[[!meta title="The Hacker Crackdown"]] Seleção de trechos [deste livro](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/101): 4154 When rumor about LoD's mastery of Georgia's switching network got 4155 around to BellSouth through Bellcore and telco security scuttlebutt, 4156 they at first refused to believe it. If you paid serious attention to 4157 every rumor out and about these hacker kids, you would hear all kinds 4158 of wacko saucer-nut nonsense: that the National Security Agency 4159 monitored all American phone calls, that the CIA and DEA tracked 4160 traffic on bulletin-boards with word-analysis programs, that the Condor 4161 could start World War III from a payphone. Jocoso, mas premonitório! Mais: 11658 Kapor is a man with a vision. It's a very novel vision which he and 11659 his allies are working out in considerable detail and with great 11660 energy. Dark, cynical, morbid cyberpunk that I am, I cannot avoid 11661 considering some of the darker implications of "decentralized, 11662 nonhierarchical, locally empowered" networking. 11663 11664 I remark that some pundits have suggested that electronic 11665 networking--faxes, phones, small-scale photocopiers--played a strong 11666 role in dissolving the power of centralized communism and causing the 11667 collapse of the Warsaw Pact. 11668 11669 Socialism is totally discredited, says Kapor, fresh back from the 11670 Eastern Bloc. The idea that faxes did it, all by themselves, is rather 11671 wishful thinking. 11672 11673 Has it occurred to him that electronic networking might corrode 11674 America's industrial and political infrastructure to the point where 11675 the whole thing becomes untenable, unworkable--and the old order just 11676 collapses headlong, like in Eastern Europe? 11677 11678 "No," Kapor says flatly. "I think that's extraordinarily unlikely. In 11679 part, because ten or fifteen years ago, I had similar hopes about 11680 personal computers--which utterly failed to materialize." He grins 11681 wryly, then his eyes narrow. "I'm VERY opposed to techno-utopias. 11682 Every time I see one, I either run away, or try to kill it." 11683 11684 It dawns on me then that Mitch Kapor is not trying to make the world 11685 safe for democracy. He certainly is not trying to make it safe for 11686 anarchists or utopians--least of all for computer intruders or 11687 electronic rip-off artists. What he really hopes to do is make the 11688 world safe for future Mitch Kapors. This world of decentralized, 11689 small-scale nodes, with instant global access for the best and 11690 brightest, would be a perfect milieu for the shoestring attic 11691 capitalism that made Mitch Kapor what he is today.