Hacker Homecoming

THE NIGHTCLUB IN DOWNTOWN Manhattan is swarming with reporters, cameramen, Internet bohemians and online celebrities, people with handles like "Mnemonic," "Razor" and "Garbled Uplink." The center of attention -- a fashionably wan, cigarette-smoking ex-con known as Phiber Optik -- shows up an hour late, even though the party is in his honor. Phiberphest '95, they're calling it. Onstage is a band called Foamola, consisting of a bald male organist, a homeless man playing what appear to be a pair of rocks and a female vocalist who yowls, "When I read a book, I always read Balzac!/ When I take a drug,...