Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontierDreyfus, Suelette
Science
Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier
Dreyfus, Suelette
Computer crimes -- Australia; Computer hackers -- Australia -- Biography; Computer security -- Australia
When the agents showed up at the San Jose Police Department for their
appointment with Sergeant Dave Flory, they received another pleasant
surprise. The sergeant had a book filled with hackers' names and
numbers seized during the arrest of the two pay-phone phreakers. He
also happened to be in possession of a tape recording of the phreakers
talking to Par from a prison phone.
The cheeky phreakers had used the prison pay phone to call up a
telephone bridge located at the University of Virginia. Par, the
Australian hackers and other assorted American phreakers and hackers
visited the bridge frequently. At any one moment, there might be eight
to ten people from the underground sitting on the bridge. The
phreakers found Par hanging out there, as usual, and they warned him.
His name and number were inside the book seized by police when they
were busted.
Par didn't seem worried at all.
`Hey, don't worry. It's cool,' he reassured them. `I have just
disconnected my phone number today--with no forwarding details.'
Which wasn't quite true. His room-mate, Scott, had indeed disconnected
the phone which was in his name because he had been getting prank
calls. However, Scott opened a new telephone account at the same
address with the same name on the same day--all of which made the job
of tracking down the mysterious hacker named Par much easier for the
law enforcement agencies.
In the meantime, Larry Wallace had been ringing around his contacts in
the security business and had come up with another lead. Wanda Gamble,
supervisor for the Southeastern Region of MCI Investigations, in
Atlanta, had a wealth of information on the hacker who called himself
Par. She was well connected when it came to hackers, having acquired a
collection of reliable informants during her investigations of
hacker-related incidents. She gave the Citibank investigator two
mailbox numbers for Par. She also handed them what she believed was
his home phone number.
The number checked out and on 25 November, the day after Thanksgiving,
the Secret Service raided Par's house. The raid was terrifying. At
least four law enforcement officers burst through the door with guns
drawn and pointed. One of them had a shotgun. As is often the case in
the US, investigators from private, commercial organisations--in this
case Citibank and Pacific Bell--also took part in the raid.
The agents tore the place apart looking for evidence. They dragged
down the food from the kitchen cupboards. They emptied the box of
cornflakes into the sink looking for hidden computer disks. They
looked everywhere, even finding a ceiling cavity at the back of a
closet which no-one even knew existed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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