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THE WHITE HAT

tion, and as Max Vision, he was beginning to contribute to some of the computer-security mailing lists where the latest developments were discussed. But he couldn't completely exorcise Ghost23 from his personality. It was an open secret among Max's friends that he was still cracking systems. When he saw something novel or interesting, he saw no harm in trying it out for himself.

Tim was at work one day when he got a call from a flummoxed sys-tem administrator at another company who'd traced an intrusion back to Hungry.com—the online home of the Hungry Programmers, where they hosted their projects, hung their résumés, and maintained e-mail addresses that would remain steady through job changes and other upheavals. There were dozens of geeks on the shared system, but Tim knew at once who was responsible. He put the sysadmin on hold and phoned up Max.

"Stop. Hacking. Now," he said.

Max stammered out an apology—it was the burning lawn all over again. Tim switched back to the other line, where the system administrator happily reported that the attack had stopped in its tracks.

The complaint surprised and confused Max—if his targets knew what a good guy he was, they wouldn't take issue with some harmless intrusions. "Max, you gotta get permission," Tim explained. He offered some life advice. "Look, just sort of imagine that everyone's looking at you. That's a good way to ensure that what you're doing is correct. If I was standing there, or your dad was standing there, would you still feel the same about doing it? What would we say?"

If there was one thing Max was missing in his new life, it was a partner to share it with. He met twenty-year-old Kimi Winters at a rave called Warmth, held on an empty warehouse floor in the city—Max had become a fixture in the rave scene, dancing with a surprising, fluid grace, whirling his arms like a Brazilian flame dancer. Kimi was a community college student and part-time barista. A foot shorter than Max, she sported