No one can control cyberspace. They can't even control it when it is just four computers big. Also in 1969 John Goltz teams up with a money man to found Compuserve using the new packet switched technology being pioneered by ARPAnet. It is to become the gold standard of hacking and the Internet, the operating system with the power to form miracles of computer legerdemain. They are motivated by the Bell Telephone monopoly with its high long distance rates, and a hefty tax that Hoffman and many others refuse to pay as their protest against the Vietnam War.
Blue boxes burst onto the scene.
Suddenly phreakers are able to actually make money at their hobby. Hans and Gribble peddle blue boxes on the Stanford campus. California police, aided by Pacific Bell officials, seize copies of the magazine from newsstands and the magazine's offices. The financial stress leads quickly to bankruptcy. As the Vietnam War winds down, the first flight simulator programs in history unfold on the Plato network.