It was recently my privilege to deliver a keynote address at DefCon IV, an annual convention of computer hackers, crackers and telephone phreakers held every summer in the desert gambling town of Las Vegas, Nevada. Daytime temperatures near 120 degrees ensured that casual curiosity seekers would be at a minimum. In heat that can fry an egg on the pavement, you had better WANT to be there.

It was a surprise, then, when eight hundred people showed up, nearly double the expected attendance. It was an exciting convention, with good presentations and brilliant hallway conversations, but above all else, I remember most the ubiquity of FEAR: that collection of hackers inspired more fear and anxiety in the management of our hotel than anything I had ever seen. They were afraid that every one of their systems would be hacked and taken down and acted accordingly. I felt as if we were rioters in the street and they were the state police.

After the first night, for example, hotel personnel waited until three in the morning to install tiny security cameras in the ceilings of our meeting rooms. They already had security cameras everywhere else, including the elevators. (I am told it's great sport for the security personnel of Las Vegas hotels to exchange tapes of the spiciest elevator antics).

Numerous news crews came from mainstream sources, representing television news programs and on-line networks like C|Span. Every single one was thrown out of the convention, their video tape confiscated. (Fortunately this move was anticipated and blank tapes were substituted for interview tapes.)

The hotel personnel enforced the rules -- to a fault. Granted, young hackers have a reputation for long sleepless nights fueled by caffeine and other stimulants; still, the concern shown about self-indulgence was more than parental. My favorite souvenir photo shows a 52-year-old man being "carded" (checked for identification to be sure he's 21) in order to enter a hotel restaurant where alcohol was served!

What is it about computer hackers that provokes such fear?

It begins with the popular image of hackers as "evil geniuses," invading our boardrooms and bedrooms at will. That image began in the USA with the movie "War Games," and in fact the writer of that screen play, Larry Lasker, was at the convention, paying close attention to the latest trends and taking notes.

But Lasker is the first to admit that alienated teenagers hunched over glowing screens in the dark as they launch assaults on military systems are not the whole story. There were plenty of security experts at DefCon, plus intelligence agents, professional engineers, and thriving businessmen. In fact, some of the most successful people in the high tech world learned the nuts and bolts of computing by exploring the wired world of networked computers on their own.

One of my favorite images is a group of young people in a ring around their portable computers, swapping insights, learning from one another. I imagined their teachers trying to "motivate" them in school. They did not need to be motivated; they were need-to-know machines on a roll, willing to do anything to learn how computer systems work. All the teachers needed to do was get out of the way. Hackers want to know how things work and will do what they have to do to learn what they need to learn.

Real hackers are distinguished not by isolation or anti- social tendencies but by their hunger for knowledge. Hackers do not accept conventional explanations; they want to know, see, feel things for themselves. The only way to do that is to enter our complex systems of information technology and look around.

Leonardo da Vinci was a hacker. He refused to limit his exploration of the universe to the constraints of "the known world." He refused to limit his imagination. He did not ask permission before challenging conventional wisdom. This is why Bill Gates of Microsoft just paid a fortune for some of the drawings and notes of that master hacker.

Are hackers criminals?

The short answer is no, not necessarily. Hackers distinguish between real hackers and crackers, or criminal hackers. Crackers use hacking skills to commit fraud, destroy or steal intellectual property, and vandalize the information systems of governments and businesses.

Things do get a little vague, though. On the highest levels of international diplomacy, it is difficult to distinguish not only hackers but crackers as well from government agents. France has admitted bugging first class seats on transatlantic Air France flights to glean important economic information. Germany and Japan are masters at "competitive business intelligence" as is the government of the United States, Governments routinely use electronic means, including computer hacking, to spy and pry into the economic secrets of friend and foe alike.

As I told the assembled hackers, it is not hacker behavior that constitutes a threat. Work for the right government agency or the right corporation and you can do everything you dream with the latest tools. It is your perceived allegiance that constitutes a threat, especially when that allegiance is believed to be to a code or hacker ethic that transcends patriotic loyalty.

In the global arena, information warfare has succeeded the Cold War. In the global marketplace, a marketplace characterized by increasingly semi-permeable national boundaries, information is ammunition.

This marketplace is appropriately likened in the United States to the frontier of the "wild west" because there is often no legal authority to which to appeal when one has been wronged. One is forced to take the law into one's own hands.

Here's a small example of how that happens.

A man I know routinely uses the Internet to do business with companies in other countries. He uses the Internet to locate prospects, then research their needs and deliver an information- based product.

One of his clients had accepted his work but the checks to pay for it -- the only non-electronic piece of the transaction -- never arrived. He sent email again and again. He telephoned and telephoned. Every promise of payment was followed by inaction.

Finally he decided to use the Internet itself The Internet had enabled him to deal with foreign businesses as if national boundaries did not exist. Perhaps it could also be a medium for the redress of his grievance.

He sent one more email.

He explained that he networked with companies all over the world that used the services of his client. He often was asked for examples of the pitfalls of the virtual marketplace and needed an example of what happened when a business violated the trust which made such commerce possible. He said he had found his example.

In addition, he would post on a web site the details of the transaction, including audio tapes of their telephone conversations, and otherwise use the full resources of the Internet to inform others who might be interested.

He received a check four days later.

Information that is linked and accessible is the source of power in the wired world. Those who know how to find it, use it, and relate it to other data in meaningful ways have a lever under the rock of reality that can literally move mountains.

The irrational fear and anxiety caused by hackers convening in Las Vegas is related to a more sober, rational fear. A new world has suddenly emerged and those who know how to thrive in it will bear projections of power out of all proportion to their real power. But that should not prevent us from understanding the real sources of their real power.

(1) In a global marketplace in which information is currency and knowledge capital, every organization will function much like an independent country. Intelligence and counter-intelligence is no longer a luxury. Proprietary information must be protected; what others know about your business must be actively managed. One reason South Africa is at the forefront of political and economic thinking about the future of Africa is the successful management of perception of its promise and possibilities.

(2) Hackers are feared because their powers have been excessively magnified by the media. But their real knowledge of how the technological infrastructure works is real power.

Hacking is another name for the creative exploration of the complex systems of information with which we now live in a symbiotic relationship. Hacking skills -- including a commitment to the pursuit of knowledge, endless curiosity, a yearning to understand complexity among chaos, an ability to discern patterns from bits of disparate data -- are essential to the well-being of organizations that intend to remain competitive.

(3) Competitive business intelligence should be an introductory course at every business school. If schools do not adapt to the demands of the wired world, the trend toward learning outside of traditional educational structures will accelerate. Today in the United States more and more companies are going beyond support for ongoing education: they are developing their own universities to educate workers, because too many schools are teaching people how to live in the past, not the present, much less the future.

(4) Hackers are not one-dimensional cartoon figures. They are complex human beings. They may play late at night in the glowing electronic grid called the Internet, but most hackers hold good jobs in security, intelligence, and high tech businesses.

"Tiger teams" of hackers often work collaboratively with government and business to identify holes in their networks and secure their systems. The teams for which I have served as an intermediary are composed of talented, multi-faceted individuals using their skills in a beneficial way.

New structures of life, whether structures of perception, values, or socio-economic systems, always emerge on the boundaries. Those who live at the center seldom see them coming because their behaviors reinforce their beliefs in "things as they are." Those who are marginal and heretical, who refuse to accept conventional wisdom, learn first the ways of thinking and behaving appropriate to new, emergent structures of life.

After World War I, the English and French prepared for the next war as if it would be fought like the last. Victory made them complacent. Germany, on the other hand, was limited by the Treaty of Versailles to small numbers of tanks. Airplanes -- which some did not even see as weapons of war -- were also limited. Few thought of the uses of radio on the battlefield. The Germans combined their scarce resources -- tanks, planes, and radio -- to invent the blitzkrieg. A new word was needed because the emergent reality it described, born of the hunger of desperation and defeat, had not existed.

It is difficult for a man with a full belly to understand a man who is hungry.

The imperatives of the wired world demand that we withdraw our projections of inordinate power and look at the emergent reality of computer hackers with a clear gaze. We need to see what is right in front of our eyes. They are showing us skills that will be essential in the trans-planetary culture of the next century.

We need pathfinders and scouts when we move into new territory. Hackers who know the terrain make good guides. Make partners of those you fear and you will discover how to leverage the knowledge that is their power to your mutual advantage.