businesses and the federal government. An official at the National Security Council declared that hacking's ômajor threat is from foreign countriesö (Koerner, 1999, p. 47).
Many hackers from the first two groups have become famous. In an incident that garnered considerable attention, a UC Berkeley computer scientist battled an East German hacker seeking to steal military secrets from a university computer during the 1980s. In separate books, author Jonathan Littman detailed the exploits-ùand ultimate capture by federal authorities-ùof two of the most famous hackers-ùKevin Mitnick and Kevin Poulsen.
At age 17, Poulsen hacked his way into Department of Defense computers (on Arpanet, the forerunner of the Internet). He perused classified files, then moved onto the computer network at UCLA (Littman, 1997, pp. 27-28). ôPoulsen pulled off some of the coolest hacks in cyberspace. Won Porches and $20,000 cash prizes by taking over radio station phone lines. Messed with secret FBI and national security wiretapsö (Littman, 1996, p. 23).
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