Bruce Sterling

Michael Bruce Sterling is an American author and journalist, one of the founders of the cyberpunk movement in science fiction. He edited the 1986 anthology Mirrorshades and wrote novels including Islands in the Net and, with William Gibson, The Difference Engine.

The Hacker Crackdown

In 1992 Sterling published The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier, a non-fiction account of the 1990 U.S. law-enforcement campaign against the hacker underground. It covered the AT&T crash of January 1990, Operation Sundevil, the raid on Steve Jackson Games, the Craig Neidorf E911 trial, and the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. In 1994 Sterling released the book's full text online for free, an early example of an author doing so.

Later work

Sterling has continued to write on technology, design, and security, including a long-running column for Wired.

Timeline

• 1954-04-14Born in Brownsville, Texas.
• 1986Edits the cyberpunk anthology 'Mirrorshades'.
• 1992Publishes 'The Hacker Crackdown'.
• 1994-01Releases 'The Hacker Crackdown' as a free electronic text.