Bill Landreth

{{short description|American hacker}}

William Troy Landreth (born April 5, 1963){{cite web |title=William T Landreth, Born 04/05/1963 in California |url=https://www.californiabirthindex.org/birth/william_t_landreth_born_1963_8464338 |website=CaliforniaBirthIndex.org |access-date=23 November 2022}} is an American hacker notable for his cracking activities during the early 1980s within a cracking club called "The Inner Circle".{{cite news |last1=Landreth |first1=Bill |title=Confessions Of A Hacker: Here Is The Cracker'S Story Of Adolescent Innocence And Ingenuity, Mixed With Corporate And Government Intrigue, That Ultimately Led To His Arrest By The FBI |url=https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1985-05-24-8501210219-story.html |access-date=22 November 2022 |work=Sun Sentinel |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201203051615/https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1985-05-24-8501210219-story.html |archive-date=3 December 2020}} MySpace cofounder, Tom Anderson (Lord Flathead){{cite book |last1=Penenberg |first1=Adam L. |title=Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today's Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves |date=13 October 2009 |publisher=Hachette Books |isbn=978-1-4013-9493-6 |page=166 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=aa2ZAAAAQBAJ&dq=flathead&pg=PT166 |language=en}} was an associate.{{cite web |last1=Arrington |first1=Michael |title=MySpace Cofounder Tom Anderson Was A Real Life "WarGames" Hacker in 1980s |url=https://techcrunch.com/2008/08/30/myspace-cofounder-tom-anderson-was-a-real-life-wargames-hacker-in-1980s/ |website=TechCrunch |access-date=22 November 2022 |date=30 August 2008}} In 1984, Landreth was convicted of hacking computer systems, and accessing NASA and Department of Defense computer data.{{cite web |title=A brief history of hacking |url=https://encyclopedia.kaspersky.com/knowledge/a-brief-history-of-hacking/ |website=encyclopedia.kaspersky.com |access-date=22 November 2022}} In 1986, he disappeared{{cite news |last1=Gorman |first1=Tom |title=A Hacker Vanishes : Computer Whiz, Missing Since September, a Source of Mystery |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1986-12-11-mn-2265-story.html |access-date=22 November 2022 |work=Los Angeles Times |date=11 December 1986}}{{cite news|url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/292511917|title=A Hacker Vanishes Computer Whiz, Missing Since September, a Source of Mystery|date=December 11, 1986|work=Los Angeles Times|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160321170055/http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/doc/292511917.html|access-date=February 3, 2011|url-status=live|archive-date=2016-03-21|id={{ProQuest|292511917}} }} (from which he re-appeared a year later).{{cite news|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=YTZWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=E-gDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6296,2985834&dq=bill-landreth+disappear&hl=en|title=Hacker Is Down And Out In San Diego|date=April 3, 1989|work=The Sydney Morning Herald|accessdate=August 22, 2022}}{{cite news|url=http://frank-segler.blogspot.com/2011/09/bill-landreth-cracker-out-of-inner.html&hl=en|title=Bill Landreth: The Cracker & Out Of The Inner Circle & Pig Sty|date=September 26, 2011|accessdate=April 9, 2013}}{{Dead link|date=November 2018 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }} Landreth's and Howard Rheingold's book, Out of the Inner Circle: A Hacker's Guide to Computer Security, published in 1986,{{cite book |last1=Landreth |first1=Bill |last2=Rheingold |first2=Howard |author2-link=Howard Rheingold |title=Out of the Inner Circle: A Hacker's Guide to Computer Security |date=1985 |publisher=Microsoft Press |isbn=978-0-14-087139-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/out-of-the-inner-circle |via=archive.org}}{{open access}}Marc Rogers (ed.) [https://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~mkr/ Psychology and Computer Crime] Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security, Purdue University{{cite web |last1=Rogers |first1=Marc |title=A New Hacker Taxonomy |url=https://homes.cerias.purdue.edu/~mkr/hacker.doc |website=Graduate Studies, Dept. of Psychology University of Manitoba |publisher=Purdue University |access-date=23 November 2022 |date=2000}} is considered a best-seller.

In 1989, Landreth was homeless.{{cite news |title=Genius Computer Hacker Now Living On The Streets |url=https://apnews.com/article/42511e0dacfa134760d19882b6b7f50a |access-date=23 November 2022 |work=AP NEWS |date=March 20, 1989 |language=en}}

As of 2016 he was still homeless.{{cite news|url=https://gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-the-teen-hackers-who-transformed-th-1770977586|title=The Untold Story of the Teen Hackers Who Transformed the Early Internet

|date=April 14, 2016|work=Gizmodo|accessdate=September 13, 2021}}{{cite journal |last1=Spafford |first1=Eugene H. |title=Are computer hacker break-ins ethical? |journal=Journal of Systems and Software |date=January 1992 |volume=17 |issue=1 |pages=41–47 |doi=10.1016/0164-1212(92)90079-Y |url=https://spaf.cerias.purdue.edu/tech-reps/994.pdf |access-date=22 November 2022}}{{cite book |last1=Halvorson |first1=Michael J. |title=Code Nation |chapter=Hackers and cyberpunks |date=29 April 2020 |doi=10.1145/3368274.3368282 |isbn=9781450377584 |s2cid=218489632 |chapter-url=https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3368274.3368282 |access-date=23 November 2022}}