of destruction, but like most most hurricanes heading directly into a continental land-mass it had started out big and ended up small. News reports followed this pattern, with a large amount of material on its initial impact, but little or nothing about subsequent events. Finally I obtained detailed time by velocity weather maps from the National Reconnaissance Office, which showed the remaining Hugo epicentre ripping through Charlotte NC (pop. 400k) before spending itself on the Carolinas. Database searches turned up a report by Natalie, D. & Ball, W, EIS Coordinator, North Carolina Emergency Management, `How North Carolina Managed Hurricane Hugo' — which was used to flesh out the scenes in Chapter 4 describing Par's escape to New York via the Charlotte Airport.

Old Fashioned gum-shoe leg-work, calling every motel in Black Mountain and the surrounding area, revealed that the Black Mountain Motel had changed name, ownership and.. all its staff. Par's story was holding, but in someways I wished it hadn't. We were back to square one in terms of gaining independent secondary confirmation.

Who else could have been involved? There must have been a paper-trail outside of Washington. Perhaps the SS representation in Charlotte had something? No. Perhaps there were records of the warrants in the Charlotte courts? No. Perhaps NC state police attended the SS raid in support? Maybe, but finding walm bodies who had been directly involved proved proved futile. If it was a SS case, they had no indexable records that they were willing to provide. What about the local coppers? An SS raid on a fugitive computer hacker holed up at one of the local motels was not the sort of event that would be likely to have passed unnoticed at the Black Mountain county police office, indexable records or not.

Neither however, were international telephone calls from strangely accented foreign-nationals wanting to know about them. Perhaps the Reds were no-longer under the beds, but in Black Mountain, this could be explained away by the fact they were now hanging out in phone booths. I waited for a new shift at the Black Mountain county police office, hoping against hope, that the officer I had spoken to wouldn't contaminate his replacement. Shamed, I resorted to using that most special of US militia infiltration devices. An American accent and a woman's touch. Suelette weaved her magic. The Black Mountain raid had taken place. The county police had supported it. We had our confirmation.

While this anecdote is a strong account, it's also representative one. Every chapter in underground has many tales just like it. They're unseen, because a book must not just be true in details, but true in feeling.

True to the visible and the invisible. A difficult combination.

Julian Assange

January 2001

[email protected] Literary Freeware: Not for Commercial Use.

Copyright (c) 1997, 2001 Suelette Dreyfus & Julian Assange

This HTML and text electronic version was arranged by Julian Assange <[email protected]> and is based on the printed paper edition.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this publication provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies and distribution is without fee.

Contents.

Acknowledgements viii

Introduction xi

1 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 1

2 The Corner Pub 45

3 The American Connection 84

4 The Fugitive 120

5 The Holy Grail 159

6 Page One, the New York Times 212

7 Judgment Day 244

8 The International Subversives 285

9 Operation Weather 323

10 Anthrax—the Outsider 364

11 The Prisoner's Dilemma 400

Afterword 427 Glossary and Abbreviations 455 Notes 460

Bibliography

[ Page numbers above correspond to the Random House printed edition ]
                             Acknowledgements.

There are many people who were interviewed for this work, and many others who helped in providing documents so vital for fact checking. Often this help invovled spending a considerable amount of time explaining complex technical or legal matters. I want to express my gratitude to all these people, some of whom prefer to remain anonymous, for their willingness to dig through the files in search of yet one more report and their patience in answering yet one more question.

I want to thank the members of the computer underground, past and present, who were interviewed for this book. Most gave me extraordinary access to their lives, for which I am very grateful.

I also want to thank Julian Assange for his tireless research efforts. His superb technical expertise and first-rate research is evidence by the immense number of details which are included in this book.

Three exceptional women — Fiona Inglis, Deb Callaghan and Jennifer Byrne — believed in my vision for this book and helped me to bring it to fruition. Carl Harrison-Ford's excellent editing job streamlined a large and difficult manuscript despite the tight deadline. Thank you also to Judy Brookes.

I am also very grateful to the following people and organisations for
their help (in no particular order): John McMahon, Ron Tencati, Kevin
Oberman, Ray Kaplan, the New York Daily News library staff, the New
York Post library staff, Bow Street Magistrates Court staff, Southwark
Court staff, the US Secret Service, the Black Mountain Police, Michael
Rosenberg, Michael Rosen, Melbourne Magistrates Court staff, D.L
Sellers & Co. staff, Victorian County Court staff, Paul Galbally, Mark
Dorset, Suburbia.net, Freeside Communications, Greg Hooper, H&S
Support Services, Peter Andrews, Kevin Thompson, Andrew Weaver,
Mukhtar Hussain, Midnight Oil, Helen Meredith, Ivan Himmelhoch,
Michael Hall, Donn Ferris, Victorian State Library staff, News Limited
library staff (Sydney), Allan Young, Ed DeHart, Annette Seeber, Arthur
Arkin, Doug Barnes, Jeremy Porter, James McNabb, Carolyn Ford, ATA,
Domini Banfield, Alistair Kelman, Ann-Maree Moodie, Jane Hutchinson,
Catherine Murphy, Norma Hawkins, N. Llewelyn, Christine Assange,
Russel Brand, Matthew Bishop, Matthew Cox, Michele Ziehlky, Andrew
James, Brendan McGrath, Warner Chappell Music Australia, News Limited,
Pearson Williams Solicitors, Tami Friedman, the Free Software
Foundation (GNU Project), and the US Department of Energy Computer
Incident Advisory Capability.

Finally, I would like to thank my family, whose unfailing support, advice and encouragement have made this book possible.

Introduction.

My great aunt used to paint underwater.

Piling on the weighty diving gear used in 1939 and looking like something out of 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, Lucie slowly sank below the surface, with palette, special paints and canvas in hand. She settled on the ocean floor, arranged her weighted painter's easel and allowed herself to become completely enveloped by another world. Red and white striped fish darted around fields of blue-green coral and