Forums and IRC actually made the Internet much friendlier ... The era in which this was written might have let you dial into a BBS and (if you were lucky) participate in usenet.
For those interested in this timeframe and what it looked like being tracked and caught at that time, one can turn to The Hacker Crackdown by Bruce Sterling, a non-fiction work incredibly reminiscent of the events currently of interest to us.
Free (as in beer) in its electronic version ([0], hosted at MIT), and available as paperback on Amazon.
I second this. And if you enjoy The Hacker Crackdown you should also read The Cuckoo's Egg by Cliff Stole, and Do It! by Jerry Rubin, which are also non-fiction. The latter one is only a little related to the hacker subculture since it happens just before it existed but there are strong links between the Yippie movement and the phreaker scene which is the predecessor of the hacker scene.
I think that those three are my most favorite books of all time.
The Cuckoo's Egg is an amazing read. You get a very play-by-play account of the story, see an 80s honeypot in action, and if I remember correctly, read about interactions with the still running Chaos Computer Club.
I'm sorry to hijack your comment for this but if you want to read something related but on another tangent (phreaking) then this article is highly recommended - http://www.lospadres.info/thorg/lbb.html
Don't forget "Ghost in the Wires" ... the story of Kevin Mitnick's hacking (and eventual capture).
"Friendly" is the wrong term - I meant the subculture that it promoted in contrast to internet culture today. Today, internet isn't too different from mainstream culture. Back then, mainstream was MTV and the counterculture was the internet.
There is an entire generation of adults that grew up when the internet wasn't as friendly and layered as it is today, when forums and IRC reigned supreme.