Part 96 (2/2)
”TPC?” Questioned Scott
”The Phone Company,” Waldo chuckled
”I don't see how you can do the entire country that way, 10,000 calls at a shot In New York there reed Waldo, ”it is a never ending job Phone nuets better But you have to re the sa, and we all pool our information You could ask for the nuroup, somewhere, will have the number and likely the passwords”
”Jesus”
”I run ht, if the calls are connected quickly enough, I can go through about a thousand phone nuhly a month per prefix”
”I am amazed, simply amazed Truly iine these things are possible, but until it stares you in the face it's black ic”
”You wanna know the best part?” Waldo said teasingly ”I get paid for it, too” Waldo crouched over and spoke to Scott secre- tively ”Not everyone here approves, but, I sell lists to junk fax ht I can clear a couple hundred while round culture of Scott's day, de by George Washi+ngton Universi- ty, getting thrown out of a Nixon rally at Madison Square Garden seemed so innocent in comparison He continued to be in awe of the possible applications for a technology not as benign as its creators had intended
Scott met other hackers; they were proud of the terative connotations it carried He sa systeainst the front door to coe to hackers; the proverbial chase before the catch, the romance to many
At another tabletop laden with coned to try passwords according to certain rules Some try every possible coh that is considered an antique method of brute force More sophisticated hackers use advanced algorithms which try to open the computer with 'likely' passwords <mi>It was all very scientific, the approach to the probleurus who knewnetworks inside the phone corams and function calls and source code for even the latest software revisions on the 4ESS and the new 5ESS switches
”Once you're into the phone computers,” one phone phreak ex- tolled, ”you have an iertips
Incredible Let ive you an example”
The speaker was another American, one that Scott would have classified as an ex-Berkeley-hippie still living in the past
His dirty shoulder length hair capped a skinny frame which held his jeans up so poorly that there was no question where the sun didn't shi+ne
”You know that the phone co with Kissinger and the Queen of England to control the world Right?” His frazzled speech was y hair off his face every feords ”It's up to us to stop them”
Scott listened politely as Janis, (who adopted the er) rewrote history with tortured explanations of how the phone coovern 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 co you say and do in your own hoal!”
Janis bellowed Not to ht Scott
One of Janis' associates came over to rescue Scott ”Sorry, he's a little enthusiastic and has so 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, e broke into a Bell coh 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 sreed with Alva, a voice of apparent moderation ”However, ere already in the phone switch co 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 systeo 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
The tihtly knitted clique the hackers were The ethos 'honor a thieves' held true here as it did in many adolescent societies, roup, perhaps even a subculture, they were arduously ta new territory, each with their own vision of a private digital ho on the system in their oay, they still needed each other, thus they looked aside if another's techno-social behavior was personally dis- tasteful The Netas big enough for everyone A working anarchy that heralded the standard of John Paul Jones as their sole co devices that allowed the interception of computer data which traveled over phone lines Line Monitors and Sniffers were coal; equipned to troubleshoot networks In the hands of a hack- er, though, it graduated fro a tool of repair to an offensive weapon
S in to the in- creasingly popular remote RF networks which do not require wires
Cellular phone eavesdropping devices permitted the owner to scan and focus on the conversation of his choice Scott exaear to find a manufacturer's identification
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