Loading AI tools
American computer hacker (born 1959) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Susan Headley (born 1959, also known as Susy Thunder or Susan Thunder) is an American 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]
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]
Headley was elected to public office in California in 1994, as City Clerk of California City.
Headley is married, and lives in the Midwest. She is a coin collector.[6]
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.