In the popular imagination, a computer hacker is on the fringes of society -- either a brilliant but misguided teenager or a solitary, disaffected adult. He's more interested in showing off his skills than benefiting from them. He values havoc over money. . . .
In the popular imagination, a computer hacker is on the fringes of society -- either a brilliant but misguided teenager or a solitary, disaffected adult. He's more interested in showing off his skills than benefiting from them. He values havoc over money.

Canal Plus Technologies, a leading maker of the so-called smart cards that control satellite-television signals in people's homes, went searching three years ago for just such a troublemaker.

Millions of Europeans were buying counterfeit Canal Plus smart cards on the black market and inserting them into their set-top boxes, giving them free access to premium channels that carry soccer games and adult movies. In Italy, there were as many as three freeloaders for every legitimate customer.

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