See software first.
NewOrder
Computer security and networking portal
Packetstorm Security Information Library/Advisory
“Packet Storm is the largest and most up to date library of information security information in the world. Whether your interest is in building a secure network, penetration testing, vulnerability analysis, or simply learning about computer security, Packet Storm has all the information you need.“ Understanding that there is no way you can begin to design and develop stronger systems and defenses unless you know what vulnerabilities exist, Packet Storm follows a strict policy of full-disclosure, publishing all pertinent information that they receive on security related materials. About half of their content is submitted to them.
Astalavista
The search engine for security related websites.
FreeNet
The “Freenet” project aims to create an information publication system similar to the World Wide Web, but with several major advantages over it.
"Unlike the Web, information on Freenet is not stored at fixed locations or subject to any kind of centralized control. Freenet is a single world-wide information store that stores, caches, and distributes the information based on demand. This allows Freenet to be more efficient at some functions than the Web, and also allows information to be published and read without fear of censorship because individual documents cannot be traced to their source or even to where they are physically stored. To participate in this system users will simply need to run a piece of server software on their computer, and optionally use a client program to insert and remove information from the system."
Invisible IRC Project
The Invisible IRC Project aims to develop a decentralized, anonymous, encrypted real-time IRC network. The user runs a "proxy" on his machine which sends messages to "relay" servers, which in turn route them to a private server layer (whose participants in turn anonymize each other). The end user just connects with a regular IRC client like mIRC to his local proxy (e.g. "/server localhost 6667"), and from that point on he has an encrypted, anonymized IRC connection. There is a native Win32 version of the proxy. The application is open source. It was originally developed to create an anonymous meeting place for Freenet users to exchange Freenet keys."
Peek-A-Booty
"The goal of the Peekabooty Project is to create a product that can bypass the nation-wide censorship of the World Wide Web practiced by many countries. Peekabooty is software that enables people inside countries where the Web is censored to bypass those censorship measures. The theory behind it is simple: bypass the firewalls by providing an alternate intermediary to the World Wide Web."
"The Hacker Crackdown : Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier" (1994) by Bruce Sterling
“A lively tour of three cyberspace subcultures--the hacker underworld, the realm of the cybercops, and the idealistic culture of the cybercivil libertarians. Sterling begins his story at the birth of cyberspace: the invention of the telephone. We meet the first hackers--teenage boys hired as telephone operators--who used their technical mastery, low threshold for boredom, and love of pranks to wreak havoc across the phone lines. From phone-related hi-jinks, Sterling takes us into the broader world of hacking and introduces many of the culprits--some who are fighting for a cause, some who are in it for kicks, and some who are traditional criminals after a fast buck. Sterling then details the triumphs and frustrations of the people forced to deal with the illicit hackers and tells how they developed their own subculture as cybercops. Sterling raises the ethical and legal issues of online law enforcement by questioning what rights are given to suspects and to those who have private e-mail stored on suspects' computers. Additionally, Sterling shows how the online civil liberties movement rose from seemingly unlikely places, such as the counterculture surrounding the Grateful Dead. The Hacker Crackdown informs you of the issues surrounding computer crime and the people on all sides of those issues.“ -- www.amazon.com
"Underground: Tales of hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier" (1997) by Suelette Dreyfus
“Underground is the compelling true story of the rise of the computer underground and the crimes of an elite group of hackers who took on the forces of the establishment ...
Riveting as the finest detective novel and meticously researched, Underground follows the hackers through their crimes, their betrayals, the hunt, raids and investigations by the Australian Federal Police, the FBI, the Secret Service, the DST (French Secret Service) and Scotland Yard, and the resulting trials; their life on remand, on the run across America, in prison, mental hospital and beyond.
Based on more than two years of writing and research drawn from hundreds of exclusive interviews and telephone intercepts and over 30,000 pages of court documents, Underground is the first hacking book published out of Australia and the only one to delve into the mind and world of the international computer hacker. Critically aclaimed, it has been said that Underground is the only book to examine the computer underground with real depth and insight.“ -- www.underground-book.com/about.php3
"Approaching Zero : The Extraordinary Underworld of Hackers, Phreakers, Virus Writers, And Keyboard Criminals" (1997) by Paul Mungo and Bryan Glough
“The culture of the technological underworld was - formed in the early
sixties, at a time when computers were vast pieces of complex machinery used
only by big corporations and big government. It grew out of the social revolution that the term the sixties has come to represent, and it remains an
antiestablishment, anarchic, and sometimes "New Age" technological movement
organized against a background of music, drugs, and the remains of the
counterculture. The goal of the underground was to liberate technology from the controls of
state and industry, a feat that was accomplished more by accident than by
design. The process began not with computers but with a fad that later became
known as phreaking--a play on the wordsfreak, phone, and free. In the beginning
phreaking was a simple pastime: its purpose was nothing more than the
manipulation of the Bell Telephone system in the United States, where most
phreakers lived, for free long-distance phone calls.“ Excerpt from Chapter 1
"The Jargon File"
“This document is a collection of slang terms used by various
subcultures of computer hackers. Though some technical material is
included for background and flavor, it is not a technical dictionary;
what is described here is the language hackers use among themselves for
fun, social communication, and technical debate. Though the format is that of a reference volume, it is intended that the material be enjoyable to browse. Even a complete outsider should find at least a chuckle on nearly every page, and much that is
amusingly thought-provoking.“