You can find former hackers working as security consultants.  "Set a thief to catch a thief," is the old saw.  Trust, however, is a rare commodity outside the mainstream of commerce -- and sometimes even within it.  When the potential for your exposed risk is defined by parameters you neither perceive nor comprehend, all you know is that you paid a crook to tell you that there were no other crooks cheating you. 

Hacking, Computer Security, and The Sociology of Computing

Like many computerists in the 1970s, my knowing how was enough to get a job doing it.  I wrote a book on cryptography for Loompanics in 1979.  In 1984, they asked me for the first of several articles on computer technology and personal freedom.  I wrote about the cases of Craig Neidorf and Steve Jackson.  I interviewed Mitch Kapor and Timothy Leary.  I looked at the possible benefits to computer viruses. I contributed to Computer Underground Digest and 2600 Magazine. I launched my own online publications, GRiD News and Hermes. 

Sociologist Paul Taylor emailed me, as he did many others, and some of my comments appeared in his articles and his book. (Jordan Tim and Paul Taylor. "A Sociology of Hackers," The Sociological Review Volume 46 Issue 4, Pages 757-780. Hackers: Crime in the Digital Sublime, by Paul A. Taylor; Routledge, 1999.)

I also served as one of two technical reviewers for the publication of Secrets of a Superhacker. Some of this material also appeared in trade journals for information systems such as IBM AS 400, DEC VAX and DG Eclipse platforms.  I also followed the development of public information systems serving state legislatures and other government bodies.  Today, we take that for granted.  In 1985, it was more problematic.

Published works on computer security

• LEADING EDGE IDEAS

• "Freedom of Data Processing," Loompanics, January 1987

• "Did Thomas Jefferson Wear Mirrorshades?" Loompanics,  January 1991

• "Civilizing the Electronic Frontier: An Interview with Mitch Kapor," Loompanics, January 1992.

• "Property Rights in Cyberspace," Loompanics, March 1993

• "Online with the Super Hacker," Loompanics, January 1994

• TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENTS

• "Soviet Computer Technology," Defense Computing 1990, Loompanics, 1988.

• "Software Viruses," DG Review, September 1989

• "The Data Superhighway," Telecomputing, March 1991

• "Protecting Data With Cryptography," Focus, April and May 1994

• CITIZENSHIP IN CYBERSPACE

• "Citizen On-Line Access to Government Information,"  The Millennial Whole Earth Catalog (1995), October 1994

• "Democracy Goes Online," Computer User, March 1994

• "Electronic Democracy," Whole Earth Review, Winter 1993

• "The Citizen as Watchdog," PC Today, November 1993

• "Electronic Government," Telecomputing, Nov/Dec 1990

• "On-line Government," Focus, August 1988

• "Computer Aided Legal Research," Greater Lansing Business Monthly, July 1988

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