THE HACKER'S REVENGE

By JOSHUA QUITTNER

Jonathan Littman has a reputation as a friend of the hackers, one of the few journalists covering the computer underground whom its denizens can trust. Two years ago, for instance, when the capture of America's best-known computer criminal, Kevin Mitnick, was front-page news, it was Littman who got the uber-hacker's inside, as-told-to story and wrote a book, The Fugitive Game, that was sympathetic to Mitnick. Since then, the telephone at the Littman home has rung at all hours of the night with digital oddfellas calling--often collect, from prison--just to chat. "I've even got calls on pay phones from fugitives wanted by the FBI," he says.

But now some hacker wants to get him, in the worst possible way. "I promise you will be held accountable, and I will dedicate every fiber of my being towards retribution," an anonymous messenger vowed by E-mail. "My actions will be far beyond what you will expect and there will be nothing you can do about it."

"It kind of ruined my day," says Littman, who believes the source of the problem is his latest book, The Watchman: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Serial Hacker Kevin Poulsen (Little, Brown). Poulsen was one of the more adept hackers ever to work a keyboard, and the first to be charged with espionage (a charge that was later dropped). At one point he won two $50,000 Porsches by rigging radio contests in Los Angeles. (I'd explain, but you'll have more fun reading the book.) Suffice it to say that the terms of Poulsen's probation specify that he must not touch a computer for three years. Poulsen cooperated with Littman but now he's less than thrilled with how Watchman turned out. He appears to be dealing with it constructively, though, through a friend's Website catalog.com/kevin) which features a parody of the book jacket (The Litt-Man: The Twisted Lies and Writings of Serial Hack Jonathan Littman) and an interactive quiz highlighting "problems" in the narrative.

Now, however, something more than constructive criticism is being offered. Somebody, not Poulsen, has been messing with Littman's Internet access, blocking his E-mail and knocking the page that promotes his book off the Web. If this E-mail threat is to be taken seriously, Littman can expect much worse.

I'm speaking from experience. Two years ago, after I co-wrote a book about hackers, my E-mailbox was vandalized and my home phone number repeatedly rerouted--once to an out-of-state answering machine, once to a phone-sex number, once to 1-800-EAT-S___. It took a year, half a dozen different unlisted numbers and a squad of phone-company security guys with phone taps before the problem mercifully disappeared. And I won't even mention the lawsuit.

Write another hacker book? I'd rather take on the Scientologists. Littman says he's starting to feel the same way. He continues to be intrigued by the subject matter but he thinks the subjects may not be worth the trouble. "If I do another book about hackers, it will probably be fiction," he says. I wonder if even that would help.

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