Everyone seems to agree that the Internet has helped make the world a smaller place in any number of intangible ways. Geeks, an account of two teen hackers from Idaho, serves both as a reinforcement of this belief and a reminder of how big and dangerous the material world remains in spite of it. Writer Jon Katz has made a career of writing about new technology, and the subcultures surrounding it, from the perspective of an informed outsider. Over the course of one such investigation, Katz encountered an intriguing e-mail from Jesse Dailey, a recent high-school graduate with impressive computer skills, a forceful intellect, and no prospects. An outcast in school, Dailey pulled himself out of a difficult home life and a brief stint in a gang by escaping through his computer. But aside from a dead-end job, fast-food dinners, and an apartment overrun with cobbled-together technology, Dailey and his similarly situated friend Eric Twilegar had nowhere to go. During his initial investigations, Katz plants the seed of moving to another city and grabbing one of the many computer jobs available thanks to the ever-expanding need for techno-savvy employees. Surrendering objectivity bit by bit, and finally abandoning it when he leaves a short stack of twenties in Twilegar and Dailey's apartment shortly before the move, Katz follows the pair through their decision to leave for the promise of a better life in Chicago. What it loses in journalistic integrity, Geeks gains in human drama. Katz clearly cares about his "lost boys," and the process of helping them allows him to explore working-class geek culture at ground level. The web may be a great leveler in many respects, but the hard facts of American social and economic life remain intact: The Columbine shootings play out as a grim alternate version of Twilegar and Dailey's high-school existence, while the fragile bubble allowing them to survive outside of Idaho always threatens to burst. Concluding with Dailey's long-shot application to the University Of Chicago, Katz's book moves beyond the promise of material gain offered by emerging technology, offering the cautiously optimistic hope that the democratic ideals of the Internet could change the world in ways more profound.