UNDERGROUND

Suelette Dreyfus is an Australian-American technology journalist and researcher, and author of the 1997 cult classic Underground: Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier. The book describes the exploits of a group of Australian, American, and British hackers during the late 1980s and early 1990s, among them Julian Assange, who is credited as researcher for the book.<BR><BR>She and Assange are friends, and in 2009 she was described by Wired magazine as being on the Wikileaks advisory board.<BR><BR>Dreyfus says she first went online in 1994 when a friend introduced her to a Bulletin Board System (BBS). "When I was on a BBS," she told The Age newspaper, "I met up with some people who told me stories about Melbourne hackers breaking into NASA and other sites. It intrigued me and so I struck up a friendship with these people and was eventually introduced to them."<BR><BR>Dreyfus was also associate producer for the Frontline documentary series Hackers in 2001, and was associate producer for the documentary In the Realm of the Hackers, inspired by Underground, in 2003. She is a regular contributor to The Independent and The Age, as well as to radio programs like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Late Night Live with Philip Adams.<BR><BR>Dreyfus is a researcher at the University of Melbourne, where she is described as having particular interest in digital whistleblowing, health informatics, computer security, hacking, mobile computing security and organisational change.<BR><BR>She received her BA from Columbia University in 1987 and her PhD from Monash University in 1998. While at Columbia, she won the Teichmann Prize for excellence and originality in writing.<BR><BR>Wikipedia