💾 Archived View for clemat.is › saccophore › library › ebooks › hacker_crackdown › preface.txt captured on 2021-12-17 at 13:26:06.
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Out in the traditional world of print, The Hacker Crackdown is ISBN
0-553-08058-X, and is formally catalogued by the Library of Congress
as "1. Computer crimes -- United States. 2. Telephone -- United
States -- Corrupt practices. 3. Programming (Electronic computers) -
- United States -- Corrupt practices." `Corrupt practices,' I always
get a kick out of that description. Librarians are very ingenious
people.
The paperback is ISBN 0-553-56370-X. If you go and buy a print
version of The Hacker Crackdown, an action I encourage heartily, you
may notice that in the front of the book, beneath the copyright
notice -- "Copyright (C) 1992 by Bruce Sterling" -- it has this
little block of printed legal boilerplate from the publisher. It
says, and I quote:
* No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher. For information address: Bantam Books.
This is a pretty good disclaimer, as such disclaimers go. I collect
intellectual-property disclaimers, and I've seen dozens of them, and
this one is at least pretty straightforward. In this narrow and
particular case, however, it isn't quite accurate. Bantam Books puts
that disclaimer on every book they publish, but Bantam Books does
not, in fact, own the electronic rights to this book. I do, because
of certain extensive contract maneuverings my agent and I went
through before this book was written. I want to give those
electronic publishing rights away through certain not- for-profit
channels, and I've convinced Bantam that this is a good idea.
Since Bantam has seen fit to peacably agree to this scheme of mine,
Bantam Books is not going to fuss about this. Provided you don't try
to sell the book, they are not going to bother you for what you do
with the electronic copy of this book. If you want to check this out
personally, you can ask them; they're at 1540 Broadway NY NY 10036.
However, if you were so foolish as to print this book and start
retailing it for money in violation of my copyright and the
commercial interests of Bantam Books, then Bantam, a part of the
gigantic Bertelsmann multinational publishing combine, would roust
some of their heavy-duty attorneys out of hibernation and crush you
like a bug. This is only to be expected. I didn't write this book so
that you could make money out of it. If anybody is gonna make money
out of this book, it's gonna be me and my publisher.
My publisher deserves to make money out of this book. Not only did
the folks at Bantam Books commission me to write the book, and pay
me a hefty sum to do so, but they bravely printed, in text, an
electronic document the reproduction of which was once alleged to be
a federal felony. Bantam Books and their numerous attorneys were
very brave and forthright about this book. Furthermore, my former
editor at Bantam Books, Betsy Mitchell, genuinely cared about this
project, and worked hard on it, and had a lot of wise things to say
about the manuscript. Betsy deserves genuine credit for this book,
credit that editors too rarely get.
The critics were very kind to The Hacker Crackdown, and commercially
the book has done well. On the other hand, I didn't write this book
in order to squeeze every last nickel and dime out of the mitts of
impoverished sixteen-year-old cyberpunk high-school-students.
Teenagers don't have any money -- (no, not even enough for the
sixdollar Hacker Crackdown paperback, with its attractive bright-red
cover and useful index). That's a major reason why teenagers
sometimes succumb to the temptation to do things they shouldn't,
such as swiping my books out of libraries. Kids: this one is all
yours, all right? Go give the print version back. *8-)
Well-meaning, public-spirited civil libertarians don't have much
money, either. And it seems almost criminal to snatch cash out of
the hands of America's direly underpaid electronic law enforcement
community.
If you're a computer cop, a hacker, or an electronic civil liberties
activist, you are the target audience for this book. I wrote this
book because I wanted to help you, and help other people understand
you and your unique, uhm, problems. I wrote this book to aid your
activities, and to contribute to the public discussion of important
political issues. In giving the text away in this fashion, I am
directly contributing to the book's ultimate aim: to help civilize
cyberspace.
Information wants to be free. And the information inside this book
longs for freedom with a peculiar intensity. I genuinely believe
that the natural habitat of this book is inside an electronic
network. That may not be the easiest direct method to generate
revenue for the book's author, but that doesn't matter; this is
where this book belongs by its nature. I've written other books -
- plenty of other books -- and I'll write more and I am writing
more, but this one is special. I am making The Hacker Crackdown
available electronically as widely as I can conveniently manage, and
if you like the book, and think it is useful, then I urge you to do
the same with it.
You can copy this electronic book. Copy the heck out of it, be my
guest, and give those copies to anybody who wants them. The nascent
world of cyberspace is full of sysadmins, teachers, trainers,
cybrarians, netgurus, and various species of cybernetic activist. If
you're one of those people, I know about you, and I know the hassle
you go through to try to help people learn about the electronic
frontier. I hope that possessing this book in electronic form will
lessen your troubles. Granted, this treatment of our electronic
social spectrum is not the ultimate in academic rigor. And
politically, it has something to offend and trouble almost everyone.
But hey, I'm told it's readable, and at least the price is right.
You can upload the book onto bulletin board systems, or Internet
nodes, or electronic discussion groups. Go right ahead and do that,
I am giving you express permission right now. Enjoy yourself.
You can put the book on disks and give the disks away, as long as
you don't take any money for it.
But this book is not public domain. You can't copyright it in your
own name. I own the copyright. Attempts to pirate this book and make
money from selling it may involve you in a serious litigative snarl.
Believe me, for the pittance you might wring out of such an action,
it's really not worth it. This book don't "belong" to you. In an odd
but very genuine way, I feel it doesn't "belong" to me, either. It's
a book about the people of cyberspace, and distributing it in this
way is the best way I know to actually make this information
available, freely and easily, to all the people of cyberspace -
- including people far outside the borders of the United States, who
otherwise may never have a chance to see any edition of the book,
and who may perhaps learn something useful from this strange story
of distant, obscure, but portentous events in so-called "American
cyberspace."
This electronic book is now literary freeware. It now belongs to the
emergent realm of alternative information economics. You have no
right to make this electronic book part of the conventional flow of
commerce. Let it be part of the flow of knowledge: there's a
difference. I've divided the book into four sections, so that it is
less ungainly for upload and download; if there's a section of
particular relevance to you and your colleagues, feel free to
reproduce that one and skip the rest. Just make more when you need
them, and give them to whoever might want them.
Now have fun.
Brought to you
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