Operation Sundevil
lorehackinggovernance & risk
The US Secret Service crackdown of May 1990: coordinated raids across fourteen cities that seized bulletin-board systems, computers and floppies from the hacker underground, aimed at credit-card and telephone fraud.
The operation is remembered less for its convictions - few - than for its collateral damage. Agents raided Steve Jackson Games, a tabletop publisher, and seized the manuscript of a cyberpunk role-playing book as a supposed hacking manual; separately, the government's case against Phrack's Craig Neidorf collapsed when the defence showed the 'stolen' $79,449 telephone document could be ordered from the phone company for about thirteen dollars. The twin fiascos convinced Mitch Kapor and John Perry Barlow to found the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and gave Bruce Sterling the book The Hacker Crackdown.
Also known as: sun devil, 1990 hacker crackdown, steve jackson games raid