"You know that the phone company is part of the Tri-Lateral Commission, working with Kissinger and the Queen of England to control the world. Right?" His frazzled speech was matched by an annoying habit of sweeping his stringy hair off his face every few words. "It's up to us to stop them." Scott listened politely as Janis, (who adopted the moniker from his favorite singer) rewrote history with tortured explanations of how the phone company is the hidden seat of the American government, and how they have been lying to the public for dec- ades. And the Rockefellers are involved too, he assured Scott. "They could declare martial law, today, and take over the coun- try. Those who control the communications control the power," he oracled. "Did you know," he took Scott into his confidence, "that phones are always on and they have computers recording everything you say and do in your own home. That's illegal!" Janis bellowed. Not to mention crazy, thought Scott. One of Janis' associates came over to rescue Scott. "Sorry, he's a little enthusiastic and has some trouble communicating on the Earthly plane." Alva, as he called himself, explained coherent- ly that with some of the newer security systems in place, it is necessary to manipulate the phone company switches to learn system passwords. "For example, when we broke into a Bell computer that used CI- CIMS, it was tough to crack. But now they've added new security that, in itself, is flawless, albeit crackable," Alva explained. "Once you get past the passwords, which is trivial, the system asks you three unique questions about yourself for final identi- fication. Pretty smart, huh?" Scott agreed with Alva, a voice of apparent moderation. "However, we were already in the phone switch computer, so we programmed in forwarding instructions for all calls that dialed that particular computer. We then inter- cepted the call and connected it to our computer, where we emu- late the security system, and watched the questions and answers go back and forth. After a few hours, you have a hundred differ- ent passwords to use. There are a dozen other ways to do it, of course." "Of course," Scott said sarcastically. Is nothing sacred? Not in this world it's not. All's fair in love, war and hacking.