Susan Headley

American computer hacker (born 1959)

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

^ Bradley Barth (10 July 2017). "Female blackhats". Retrieved 11 December 2018.
^ Mary Thorton (21 May 1984). "Hackers Ignore Consequences Of Their High-Tech Joy Rides". The Washington Post.
^ Hafner, Katie; Markoff, John (1991). Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier. New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-68322-5.
^ Hugo Cornwall's New Hacker's Handbook 4th Ed. Century 1990
^ 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.
^ "Searching for Susy Thunder". The Verge. 26 January 2022.