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Written by Loyd Blankenship and published by Steve Jackson Games in 1995, GURPS Cyberpunk is a sourcebook for a cyberpunk-themed role-playing game based in a fictional, near-future dystopia, such as that envisioned by William Gibson in his influential novel Neuromancer. It is a part of the extensive GURPS "generic" roleplaying system. In 1993, GURPS Cyberpunk Adventures—a collection of three RPG scenarios based on GURPS Cyberpunk—won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Adventure of 1992. Loyd Blankenship (a. ...
This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
Steve Jackson Games (abbreviated as SJG) is a game company that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games. ...
1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
In role-playing, participants adopt characters, or parts, that have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own. ...
Cyberpunk (a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk) is a sub-genre of science fiction which focuses on computers or information technology, usually coupled with some degree of breakdown in social order. ...
A role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game where players assume the roles of fictional characters via role-playing. ...
The Three Graces, here in a painting by Sandro Botticelli, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology. ...
A dystopia (alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia or anti-utopia) is the antithesis of a utopian society. ...
William Gibson is generally credited with the invention of the Science Fiction genre known as cyberpunk, as well as coining the term cyberspace. ...
Neuromancer (ISBN 0006480411) by William Gibson, is considered to be the first proper cyberpunk novel, and won the Nebula Award, the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award and Hugo Award after being published in 1984. ...
GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System), created by Steve Jackson Games in 1986, is designed specifically to be a role-playing game that adapts to any imaginary gaming environment. ...
1993 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ...
The Origins Awards, presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design, are presented at the Origins International Game Expo for outstanding work in the game industry. ...
Operation Sundevil
GURPS Cyberpunk received notoriety when the Austin headquarters of Steve Jackson Games was raided by the U.S. Secret Service in 1990 as a part of Operation Sundevil, a nation-wide crackdown on "illegal computer hacking activities". Skyline from Town Lake City nickname: Live Music Capital of the World Location in the state of Texas County Travis County Mayor Will Wynn Area –Land –Water 669. ...
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal government law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security (prior to the founding of that department in 2002, it was under the United States Department of the Treasury). ...
1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Operation Sundevil was a 1990 nation-wide Secret Service crackdown on illegal computer hacking activities. Along with the Chicago Task Force and the Arizona Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau, they conducted raids in Austin, Cincinnati, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tuscon, San Diego, San Jose, and San...
Steve Jackson Games was raided ostensibly because Loyd Blankenship, the writer of GURPS Cyberpunk, was a target of the crackdown. Blankenship, known in hacking circles as The Mentor, was a member of the Legion of Doom hacker group, and ran a BBS from his home called The Phoenix Project, which had helped distribute the popular underground ezine Phrack. Phrack published the contents of a proprietary text file, stolen from Bell South, containing information about the E911 emergency response system. The government feared that the stolen document could be used to teach crackers how to compromise the vital E911 system (a claim that is disputed due to the non-technical nature of the document), and Bell South claimed that the dissemination of the data caused monetary damages. Loyd Blankenship (a. ...
The Legion of Doom (LOD) was an influential hacker group from the 1980s and 1990s. ...
A bulletin board system or BBS is a computer system running software that allows users to dial into the system over a phone line and, using a terminal program, perform functions such as downloading software and data, uploading data, playing games, reading news, and exchanging messages with other users. ...
An underground ezine is a publication without defined periodicity that discusses any subject which the publisher deems interesting or newsworthy. ...
Phrack is an underground ezine made by and for hackers that has been around since November 17, 1985. ...
BellSouth Corporation (NYSE: BLS) is a U.S. telecommunications company based in Atlanta, Georgia. ...
Enhanced 911 service or E911 service is a North American telephone network feature that automatically associates the physical address with the calling partys telephone number. ...
In the context of computer networking, cracking (also called black-hat hacking) is the act of compromising the security of a system without permission from an authorized party, usually with the intent of accessing computers connected to the network (the somewhat similar activity of defeating copy prevention devices in software...
The Raid On March 1, 1990, a group of Secret Service agents led by Timothy Foley, Austin police and Henry M. Kluepfel, from Southwest Bell, raided the offices of Steve Jackson Games and the home of Loyd Blankenship with an unsigned search warrant. They were searching for computer equipment and documentation on computer hacking. Among the things taken were four computers, two laser printers, assorted hard disks and a large amount of computer hardware. The computers taken were the computers containing the GURPS Cyberpunk sourcebook files, company e-mail and records, and the computer running the Illumnati BBS. The agents cut off locks, forced open footlockers, tore up cardboard boxes and bent two letteropeners trying to pick the lock of an office file cabinet - this despite the fact that (according to Jackson's testimony) staffers were offering the agents the necessary keys at the time. The E911 document was not found anywhere on the premises. March 1 is the 60th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (61st in leap years). ...
1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal government law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security (prior to the founding of that department in 2002, it was under the United States Department of the Treasury). ...
A search warrant is a written warrant issued by a judge which authorizes the police to conduct a search of a person or location for evidence of a criminal offense. ...
Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...
Striving for secrecy during the ongoing operation, the investigators were reluctant to release information about the E911 document that their investigation was focused on. So, when Steve Jackson and his lawyers approached the Secret Service demanding answers, the investigators allegedly smokescreened by claiming that the GURPS Cyberpunk manuscript was a "handbook for computer crime". Steve Jackson founded Steve Jackson Games in the early 80s. ...
For information on the type of fish called Lawyer, see the article on Burbot. ...
Aftermath Despite—or perhaps due to—the absurdity of this notion, word quickly spread throughout the role-playing, science fiction and hacker communities that the government had raided Steve Jackson Games because it feared that GURPS Cyberpunk contained instructions for cracking real computers, rather than game rules for pretending to crack fictional computers. The raid was often referred to as "The Cyberpunk Bust", and while the investigators remained silent, the rapidly spreading rumor suggested that the government was ignorant and naive in regards to computer technology. Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ...
There are two subcultures which may conceivably be termed hacker culture, depending on which definition of hacker is taken. ...
Cracking has several meanings: Cracking (chemistry) is the decomposition of complex organic molecules into smaller ones. ...
Whether the Secret Service investigators actually targeted the GURPS Cyberpunk sourcebook is uncertain. They had undoubtedly read messages about the upcoming book while monitoring Blankenship's BBS, and later court rulings concluded that they had no reasonable basis to suspect that the company possessed the E911 document. Therefore, some suggest that the game manual might have actually been one of the intended targets of the raid, rather than just an excuse concocted after the fact.
Steve Jackson was promised by the Secret Service that the next day he could come back and make copies of the files that were taken. He went with an attorney and was able to copy only a small part of the confiscated files. It was later said that GURPS Cyberpunk was considered by the Secret Service a "manual for computer crime". Over the course of a couple weeks the Steve Jackson Games attorney was assured by the Secret Service that the files would be returned "tomorrow," but they never were.
On March 26, 1990, some more of the files were returned. Finally on June 21, 1990, most of the files were returned. The Secret Service kept one company hard disk, all Blankenship's personal equipment and files, the printouts of GURPS Cyberpunk, and several other things.
The raid motivated the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Steve Jackson and the EFF successfully sued the Secret Service for violating the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) by confiscating the company's private electronic communications. The EFF uses the blue ribbon as symbolism for their Free Speech defense. ...
Trial In 1993, the case of Steve Jackson Games vs. The Secret Service finally came to trial. Steve Jackson Games was represented by the Austin firm of George, Donaldson & Ford. The lead counsel was Pete Kennedy. Steve Jackson Games won two out of the three counts. Steve Jackson Games was awarded US$50,000 in damages and US$250,000 in attorney's fees. The third count dealing with interception of e-mail was turned down in October 1994 by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Judge also reprimanded the Secret Service, calling their warrant preparation "sloppy", suggesting that they needed "better education" regarding relevant statutes, and finding that they had no basis to suspect Steve Jackson Games of any wrongdoing. A statute is a formal, written law of a country or state, written and enacted by its legislative authority, perhaps to then be ratified by the highest executive in the government, and finally published. ...
Operation Sundevil, which spanned two years, has a tarnished image due to lack of successful prosecutions and questionable procedures. The overshadowing rumors surrounding the confiscation of the GURPS Cyberpunk sourcebook added embarrassment for the government, fueled paranoia among the hacker community, and created a lasting legend in hacker culture. To this day, the GURPS Cyberpunk book lists "Unsolicited Comments: The United States Secret Service" on its credits page. Operation Sundevil was a 1990 nation-wide Secret Service crackdown on illegal computer hacking activities. Along with the Chicago Task Force and the Arizona Organized Crime and Racketeering Bureau, they conducted raids in Austin, Cincinnati, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Newark, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Tuscon, San Diego, San Jose, and San...
In popular culture, the term paranoia is usually used to describe excessive concern about ones own well-being, sometimes suggesting a person holds persecutory beliefs concerning a threat to themselves or their property and is often linked to a belief in conspiracy theories. ...
There are two subcultures which may conceivably be termed hacker culture, depending on which definition of hacker is taken. ...
The hacker culture is the voluntary subculture which first developed in the 1960s among hackers working on early minicomputers in academic computer science environments. ...
Later, the writers of the Wild Cards series - which was also the subject of a GURPS worldbook - included a parody of the raid in one volume of that series. Wild Cards is a science fiction anthology series set in a shared universe. ...
GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System), created by Steve Jackson Games in 1986, is designed specifically to be a role-playing game that adapts to any imaginary gaming environment. ...
A small joke can also be found on the White Wolf role-playing game book "Mage: The Ascencion", in which there's a reference of the fact that the fictional magical Tradition called Virtual Adepts misled the Secret Service into doing the raid rather than raiding their own refuge.
See also See Bruce Sterling's book The Hacker Crackdown (ISBN 055356370X) for a detailed account of these events. Bruce Sterling at the Ars Electronica Festival Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author, best known for his novels and his seminal work on the Mirrorshades anthology, which defined the cyberpunk genre. ...
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