The Hacker

Michel Amato, better known by his stage name The Hacker, is a French electroclash and techno producer who has worked extensively with Miss Kittin. His work has been influenced by electro artists like Kraftwerk, new wave artists such as The Cure and Depeche Mode, as well as the French rave scene of the early 1990s. His artist name comes from the Jeff Mills' track of the same name.

Career

The Hacker started making music in 1989 at the age of 17 in Grenoble, France. At the time, Duran Duran was an early influence, but he later discovered the darker side of electro through such electronic body music groups like Cabaret Voltaire and D.A.F.. In 1993, The Hacker took on the hardcore side of electro and released a few 12”s with Benoit Bollini under the name XMF.

In 1995, he made his own music in classic Detroit styled after Jeff Mills. His first tracks were released on the Ozone and Interface labels. Three years later, The Hacker founded his own label, Goodlife Records (named from a classic track from Inner City), with his friends Oxia and Alex Reynaud. However, he also released tracks on other labels such as "A Strange Day" on UMF and "Method Of Force" on Sativae. His debut album Mélodies En Sous-Sol (spring 2000) echoes New Order and Dopplereffekt.

Cyberchase

Cyberchase is an American–Canadian animated television series that premiered on January 21, 2002, on PBS Kids.

The series focuses around three Earth kids, Jackie, Matt, and Inez, who are brought into Cyberspace, a digital universe, to protect it from the evil Hacker. Using math in application with problem-solving skills, environment and weather, they are able to prevent Hacker from causing any more harm. In Cyberspace, they meet Digit, a cybird that helps the kids on their mission to save Cyberspace.

The series was created by Thirteen. In July 2010, after the season eight finale, PBS Kids put Cyberchase on hiatus for unknown reasons, but on their official Facebook page, Cyberchase announced the return of the show with a new season that premiered on November 4, 2013.

On February 10, 2015, Gilbert Gottfried, the voice of Digit, announced that five new season 10 episodes were expected to be broadcast in the latter half of 2015. Season 10 premiered on November 9, 2015.

Premise

When three average Earth kids, Jackie, Matt, and Inez accidentally allow the Hacker access to Motherboard, the supreme ruler of Cyberspace, she becomes severely weakened by a virus. The kids are brought into Cyberspace in an effort to protect the world from the Hacker and his clumsy assistants Buzz and Delete until a cure is found. They join forces with Digit, and later many more Cybercitizens that turn out to be great friends who are willing to fight for Motherboard.

The Hacker Crackdown

The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier is a work of nonfiction by Bruce Sterling first published in 1992.

The book discusses watershed events in the hacker subculture in the early 1990s. The most notable topic covered is Operation Sundevil and the events surrounding the 1987-1990 war on the Legion of Doom network: the raid on Steve Jackson Games, the trial of "Knight Lightning" (one of the original journalists of Phrack), and the subsequent formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The book also profiles the likes of "Emmanuel Goldstein" (publisher of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly), the former Assistant Attorney General of Arizona Gail Thackeray, FLETC instructor Carlton Fitzpatrick, Mitch Kapor, and John Perry Barlow.

In 1994, Sterling released the book for the Internet with a new afterword.

Historical perspective

Though published in 1992, and released as a freeware, electronic book in 1994, the book offers a unique and colorful portrait of the nature of "cyberspace" in the early 1990s, and the nature of "computer crime" at that time. The events that Sterling discusses occur on the cusp of the mass popularity of the Internet, which arguably achieved critical mass in late 1994. It also encapsulates a moment in the information age revolution when "cyberspace" morphed from the realm of telephone modems and BBS' into the Internet and the World Wide Web.