THE COMPUTER UNDERGROUND AND POST-MODERNISM

The computer underground is a culture of persons who call
computer bulletin board systems (BBSs, or just "boards"), and
share the interests fostered by the BBS. In conceptualizing the
computer underground as a distinct culture, we draw from Geertz's
(1973: 5) definition of culture as a system of meanings that give
significance to shared behaviors that must be interpreted from
the perspective of those engaged in them. A culture provides not
only the "systems of standards for perceiving, believing, evalu-
ating, and acting" (Goodenough, 1981: 110), but includes the
rules and symbols of interpretation and discourse for partici-
pants:

In crude relief, culture can be understood as a set of
solutions devised by a group of people to meet specific
problems posed by situations they face in com-
mon. . . This notion of culture as a living, historical
product of group problem