This book highlights the well known assault on hackers, when law-enforcement officials successfully arrested scores of suspected illicit hackers and other computer-based lawbreakers. The text of the book begins this story at the birth of cyberspace: the invention of the telephone. In this book it is described how the first hackers—teenage boys—were hired as telephone operators who used their technical mastery, low threshold for boredom, and love of pranks to wreak havoc across the phone lines. From phone-related hi-jinks, this book takes the reader into the broader world of hacking and introduces many of the culprits—some who are fighting for a cause, some who are in it for kicks, and some who are traditional criminals after a fast buck.