self diagnostics help the Network doctors, priority and preferences are handled according to a clear set of rules." Spook waved his hands to reinforce his case.
"That's, ah, quite, ah, a theory. What do the experts say about this?" Scott was teetering on the edge of partial acceptance.
"Experts? We're the experts. That's why we hack, don't you see?" The answer was so obvious it didn't deserve a question. "Now, I can only speak for myself, but I find that the Network organism itself is what's interesting. The network, the sponta- neously grown information organism that covers most of the planet Earth. I believe that is why all hackers start hacking. Innate curiosity about the way things work. Then, before our eyes, and behind the back of the world, the planet gets connected, totally connected to each other, and we haven't examined the ramifica- tions of that closeness, computer-wise that is. That's what we do." The Spook sounded satisfied with his explanation.
Scott thought about it as they crossed Kerksplein and over canals to the Oude Zijds Voorbugwal. Was the Spook spouting off a lot of rationalized bullshit or were he and the likes of him actually performing valuable services, acting as technological sociolo- gists to five billion clients? If a network was alive, thought Scott, it was alive in the sense that a town or village is alive, as the sum of its parts. As a society is alive. If the computer terminal and its operator are members of a global village, as are thousands of other computer users, might that not be considered a society? Communications are indeed different, but Scott remem- bered that Flatland was considered a valid society with a unique perspective on the universe. Is it any different than the tele- phone, which connects everyone on the planet? Shit, Spook made some sense.
They paused on a bridge by the Voorsbugwal, and a few blocks down the canal Scott saw a concentration of bright lights. "What's that?" He asked.
"Poontang," the Spook said lasciviously.
"Say wha?" Scott asked
"This is Horny Heaven, Ode to Orgasm, Pick a Perversion." TheSpook proudly held his arms out.
"Aha, the Red Light District," Scott added dryly.
"Don't take the romance out of it, this is sleaze at it's best. Believe me I know." Somehow Scott had no doubts. With the way Spook was passionately describing the specific acts and services available within the 10 square block hotbed of sex, Scott knew that the Spook was no novice. They grabbed a couple of Heinekens from a bar and slowly strolled down one side of the carnal canal.
"I was going to go to the Yab Yub tonight, but since you've never been here before, I figured I owed you a tour."
"Yab Yub? Am I supposed to know . . ."
"The biggest bestest baddest whorehouse in Amsterdam," said Spook exuberantly.
"O.K., fine, and this is . . ."
"The slums."
"Thanks a lot," Scott said sarcastically.
"No, this is for middle class tourist sex. Yab Yub is first class but this'll do me just fine. How about you? Ready for some serious debauching?" The Spook queried.
"Huh?" Scott laughed anxiously. "Oh, I don't know, I've never been terribly fond of hookers."
"First time when I was 13. My uncle took me to a whorehouse for my birthday. Shit," the Spook fondly grinned at the memory. "I'll never forget the look on my mom's face when he told her. She lectured him for a week. Christ," he paused. "It's so funny, you know. My uncle's gay."
Scott was enjoying the conversation and the company of the Spook. Americans meeting up with kindred Americans in a foreign land is a breath of fresh air and the Spook provided that.
Scott window shopped as they walked, sidestepping the very few venturesome cars which attempted to penetrate the horny humanity on the crowded cobblestone streets. The variety of sexual mate- rials was beyond comprehension. Spook seemed to be avidly fluent in their description and application. In one window, a spiked dildo of emmense girth and length dominated the display. Scott grimaced at the weapon while the Spook commented on it's possible uses at an adult sit'n'spin party.
"Here's the live sex show," the Spook said invitingly. "Pretty wild. Look at the pictures." Scott leaned over to view a set of graphic photographs that would have caused the Meese Commission on Pornography to double dose on its Geritol.
"Damn, they show this stuff on the street, huh?" Asked the sur- prised Scott. He wasn't naive, it was just quite a shock to see such graphic sexuality in such a concentration and in such an open manner. On Sundays when the Red Light District is closed until 6 P.M., many Dutch families use the window dressings as the textbook for their children's' sex education. "No, let's keep going," Scott said unconvinced he would partake of the pleasures.
"Isn't this great?" The Spook blurted out as Scott was looking in the window of one of the hundred plus sex shops. "I just love it. Remember I was telling you about freedom in Amsterdam? It's kind of like the hacker's ethic."
Spook was going to equate sex and hacking? "Is that 'cause all hacker's are hard up?" Scott laughed.
"No, dig it." The Spook suddenly stopped to face Scott. "Free- dom, total freedom implies and requires responsibility. Without that, the system would collapse into chaotic anarchy. Hacking is a manifestation of freedom. Once we have cracked a system, and are in it, we have the freedom to do anything we want. But that freedom brings responsibility too, and, just like with sex so freely available, legally, it must be handled with care." Spook was sermonizing again, but was making more sense. His parallels were concise and poignant.
They walked further into the heart of the District and the Spook was constantly distracted by the quantity of red lights over the basement and first floor windows. He wanted to closely examine the contents of every one. In each window was a girl, sometimes two, clad in either a dental floss bathing suit or a see through penoire. Scott enjoyed the views, but thought that the Spook was acting somewhat obsessively. The calm, professional, knowledge- able hacker had reverted into a base creature, driven by hormonal compulsion. Or then again, maybe they were just stoned.
"I gotta pick the right one, just the right one," the Spook said. "Let's see what else is available. Got to find you a good one, too."
Scott shook his head. "I don't know . . ."
"What, you don't wanna get laid? What's the matter with you?"The Spook couldn't believe his ears.
The sheer intensity of the omnipresent sexual stimulation gave Scott the urge to pause and ask himself why. The desire was physically manifest, but the psychology of hookers; it wasn't his style. In the three years since he and Maggie had split, Scott occassioned to spend time with many ladies. He had kept himself in reasonable shape without doing becoming fanatic about it, and his high metabolism helped keep the body from degenerating ahead of schedule. So he had had his share of companionship and oppor- tunity, but right now he was enjoying the freedom of his work and the pleasures that that offered. If a woman was in the cards, so be it, but it was not essential at the moment.
"Nothing, it's just that, well, I prefer to know the lady, if you know what I mean."
"Oh, no problem!" The Spook had an answer. "That's an all night- er and will cost you 1000 guilders."
"No, no," Scott said quickly. "That's not it. I just don't get a charge from hookers. Now, if some friends set it up to like a real pick-up, at the beach, a bar, whatever, as long as I didn't know. That could prove interesting. Hmmmm." He smiled to himself. "But honestly? I been a couple of times, just for giggles. And boy was it giggles."
Scott laughed out loud at the memory. "The first time it was a friend's birthday and a bunch of us put up enough to get him laid at the Chicken Ranch." That was the evening Scott had lost almost two hours of his life on the drive back to Vegas. He speculated to himself, in private, that he may been abducted by alien creatures from a UFO. Right.
"I know the place," added the Spook.
"I was designated drunk driver so I drove him over to the high desert in the company van, about an hour's drive. Before we went in I insisted on a couple of beers. He was getting laid and I was nervous. Go figure. At any rate, the security cameras let us in and two very attractive ladies in slinky gowns lead us over to the couch. They immediately assumed that we were both there for, well, the services. I was too embarrassed to say no, that I wasn't interested, but then out came a line of 20 of the most gorgeous girls you could imagine. The madam, I forget her name, stepped in and begged our indulgence for the interruption. It seems, she said, that the BBC was filming a documentary on broth- els, and they had a camera crew in the next room, and would we mind too terribly much if they filmed us?" Scott feigned extreme shock.
"Filmed you? For TV? Even I won't go that far," the Spook said impressed with Scott's story. "My movies are all first run private. Alphabetical from Adelle to Zelda."
"Not film that, pervert!" He had pegged the Spook. "They only filmed the selection process, the initial meetings and then the walk down the hallways to the bedrooms."
"So what'd you do?" The Spook asked with interest.
"We did the camera bit, Jim got laid and I take the fifth."
"You chicken shit asshole," hollered the laughing Spook.
Scott took that as a compliment from the male slut to whom he was speaking. "Listen, that was a long time ago, before I was mar- ried, and I don't want it to screw up our divorce. Three years of bliss."
The Spook kept laughing. "You really are a home boy, huh?" He gasped for air. They continued down a side street and back up the Oude Zijds Achterburgwal, the other main canal in the Dis- trict, so Spook could check out more windows. Those with the curtain drawn indicated that either services were being rendered or that it was lunch hour. Hard to tell.
As they passed the Guys and Gals Sex Shop, the Spook abruptly stopped and stepped back toward the canal. He whistled to him- self in appreciation of the sex goddesses that had captured his attention. In the basement window was a stunning buxom brunette, wearing an invisible g-string and bra. She oozed sexuality with her beckoning lips and fingers when she spotted the Spook's interest. In the first floor window above the brunette were two perfectly voluptuous poster blondes, in matching transparent peignoirs. They too, saw the Spook, and attempted to seduce him to their doorway. Scott was impressed that the ladies were so attractive.
"Some sweet meat, huh?" Said the Spook ogling his choices. "Well are you or aren't you?" He asked with finality. "I'm all systems go. You get first choice: 2 from window A or 1 from window B. What'll it be?"
Scott responded immediately. "I got a safer way. There are five billion people on the planet, and at any given time at least a million have to be having sex. So all I have to do is tune into the Planetary Consciousness, the ultimate archetype, and have an orgasm anytime I want."
"You're a sick mother," laughed the Spook. "Transcendental group sex. At least I can tell the difference between pussy and pray- ing." He asked Scott again to pick a girl.
"I have to pass. It's just not my thing." Spook glared at him askance. "No really, go ahead. I'm a bit tired, I just arrived this morning." He had forgotten to take his 3 hour afternoon nap and it was close to 6 in the morning body time. "I'll see you at the conference tomorrow. All right?"
"Fuckin' A!" The Spook beamed. "I get 'em all." He motioned to the girls that he would like to hire all three of them, at once. They indicated that that would be a fine idea. "Listen, I don't mean to be rude, but . . ." the Spook said to Scott as he pro- ceeded up the stairs to meet the female triumvirate. He turned briefly in the open doorway with two of the girls tugging at his clothes. "Scott! What happens if the medium or the message gets sick? Think about it." The door closed behind the Spook as the girls shed their clothes.
"Medium? Jeez you are really fucked," laughed Scott. "Pervert!"He called out as the window curtains closed.
Scott got directions to the Eureka! from a live sex show sales- man. For all the walking he and the Spook had done, miles and miles, it was odd that they had ended up only a few blocks away from the hotel. Ah, but that would figure, thought Scott. The Sex Starved Spook was staying at the Europa around the corner from Sin Street. Scott rolled a joint of his own to enjoy for the pleasant evening promenade home along the canals. Spook, what a character. In one breath, perfectly rational, but then the Jekyll and Hyde hormone hurricane. Wow.
What Scott Mason could never have imagined, indeed quite the opposite, was that the Spook was unable to respond to the three very attentive ladies he had hired for that very purpose. Noth- ing. No matter what stimuli they effected, the Spook's brain could not command his body to respond. His confusion alternated with embarrassment which made the problem only worse. Never before had the Spook had such a problem. Never. One of the ladies spoke to him kindly. "Hey, it happens to everyone once in a while." At hearing that he jumped up, removed the loose condom and zipped his pants while screaming, "Not to me. It doesn't happen to me!"
Scott did not know that the Spook bolted into the street and started running, in panic, away from the scene of his most pri- vate of failures. He ran all the way, in fact beating Scott to his hotel. He was driven by the terror of the first sexual failure in his life. The Spook felt emasculated as he sought a rationalization that would allow him to retain a shred of digni- ty.
He was used to commanding women, not being humiliated by them. What was wrong? Women fell all over him, but why this? This of all things? The Spook fell asleep on the top of his bed with his clothes on.
Scott did not know that he would not be seeing the Spook tomor- row.
* * * * *
Wednesday, January 6Washington, D.C.
"Eight more!" exclaimed Charlie Sorenson into Martin Templer's face. "What the hell is going on?" The private office on twenti- eth and "L" Street was well guarded by an efficient receptionist who believed she worked for an international import export firm. Consulting offices were often easier for senior intelligence officials to use for clandestine, unrecorded meetings than one's own office. In the interest of privacy, naturally.
The two NSA and CIA agents from "P" Street held their clandestine meeting in a plain, windowless office meagerly furnished with a desk, a couple of chairs and a file cabinet.
Charlie turned his back on Templer and sighed. "I'm sorry, Marty. It's not you." He paced to the other side of the small confining room. "I'm getting pressure from all sides. That damned FBI guy is making a nuisance of himself. Asking too many questions. The media smells a conspiracy and the Director is telling me to ignore it." Sorenson stood in front of Templer. "And, now, no, it's not bad enough, but 8 more of the mothers go off. Shit!" He slammed his fist onto the desk.
"We can explain one to the Pentagon, but nine?" Martin asked skeptically.
"See what I mean?" Sorenson pointed.
Sorenson and Templer attended the ECCO and CERT roundups twice a week since they began after the first EMP-T explosion.
"These are the Sats?" Templer leaned over to the desk. Corners of several high resolution satellite photographs sneaked out from a partially open folder. Sorenson opened the folder and spread the photos across the surface. They weren't optical photographs, but the familiar map shapes of the central United States were visible behind swirls and patterns of a spectrum of colors. The cameras and computer had been instructed to look at selected bandwidths, just as infrared vision lets one see at night. In this case, though, the filters excluded everything but frequen- cies of the electromagentic spectrum of interest.
"Yeah," Sorenson said, pointing at one of the photos. "This is where we found the first one." On one of the photos, where an outline of the United States was visible, a dot of fuzzy light was visible in the Memphis, Tennessee area.
"That's an EMP-T bomb?" asked Templer.
"The electromagnetic signature, in certain bandwidths is the same as from a nuclear detonation." Sorenson pulled another photo out. It was a computer enhanced blowup of the first satellite photo. The bridges across the Mississippi were clearly visible. The small fuzzy dot from the other photograph became a larger fuzzy cloud of white light.
"I didn't know we had geosyncs over us, too," Templer said light- ly.
"Officially we don't," Sorenson said seriously. Then he showed his teeth and said, "unofficially we have them everywhere."
"So who was hit?"
"Here?" He pointed at Memphis. "Federal Express. A few hours ago. They're down. Can't say when they'll be back in business. Thank God no one was killed. They weren't so lucky in Texas."
Sorenson pulled a couple more photographs and a fuzzy dot and it's fuzzy cloud mate were clearly visible in the Houston area. "EDS Computers," said Sorenson. "Six dead, 15 injured. They do central processing for hundreds of companies. Every one, gone. And then here." He scattered more photos with the now recogniz- able fuzzy white dots.
"Mid-State Farm Insurance, Immigration and Naturalization, Na- tional Bank, General Inter-Dynamics, CitiBank, and the Sears mail order computers." Sorenson spoke excitedly as he listed the latest victims of the magnetic cardiac arrest that their computer systems, and indeed, their entire organization suffered.
"Press?"
"Like stink on shit."
"What do they know?"
"Too much."
"What can we do?"
"Get to the bottom of this before Mason does."
****************************************************************
Thursday, January 7Amsterdam, Holland
The following morning Scott awoke without telephone intervention by the front desk. He felt a little on the slow side, an observa- tion he attributed to either the time difference, not the jet lag, or the minor after effect of copius cannabis consumption. The concierge called a cab and Scott told the driver where he thought he was going. Ya, no problem, it's a short ride.
To Scott's surprise he found himself passing by the same sex emporium where he had left the Spook last evening. Scott reminded himself to ask Spook how it went. The taxi stopped in front of an old building that had no signs of use. It was number 44, but just in case, Scott asked the driver to wait a moment. He walked up the door and finding no bell, rapped on the heavy wooden door.
"Ya?" A muffled voice asked through the door.
"Is Jon there? This is Scott Mason." Scott knowingly looked at the cab driver.
"Who?"
Scott looked at the number again and then remembered what Jon had told him. "Sorry. This is Repo Man. Kirk said you'd expect me."
"Ah, ya! Repo Man." The door opened and Scott happily waved off the cab. "Welcome, please, come in." Scott entered a dark chamber as the door closed behind him. "I am Clay, that's French for key."
Wonderful, thought Scott. "Thanks for the invite. Is Jon here?"
"Everyone is here."
"I thought it didn't begin until eleven," Scott said looking at his watch.
"Ah, ya, well," the Dutch accented Clay said. "It is difficult to stop sometimes. We have been here all night."
Scott followed Clay up a darkened flight of steps. At mid land- ing Clay opened a door and suddenly the dungeon-like atmosphere vanished. Inside the cavernous room were perhaps 200 people, mostly men, excitedly conversing and huddling over computers of every imaginable model. The high ceiling was liberally dressed with fluorescent tubing which accentuated the green hues from many of the computer monitors. The walls were raw brick and the sparse decorations were all computer related. Windows at the two ends of the building added enough daylight to take some of the edge off of the pallid green aura.
"What should I do?" Asked Scott looking around the large room which was probably overcrowded by modern safety counts.
"The Flying Dutchman said he will see you a little later," Clay said. "Many of our members know Repo Man is a reporter, and you are free to look and ask anything. Please enjoy yourself." Clay quickly disappeared into the congregation.
Scott suddenly felt abandoned and wished he could disappear. Like those dreams where you find yourself stark naked in a public place. He felt that his computer naivete was written all over his face and he would be judged thus, so instead he tried to ignore it by perusing the walls. He became amused at the selec- tion of art, poster art, Scotch taped to the brick.
The first poster had Daffy Duck, or reasonable facsimile thereof, prepared to bring a high speed sledgehammer in contact with a keyboard. "Hit any key to continue," was the simple poster's message. Another portrayed a cobweb covered skeleton sitting behind a computer terminal with a repairman standing over him asking a pertinent question. "System been down long?"
One of the ruder posters consisted of Ronald Reagan with a super- imposed hand making a most obscene manual gesture. The poster was entitled, "Compute This!"
Scott viewed the walls as if in an art gallery, not a hackers convention. He openly laughed when he saw a poster from the National Computer Security Center, a working division of the National Security Agency. A red, white and blue Uncle Sam, finger pointing, beckoned, "We want YOU! to secure your computer." In an open white space on the poster someone wrote in, "Please list name and date if you have already cracked into an NSA computer." Beneath were a long list of Hacker Handles with the dates they had entered the super secret agency's comput- ers. Were things really that bad, Scott asked himself.
"Repo Man?"
Scott turned quickly to see a large, barrel chested, red haired man with an untamed beard in his early forties approach him rapidly. The man was determined in his gait. Scott answered, "Yes . . .?
"Ya, I'm the Flying Dutchman," he said hurriedly in a large boom- ing voice. "Welcome." He vigorously shook Scott's hand with a wide smile hidden behind the bushy red face. "You enjoyed Am- sterdam last night, ya?" He expected a positive answer. Sex was no crime here.
"Well," Scott blushed. "I must say it was a unique experience," he said carefully so as not to offend Holland's proud hosts. "But I think the Spook had more fun than I did."
The Flying Dutchman's hand went limp. "Spook? Did you saySpook?" His astonishment was clear.
"Yeah, why?" Scott asked.
"The Spook? Here? No one has seen him in years."
"Yeah, well he's alive and well and screwing his brains out with three of Amsterdam's finest," Scott said with amusement. "What's the big deal?"
"The Spook, ya this is goot," the Flying Dutchman said clapping his hands together with approval. "He was the greatest phreak of his day. He retired years ago, and has only been seen once or two times maybe. He is a legend."
"A phreak?"
"Oh, ya, ya. A phreak," he said speaking rapidly. "Before home computers, in the 1960's and 1970's, hacking meant fighting the phone company. In America you call it Ma Bell, I believe. Cap- tain Crunch was the epitome of phone phreaks."
These names were a bit much, thought Scott, but might add a sense of levity to his columns. "Captain Crunch?" Scott asked with skepticism.
"Ya, Captain Crunch. He blew the plastic whistle from a Captain Crunch cereal box into the phone," the Flying Dutchman held an invisible whistle to his lips. "And it opened up an inside line to make long distance calls. Then he built and sold Blue Boxes which recreated the tones to make free calls."
"Phreaking and computer hacking, they're the same?"
"Ya, ya, especially for the older hackers." The Flying Dutchman patted himself on the stomach. "You see hacking, some call it cracking, is taking a system to its limit. Exploring it, master- ing the machine. The phones, computers, viruses, it's all hack- ing. You understand?"
"Spook called hacking a technique for investigating new spontane- ously generated lifeforms. He said a network was a living being. We got into quite an argument about it." Scott sounded mildly derisive of the theory.
The Dutchman crossed his arms, grinned wide and rocked back and forth on his heels. "Ya, ya. That sounds like the Spook. Cutting to the heart of the issue. Ya, you see, we all have our reasons why we hack, but ya, Spook is right. We forget sometimes that the world is one giant computer, with thousands and millions of arms, just like the brain. The neurons," he pointed at his head, "are connected to each other with synapses. Just like a computer network."
The Flying Dutchman's explanation was a little less ethereal than the Spook's and Scott found himself anticipating further enlight- enment.
"The neuron is a computer. It can function independently, but because it's capacity is tiny, a neuron is really quite limited in what it can achieve alone. The synapse is like the network wire, or phone company wiring. It connects the neurons or com- puters together." The Dutchman spoke almost religiously as he animatedly drew wires and computers in the air to reinforce the concept. "Have you heard of neural networks?"
"Absolutely," Scott said. "The smart chips that can learn."
"Ya, exactly. A neural network is modeled after the brain, too. It is a very large number of cells, just like the brain's cells, that are only connected to each other in the most rudimentary way."
"Like a baby's brain?" Scott offered.
"Ya, ya, just like a baby. Very good. So like the baby, the neural net grows connections as it learns. The more connections it makes, the smarter it gets."
"Both the baby and the network?"
"Ya," Dutchman laughed. "So as the millions of neural connec- tions are made, some people learn skills that others don't and some computers are better suited to certain tasks than others. And now there's a global neural network growing. Millions more computers are added and we connect them together, until any computer can talk to any other computer. Ya, the Spook is very much right. The Network is alive, and it is still learning."
Scott was entering a world where the machines, the computers, were personified, indeed imbued with a life of their own by their creators and their programmers. A highly complex world where inter-relatedness is infinitely more important than the specific function. Connections are issue. Didn't Spook remind him that the medium is the message?
But where, questioned Scott, is the line between man and machine? If computers are stupid, and man must program them to give them the appearance of intelligence, then the same must be true of the Network, the global information network. Therefore, when a piece of the Network is programmed to learn how to plan for future Network expansion and that piece of the Network calls another computer on the Network to inquire as to how it is answering the same problem for different conditions, don't man and machine merge? Isn't the Network acting as an extension of man? But then, a hammer is a tool as well, and no one calls a hammer a living being.
Unto itself it is not alive, Scott reasoned. The Network merely emulates the growth patterns and behavior of the cranial highway system. He was ready to concede that a network was more alive than a hammer, but he could not bring himself to carry the analo- gy any further yet.
"That gives me a lot to think about," Scott assured the Dutchman.
"Ya, ya, it does. Do you understand quantum physics?"
What the hell would make him ask that question, thought Scott. "I barely passed Quantum 101, the math was too far out for me, but, yes," he laughed kindly, "I do remember the basics. Very basic."
"Goot. In the global Network there is no way to predict where the next information packet will be sent. Will it start here," the Dutchman motioned to his far left, "or here? There's no way to know. All we can say, just as in physics, is that there is a probability of data being transferred between any two points. Chance. And we can also view the Network in operation as both a wave and a particle."
"Wait," stopped Scott. "You've just gone over my head, but I get the point, I think. You and your associates really believe that this global Network is an entity unto itself and that it is growing and evolving on its own as we speak?"
"Ya, exactly. You see, no one person is responsible for the Network, its growth or its care. Like the brain, many different regions control their own piece of the Network. And, the Network can still function normally even if pieces of it are disconnect- ed. The split brain studies."
"And you're the caretakers for the Network?" doubted Scott.
"No. As I said we all have our reasons. The common denominator is that we treat the Network as an incredibly powerful organism about which we know very, very little. That is our function - to learn."
"What is it that you do? For a living?"
"Ah, ya. I am Professor of Technological Sociology at the Uni- versity of Amsterdam. The original proposal for my research came from personal beliefs and concerns; about the way the human race has to learn to cope in the face of great technology leaps. NATO is funding the research."
"NATO," exclaimed Scott. "They fund hacking?"
"No," laughed the Dutchman. "They know that hacking is necessary to gather the raw data my research requires, so they pretend not to notice or care. What we are trying to do is predict what the Baby, the global Network will look and act like when it grows up."
"Isn't crystal ball gazing easier?"
"Ya, it may be," the Dutchman agreed. "But now, why don't you look around? I am sure you will find it most educational."
The Dutchman asked again about the Spook. "Is he really here inAmsterdam?" Yup! "And he said he'd be here today?" Yup! "TheSpook, at the conference? He hasn't made an appearance in years."Well, that's what he told me, he'd be here.
Scott profusely thanked his host and assured him that yes, he would ask for anything he needed. Thank you. Kirk had been vindicated, thought Scott who had expected a group of pimply faced adolescents with nerd shirts to be bouncing around like Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale.
Scott slowly explored the tables loaded with various types of computer gear. IBM clones were the most common, but an assort- ment of older machines, a CP/M or two, even a Commodore PET proved that expensive new equipment was not needed to become a respected hacker. Scott reminded himself that this group was the elite of hackerdom. These were the Hacker's Hackers.
In his discussions with Kirk, Scott figured he would see some of the tools of the trade. But he had no idea of the level of sophistication that was openly, and perhaps, illegally, being demonstrated. Then again, maybe that's why they hold their Hacker Ho Downs in Amsterdam.
Scott learned something very critical early on.
"Once you let one of us inside your computer, it's all over. The system is ours." The universal claim by hackers.
Scott no longer had any trouble accepting that. "So the securi- ty guy's job," one short balding middle aged American hacker said, "is to keep us out. I'm a cracker." What's that? "The cracker is kind of like a safecracker, or lock picker. It's my job to figure out how to get into the computers." Scott had to stifle a giggle when he found out that this slight man's handle was appropriately Waldo.
Waldo went on to explain that he was a henpecked CPA who needed a hobby that would bore his wife to tears. So he locked himself in the basement, far away from her, and got hooked on computers. He found that rummaging through other computers was an amusing alternative to watching Honeymooner reruns while his wife kvetched. After a while, he said he discovered that he had a talent for cracking through the front doors of computers. On the professional hacker circuit that made Waldo a valuable commodity. The way it works, he explained, was that he would trade access codes for outlines of the contents of the computers. If he wanted to look further, he maintained a complete indexing system on the contents of thousands of computers world wide. He admit- ted it was the only exciting part of his life. "The most fun a CPA has," he said calmly, "is cutting up client's credit cards. But me," he added proudly, "I've been in and out of the IRS computers more times than Debbie did it in Dallas."