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Internet as a whole. It is a subject only alluded to in the pages of this book, but deserves detailed study. While men still dominate politics and the economy the world over, this domination is extreme when it comes to new technology. There are, of course, many very dynamic women engaged in new technology and new media, but statistically they comprise a tiny percentage: according to Chiesa, just 5 per cent. Hackers are almost invariably men.

A second finding in Chiesa's study is that the average hacker is either smart or very smart. Furthermore he has noted that there is a high incidence, close to 100 per cent, among hackers of advanced ability in science - physics, maths and chemisty. This is combined with a relatively low level of ability in the humanities.

Finally, there is the critical issue of hackers' relationships. Most - but not all - hackers find it much easier to form relationships in the impersonal environment of the Internet than they do in real life. The interesting question is why.

Hackers usually enter the fray as adolescents, exactly at the time when a great majority find it difficult to establish relationships, espe- cially with the opposite sex. So, at least in part, their difficulties in this area are entirely natural. But Chiesa has also identified that an abnor- mally high number of hackers have described problems in communi- cating with family, above all with their parents.

Reading Chiesa's research and having spent a great deal of time interviewing different types of hackers put me in mind of the work of Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at Cambridge University. His pioneering work on autism has led to a deeper understanding of the spectrum of male/female behavioural patterns. In essence, typical males show an enhanced ability to 'system- atise' the external world, whereas typical females show a greater skill at 'empathising'. This is not to say that all women are poor map-readers and that all men are hopeless listeners, merely that there is a pronounced tendency in each gender towards either 'systematising' among men or 'empathising' among women.

Baron-Cohen's subsequent research led to him uncovering a link between the extreme male mind, which in certain circumstances could be described as 'autistic', and high levels of testosterone to which a foetus may be exposed in the womb. His thesis is controversial, but in many respects convincing, and without question of value when

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