I was working Hacker Services out of bunko--liaison work with computer programmers who come in contact with the law. Helping lost programmers find their way home. Translating jargon to English. It was my first week on the job. My name is Smith, Peter J. I'm a cop.
8:45. I was at home studying WordPerfect when the call came in. Report was there had been a homicide at Sun Jose, some kind of computer conference. The officer on the scene had requested Hacker Services. That's me.
"You may want some backup on this one," Dispatch told me. "You know John Connor?"
"Minor, age 14," I said. "Mother, Sara, institutionalized. Real nutso. Thinks her son is being targeted by androids from the future."
It turned out Dispatch meant another John Connor, a retired Hacker Services officer who, some thought, had gotten in too deep, become half-hacker himself.
9:05. I picked Connor up at his place, the basement of a warehouse adjacent to a Coca-Cola bottling plant. His visible furniture consisted of two computers, a bare mattress, and a '50s-vintage Coke machine. He was the real thing, all right.
On the way to the crime scene Connor gave me some advice on handling hackers.
"Don't throw your authority around. That's very bad form. You can throw the law at them if you know it cold; they respect a proper application of code. They never lie, but their answers may not mean what you think. And don't expect them to volunteer relevant information; they probably won't realize it's relevant."
"Uh-huh. Can I talk to them?"
"Yes, but cut it off if I cough, and let me take over. Like this." He coughed.
9:20. We arrived at Sun Jose Center. The officer on the scene, Tom Graham, met us. "It's two flights up. I been using the stairs. Maybe you guys can work the elevator."
Connor looked at it. "It's binary. We just press 1-0."
"Shouldn't that be 1-1?" I asked as we ascended.
"They start counting at zero."
Tom Graham snapped, "They ought to count in English. Ain't this still America?"
"Barely," Connor answered, as the doors opened on the crime scene.
A slovenly Caucasian, apparently the head hacker, approached us.
"Hello, Lieutenant. How's your daughter's cold?"
"How do you know about my daughter's cold?" I asked.
"Oh, from our tap on your phone. Sorry to hear about the divorce."
Connor coughed. "I'll handle this. Talk to the caterer, Lieutenant Smith."
The caterer turned out to be the only nonprogrammer present. While I was questioning him, a female hacker approached with a piece of paper.
"Lieutenant, we intercepted the report from your lab. Would you like it on disk, or just the hard-copy fax?"
I held out my hand. "Just the fax, ma'am."
Connor was there suddenly. "Let me see that," he said. "Mm-hmm. Just as I suspected. Lieutenant Smith, arrest this man." He was looking at the caterer.
11:45. Back downtown later, I asked Connor what it was in the lab report that tipped him off to the caterer.
He looked embarrassed. "It was a, er, sex crime, Lieutenant," he said. "Programmers don't have sex."
Some say that Michael Crichton's book Rising Sun capitalizes on American xenophobia. If so, Crichton needn't have looked so far away for his aliens. Despite learning to accept computers in the past decade, most Americans still think computer programmers are about as human as Spock.
Michael Swaine editor-at-large
Copyright © 1994, Dr. Dobb's JournalAfterward