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hitp://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2003-04-1 6/feature.html/2/index.html ’ SF Weekly | stweekly.com | News : Heature A uly w mats, Aura Lainey UI LLn“Yuuk-View LUBY ULE? Ls » His recent birthday, I think, has caused Lamo to question his mortality. He seems on edge, and when I ask him about his impending disclosure, he says he's not dissuaded by the target company’s reputation for hunting down hackers -- “Intimidation is not a substitute for security,” he insists -- but admits to weighing the ramifications. At one point, he stares into the sun, his brows locked, and considers a question about how he would fare in jail. "T don't know; I could be happy indefinitely sitting here in the sun, and this could be a prison yard if you put walls around it," he says at last. "But prison would curtail what I do, and it would be unpleasant." So why go through with it? He gives his standard line: "This is what I do, this is the role I was born to play.” And he refers, as he often does, to a quote from Frank Herbert's 1965 science-fiction epic Dune, the story of a young man who becomes a messiah. At home that night, I look up the passage: "The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. ... And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.” Only then do I understand: In his mind, Lamo’s life is a new kind of story for the Information Age, the quasi-mythic saga of a traveler, perhaps not so different from Dune's, whose adventures are neither wholly corporal nor wholly virtual. If Lamo spends too much time considering his actions, he steps too boldly out of the character he's created. And more than anything, I think, Lemo wants to know how his story will end. In that respect, at least, he's not so different from the rest of us. Bo N sfweekly.com | originally published: April 16, 2003 &, Printer friendly version of this story Email this story to a friend BX] Email matt palmquist =] More stories by Matt Paimquist D senda letter to the editor FBI(19-¢y- - { SpGAdgs) 186