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bedrooms hacking into remote computers. Armchair psychology suggests that the fiercer the handle, the meeker the kid behind it. There is a huge element of role-playing in hacking, a need to be accepted among the community not as the person one really is but as the person suggested by the handle. Hacking brings out the Mr Hyde in all the little technological Dr Jekylls.

Adopting a handle is essential for a novice to be accepted on pirate hacker boards, where he can access information about his hobby and pass on messages to other hackers. The computer underground is amorphous; any structure it does have is provided by communication within the community through the boards and a variety of other technical modes - MBXs and, in the US, voice mail boxes, conference bridges and even loop-around-pairs, the old phreaker technology. A handle is a hacker's badge of belonging, his calling card. The pirate boards serve as electronic meeting places, the high-tech equivalent of hanging out at the mall.

A board - or BBS (Bulletin Board System) - is simply a computer loaded with some specialist software and linked to a modem. Boards are generally owned and operated by a single person, who becomes the system operator and controls access. There may be hundreds in existence - the majority are in North America - and they come and go, as does their status within the hacker community. At any given time there may be only two or three 'hot boards' that attract the top hackers. Getting access to one of these boards is a sign of having arrived in the computer underground, a mark of respect. Belonging to a particular board means belonging to the group that uses the board: it means becoming part of what one US attorney called 'a high-tech street gang'.

Gaining access to a pirate board is a little like joining any gang: prospective members have to prove themselves through their willingness to participate in the gang's activities and their understanding of the subculture. Hacker boards are never publicized. Gaining the dial-up is itself a sign that a potential member has some credibility within the community, but that alone is not enough; no self-respecting pirate system operator wants his board cluttered up with 'lamers', kids who pretend to be hackers but don't really have what it takes.

The registration procedure on pirate boards is a careful process.

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