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Read all about WANK, looks like it came from Australia.

http://www.underground-book.com/download.php3

An *excellent* book on some australian hackers from the 90's. Free, too, though I got a signed copy for really cheap.

http://www.underground-book.com

There is a good book describing the Australian hacking scenes history. Download from:

http://www.underground-book.com/download.php3

`Underground' by Suelette Dreyfus
with research by Julian Assange
475 pages with bibliography
ISBN: 1 86330 595 5

Wouldn't be the first time the AFP have overreacted.

Just got done reading this. When it comes to computer "crime" they do seem to have the approach of trying to swat an ant with a sledgehammer.

They're also a bunch of racist bastards if the book is to be believed.

This is indeed an excellent read and well worth the time - if you want some other online books which discuss the earlier days of computing and hacker culture try these

Free As In Freedom - Sam Williams - A biography of Richard Stallman and an excellent read for those who would like to understand the man a bit more or even understand how GNU and Open Source actually happen. I reccomend this to even people who dislike RMS (as i did) as you will understand the man from a new perspective

The Cathedral and the Bazzar- Eric Raymond - This book has been condemmed and praised by many and provides an intersting look at open source and the different models of software - worth a read

Underground : Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier - Sulette Dreyfuss - A great look inside the world of the cracker and very intersting and compelling to read

There are heaps more out there - post them as you find them - BTW if you have a bit of cash to spend i reccomend Hackers by Steven Levy and Fire in the Valley by freiburger and swain for 2 more great books on computer and PC history

What about:

The Cuckoo's Egg (Cliff Stoll)

and my favorite

Underground?

The events in Cuckoo's Egg (according to Stoll) was the first real eye-opener for the US about the threat from international crackers/hackers, and the book made the whole issue understandable to laypeople. Underground documents the legal cases of many prominent figures in the scene (with a focus on Australia).

The CCC also get a mention in the online book called The Underground: the story of the Australian hacker scene during the 80's and 90's. It's an eye-opening read.

http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/electricCircuits/

Here is a partial list of books published online, that I happened to like enough to bookmark. I find that reading a book on the computer screen is tedious, I mostly use the online version as a reference.

Handbook of applied cryptography: http://www.cacr.math.uwaterloo.ca/hac/

Underground: (I actually haven't read this yet) http://www.underground-book.com/

Netizens: (only partly read this) http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook/

http://www.und.nodak.edu/org/crypto/crypto/army.fi eld.manual/

Big Breach: http://www.antioffline.com/bigbreach/

The Prof's Book: http://frode.home.cern.ch/frode/crypto/Turing/inde x.html

I have a lot of other links also, but my bookmarks have become so nested and folderized that many are lost in there, I really need bookmarks for my bookmarks . . . Anyway, I would suggest that if you find yourself looking for interesting reading online, you will find plenty. If you choose you can find scanned in pdf's of various works on newsgroups and in freenet, etc.

However, my advice is to use the 'net primarily as a way to figure out what to read, and become familar with the local public library. Almost all libraries have inter-library loans which give you access to huge amount of stuff. When I can't get a work that way, I fall back upon checking databases of used bookstore inventories -- http://abe.com/ and http://powellsbooks.com/ are the places I generally go to.

It was posted on Slashdot back in January, so I figured I'd point to it here. Suelette Dreyfus' book "underground" is available in its entirety online. Read the book (or download it to your palm) at this page

And before we even get that far, we'd have all the same people making the fuss about genetically modified food and cloning joining forces with all the people making the fuss about NASA wanting to use nuclear power plants in its probes (and thus causing them instead to rely on overly complex solar arrays that probably contributed nontrivially to the recent Mars probe failures) to try to block the development of said bacteria. It's not natural! What if it goes off-course and crashes here on earth?! (Yeah, sure, in reality probably nothing would happen, but try telling that to someone worked up into (Self-)Righteous Indignation with their emotions firmly behind the wheel. They tried explaining that with the nuclear power plant in that outer-solar-system probe a few years back, as chronicled in the first chapter of that e-book about Australian hackers that was mentioned here in Slashdot a while back, and it didn't work then, no reason it would work for bacteria now or any time soon.) How dare we play God, Frankenstein, other classic movie monsters, etc. etc.

People are all starry-eyed about doing all these science fiction things exactly until it seems likely that they could actually become reality. Then all of a sudden all the (tiny) real and (mostly) imaginary risks cause them to scream bloody murder. Gregory Benford had a great column about this sort of thing in F&SF Magazine in September of last year.

In a very real way, one of the greatest obstacles to our space program is not lack of budget, it's all the protesters who will picket Cape Canaveral at the drop of a nuclear isotope. This is the sort of thing that causes NASA to ditch observatory satellites with at least several months of service left in them just to avoid the one in a ka-zillion chance that someone might be hit by it when it comes down otherwise. This is the sort of thing that makes every space probe and satellite we create nowadays more complicated and thus more likely to failure even before it gets into space. This is the sort of thing that will continue to dog us the more advanced our space program gets. Human nature. Human fear. Human stupidity. Is there a cure? I doubt it. Probably not for at least another couple of generations, until most of the fearmongers have died out and the new youth are more open to that sort of thing--unless the fearmongers pass their fear on to their progeny, of course . . .
--

There are a lot of reviews ("readers" & "critics") linked off www.underground-book.com which seems to be back up now...

If you bothered reading past the first page you would see the above, which I beleive address your concerns. Please note the above quote is from Underground By Suelette Dreyfus with Research by Julian Assange, First Published 1997 by Mandarin. Feel free to find your copy at http://www.underground-book.com/ or a mirror near you.

all persons, living and dead, are purely coincidental. - Kurt Vonnegut

There are a number listed in various slashdot replies, but you can also try sourceforge which has an officialish mirror of the download page.

Note that there are no mirrors of the web-site proper (just the download pages). But google has cached most of the site. A few of the more useful pages:

• Main page
• Critical reviews
• Reader reviews
• Ordering hard-copy on-line from Australian university bookshops (note that amazon.com does *not* stock books published by non-us publishers.. even Random House Australia)

  Otherwise try http://www.underground-book.com in a few days when the deluge is over.

  Happy Reading,
  Julian

There are a number listed in various slashdot replies, but you can also try sourceforge which has an officialish mirror of the download page.

Note that there are no mirrors of the web-site proper (just the download pages). But google has cached most of the site. A few of the more useful pages:

• Main page
• Critical reviews
• Reader reviews
• Ordering hard-copy on-line from Australian university bookshops (note that amazon.com does *not* stock books published by non-us publishers.. even Random House Australia)

  Otherwise try http://www.underground-book.com in a few days when the deluge is over.

  Happy Reading,
  Julian