At Large

For two years a computer break-in artist known only as "Phantom Dialer" seized control of hundreds - perhaps thousands - of computer networks around the world. Frightened network administrators watched helplessly as the intruder methodically slipped into universities, corporations, banks, and military facilities, including top-secret weapons-research sites. Working up to twenty hours a day, Phantom Dialer obsessively broke into one network after another - and no-one knew who he was or what he was after. Was he a spy? Was he laying the groundwork for a single massive theft? As the number of victims mounted, Phantom Dialer became the subject of the first major investigation of the FBI's new computer-crime squad and one of the biggest manhunts in the history of electronic crime. Though it reads like a thriller, AT LARGE is more than just a spellbinding account of one of the stranger episodes of the electronic 1990s. It is also a sharply observed group portrait of the new wired world and an expose of the technical flaws at its very core.