no other interests; for a look at those, see Appendix B, A Portrait of J. Random Hacker. But hackerdom is defined by the community of interest that has grown up around computers and electronic networks. Indeed, these electronic networks have grown in importance over time.

When I drafted the first version of this preface, in 1983, I expressed some concern that hackerdom might be dying killed off, ironically, by the spread of knowledge about computers. As programming education became more formalized, as the personal computer atomized hacker communities previously knitted together by timesharing, and as the lure of big money in industry siphoned off some of the best and brightest, it seemed as though hackerdom's unique values might be lost.

Though these gloomy predictions were an accurate projection of some trends of that year, they didn't survive an editor's objections and never made it into the first edition. This is perhaps fortunate; now, in 1991, I am happy to report that hacking is most certainly not dead. Some of its traditional vehicles, licit and illicit, have disappeared: the PDP-10 is no longer manufactured, and improved technology and security have made phone phreaking much less intellectually rewarding. But the hacking spirit remains very much alive. The personal computer revolution has made hackers free to hack almost anywhere and the net is the community glue.