Susan Headley

Susan Headley (born 1959, also known as Susy Thunder or Susan Thunder) is a former phreaker and early computer hacker during the late 1970s and early 1980s. A member of the so-called Cyberpunks, Headley specialized in social engineering, a type of hacking which uses pretexting and misrepresentation of oneself in contact with targeted organizations in order to elicit information vital to hacking those organizations.[1]

Biography

Born in Altona, Illinois in 1959, Headley claims to have dropped out of school in the eighth grade after a difficult childhood.[2] She later moved to Los Angeles, California where she worked as a teenage prostitute and was a rock 'n' roll groupie, claiming all four former members of the Beatles among her conquests.[3] She met computer hacker Kevin Mitnick (also known as Condor) in 1980, and together with another hacker, Lewis de Payne (also known as Roscoe), formed a gang of phone phreaks. In The Hacker's Handbook,[4] Headley is referred to as "one of the earliest of the present generation of hackers" and described as successfully hacking the US phone system as a 17-year-old in 1977.

On October 25, 1983, Headley testified in front of the Governmental Affairs oversight committee as to the technical capabilities and possible motivations of modern-day hackers and phone phreaks.[5]

Public service

Headley was elected to public office in California in 1994, as City Clerk of California City.

Personal life

Headley is married, and lives in the Midwest. She is a coin collector.[6]

References
  1. Bradley Barth (10 July 2017). "Female blackhats". Retrieved 11 December 2018.
  2. Mary Thorton (21 May 1984). "Hackers Ignore Consequences Of Their High-Tech Joy Rides". The Washington Post.
  3. Hafner, Katie; Markoff, John (1991). Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-68322-5.
  4. Hugo Cornwall's New Hacker's Handbook 4th Ed. Century 1990
  5. United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Governmental Affairs. Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management (1983). Computer Security in the Federal Government and the Private Sector.
  6. "Searching for Susy Thunder". The Verge. 26 January 2022.


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