Alex: Like, the core of cybercrime is just a question of intent; and spiraling out from there, the Hacker Crackdown reminded me that all crime is just a question of intent. Narc cops know as much about stepping on coke as dealers do, they just take the stuff instead of selling it. Hackers aren't a new threat; they're the same old threats we've always faced from grifters and thieves, but with fresh tools and tricks. I think when Sterling finally admits that and fully adopts his role as a journalist and chronicler, the book hits its highest point.

David: I dunno, that goes too far for me; the anecdote about the homeless guys seems like a narrative flourish, but then I don't need the justification for humanizing the cops that this section provides.

Alex: That's a fair point, but I appreciated Sterling's rundown of the internecine squabbles over jurisdiction that routinely erupt between different branches of law enforcement. When we finished off Section 2, the Feds appeared to be a well-oiled machine working with local cops and private security forces to effortlessly silence multiple hacker enclaves at once; now we see that things aren't nearly so smooth. In fact, it's a wonder ever happened at all

Nate: Dropping in that "human" factor helps tell a lot of the underlying story. Laymen see the USSS/FBI as gun-toting American ninjas, and hackers as some shadowy organized crime syndicate. In reality, everyone is pretty much just bumbling along.

David: On an institutional level that's totally true, but I think it's fascinating getting these portraits of people who are really really good at their job, and how they're basically as isolated by that as the hackers are