Most founding members of progsoc know real-life hacking stories that are
much more interesting than anything you can find in print - which is
not a good medium for reading about hacker culture, being the ephemeral
and amorphous thing it is. Try comp.risks instead.
Clifford Stoll might not be a good beginners' source, since his current
views on hacking and the Internet are very unromantic and bleak (but
not unrealistic).
-- Iain Sinclair c/- axolotl@nospam.socs.uts.edu.au