In 2021, cybercrime is a normal part of everyday life. But back in the early days of the internet—that is, the 1980s and ‘90s—the hacker was a bizarre new phenomenon that the American public had never encountered before. Many of the trailblazers of this trend weren’t cynical criminals but rather bespectacled teenagers—unadulterated nerds with a penchant for using their advanced computer powers to cause mischief. Back in these days, hacking was less about extortion and moneymaking than it was about hubristic achievement and the desire to do something that had never been done before.
With that in mind, here are a few of the big names from that era.
