By Richard Thieme

In his award-winning science fiction novel, The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester conceived of a world in which"jaunting," or short-distance teleportation, was the norm. In order to jaunt, you had to know exactly where you were, so criminals were kept in a maze-like cave in darkness, denied access to the sense data that would allow them to visualize their location. This intentionally cruel and unusual punishment had nothing to do with the crimes for which prisoners were sentenced.

Participation in the Internet and other computer networks is our version of jaunting. That's how 21st century humankind transcends time and space. Denying a criminal access to computer networks is like breaking his fingers for writing a hold-up note and forbidding him to use a pen. When the crime has had nothing to do with computers or networks in the first place,it's like putting him into a sensory-deprivation tank simply to punish him.

Enter Chris Lamprecht, alias "Minor Threat," a sometime hacker and formerly a programmer, installer, and trouble-shooter for Optical Document Technology in Austin, Texas. Lamprecht is now serving 70 months in a Texas prison for money laundering, although the activities connected to his sentencing included burglary and the theft and sale of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of electronic switching systems and other telephone company equipment. His crimes had nothing to do with hacking, but if the criminal justice system has its way, he will not be able to use a computer connected to a modem or connect to a network when he's freed from prison.

The case illustrates not only the great gulf fixed between those who use the Net and those who don't, but also how the image of hackers as "evil geniuses" can distort the perception and judgement of those who play into the image -- as well as those who fear and misunderstand it.

From the government side, it seems Lamprecht's computer activities were linked to his criminal activities through a bizarre chain of reasoning. Lamprecht once made calls to change the outgoing telephone message on someone's answering machine. He acknowledged this and stopped doing it. The police investigation determined, however, that Lamprecht was "computer literate" and he and his cohorts were "known hackers and had the capability to enter into a computer program and review, extract, and change information." Lamprecht and his pals, particularly friend Jason Copson,had penetrated several private and government computer systems, although "it is unknown if these illegal entries have resulted in monetary gain." (Lamprecht says he never made a dime from his hacking; like most hackers, he explored computer systems for the pleasure of the quest and to learn).

One of Lamprecht's errors while on probation was speaking openly with Copson during a telephone call Copson made from prison. Both men knew the calls were monitored, but discussed nevertheless their desire to "ruin" an Austin cop, Paul Brick. They discussed obtaining his social security number. To prevent them from entering computer systems in search of that social security number, the following stipulation was made:

"Upon release from imprisonment ... for a term of three years, the defendant cannot be employed where he is the installer, programmer, or trouble shooter for computer equipment; may not purchase, possess or receive a personal computer which uses a modem; and may not utilize the Internet or other computer networks."

When he heard these conditions, Lamprecht broke down in the courtroom and cried. They had hit him where it hurt. They deprived him of the only way he knew how to make a living and banished him for three additional years to the wasteland of the caves.

Did the judge, the Honorable Sam Sparks, really understand what he was doing? Did he really intend that Lamprecht should not attend schools that assign email addresses and in some cases insist email be used to submit papers? Did he really intend that he never use a public library online catalog?

Doesn't Sparks know that anyone with a few dollars can buy a social security number in the data marketplace? Besides, good hackers are equally adept at "social engineering." If Lamprecht talks someone out of their social security number, should we cutout his tongue?

In short, does the judge have a clue as to how life is lived these days?

Lamprecht's former boss, Selwyn Polit of ODT, laughed when asked about the case. "They're dead scared of him because of the computer stuff," he said. "They treat him differently because they think if he just thinks about computers, he can do magical things."

Unfortunately, Lamprecht's statements feed these projections. He plays enthusiastically to the "evil hacker genius" image.

Lamprecht says his sentence is longer than that of any other hacker, for example. But if his crime has nothing to do with that, why identify himself that way? Why feed the distortion?

Lamprecht often sounds as if he claims sole repsonsibility for creating ToneLoc, a widely used program that scans for carriers and dial tone; it's particularly useful for hacking PBX codes. Simple wardialers existed before ToneLoc, but ToneLoc added some significant features -- it did random scanning and displayed the scans graphically, for example. Yet Lamprecht states in his biography in Phrack magazine that he had lost the source code and Mucho Maas brought the program back from the dead and made it "user friendly." The need to live-up to his captors' impressions of him has contributed to the unnecessary harshness of his punishement.

Lamprecht is learning painfully that you can be punished for how you're perceived as much as what you've done. Some of his colleagues describe him as an innocent despite his criminal activity, naive about the real world. His employer as well as his friends call him loyal, reliable, capable. His employer felt his need to be more than capable might have led him to exaggerate his computer skills.

Polit said "he took pride in his work and wrote clean tight code, but nothing spectacular. He's sharp, but not extraordinary."

Would ODT hire him back? Absolutely. But they may not have that opportunity.

Lamprecht feels it's a question of free speech and first amendment rights, but he "will probably have an uphill battle because of the wide discretion given judges in creating conditions of probation," says Tim Muth, partner at Reinhart, Boerner, Van Deuren, Norris, and Rieselbach, a Milwaukee law firm. Muth built the firm's Web site and has a passion for the legal issues emerging in the virtual world. "On the other hand, with the growing importance of computers and network communications for making a living, a court might say that a greater justification should be required for this kind of restriction. Unfortunately for Lamprecht, our courts have not yet recognized such a principle in the constitution or elsewhere."

Lamprecht hopes to find lawyers willing to work pro bono to establish that principle. And who can blame him? Isolated from the network, deprived of his livelihood, the prospect of wandering the maze in the cave is a lonely one. You don't have to be the anti-hero of Neuromancer to know how it feels to be kept off the Net. Just as we don't speak a language, but our language speaks us, once we have been connected, we can never forget that the Net is our hive mind. We don't dream up the Net, the Net dreams us.

Now more than ever, you just can't be a human being alone.