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BREAKING AND ENTERING

a chemicals company, at nights he had metamorphosed into the Mad Hacker and roamed through computer systems nationwide. To the alarm of the authorities, he was believed to have broken into computers at the Ministry of Defence and MI5, Britain's counter-intelligence security service. More troublesome still, there were messages sent by the Mad Hacker that strongly suggested he had evidence of 'surveillance' carried out against the opposition Labour Party, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and even the British Cabinet. It was unclear who was supposed to be carrying out the surveillance, but it was presumed to be MI5.

When Nick was arrested in 1988, he was interviewed for up to six hours by agents he believes were from the Ministry of Defence and MI5. They were accompanied by an expert from International Computers Limited (ICL), at the time Britain's only independent mainframe computer manufacturer (the company is now controlled by Fujitsu of Japan). Nick was passionate in his admiration for ICL computers; he never hacked anything else. And both the MoD and MI5 use ICLs.

Whiteley's ambition was to buy his own ICL: he especially coveted the 3980, the top-of-the-range mainframe. In his daytime job at Bush Boake Allen, a chemical supplies company, he worked on an ICL 2966, a smaller model, but still a formidable mainframe. Whenever Nick felt his fellow workers were making fun of him - which sometimes he thought they did because he was only an operator, not a real programmer - he would fantasize about the 3980. It was twenty times faster than the 2966 and could support far more individual users. But when Nick told his older brother Christopher about his ambition, the response was laughter; and even Nick had to admit that, on his salary of £200 a week, it would take time to save up the down payment on the £1 million purchase price.

Nick had originally wanted to be a computer programmer or to work in technical support. But without a university degree his chances of becoming a programmer were limited: he would need to go back to college to get the qualifications, a tedious process. So he was an operator, or 'tape monkey', employed to little more than ensure there was enough computer tape in the drive and enough paper in the printer to keep the machine running. BBA had offered Whiteley a

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