Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier Part 15

When Tammi arrived, Par knew instantly that she and Phoenix would never hit it off in person. Tammi did in fact have both blonde hair and blue eyes. She had neglected to mention, however, that she weighed about 300 pounds, had a rather homely face and a somewhat down-market style. Par really liked Tammi, but he couldn't get the ugly phrase 'white trash' out of his thoughts. He pushed and shoved, but the phrase was wedged in his mind. It fell to Par to tell Phoenix the truth about Tammi.

So Par knew all about how reality could burst the foundations of a virtual relationship.

Leaving New York and Nora behind, Par moved across the river to New Jersey to stay with a friend, Byteman, who was one of a group of hackers who specialised in breaking into computer systems run by Bell Communications Research (Bellcore). Bellcore came into existence at the beginning of 1984 as a result of the break-up of the US telephone monopoly known as Bell Systems. Before the break-up, Bell Systems'

paternalistic holding company, American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T), had fostered the best and brightest in Bell Labs, its research arm. Over the course of its history, Bell Labs boasted at least seven n.o.bel-prize winning researchers and numerous scientific achievements.

All of which made Bellcore a good target for hackers trying to prove their prowess.

Byteman used to chat with Theorem on Altos, and eventually he called her, voice. Par must have looked pretty inconsolable, because one day while Byteman was talking to Theorem, he suddenly said to her, 'Hey, wanna talk to a friend of mine?' Theorem said 'Sure' and Byteman handed the telephone to Par. They talked for about twenty minutes.

After that they spoke regularly both on Altos and on the phone. For weeks after Par returned to California, Theorem tried to cheer him up after his unfortunate experience with Nora. By mid-1988, they had fallen utterly and pa.s.sionately in love.

Electron, an occasional member of Force's Realm group, took the news very badly. Not everyone on Altos liked Electron. He could be a little p.r.i.c.kly, and very cutting when he chose to be, but he was an ace hacker, on an international scale, and everyone listened to him.

Obsessive, creative and quick off the mark, Electron had respect, which is one reason Par felt so badly.

When Theorem told Electron the bad news in a private conversation on-line, Electron had let fly in the public area, ripping into the American hacker on the main chat section of Altos, in front of everyone.

Par took it on the chin and refused to fight back. What else could he do? He knew what it was like to hurt. He felt for the guy and knew how he would feel if he lost Theorem. And he knew that Electron must be suffering a terrible loss of face. Everyone saw Electron and Theorem as an item. They had been together for more than a year. So Par met Electron's fury with grace and quiet words of consolation.

Par didn't hear much from Electron after that day. The Australian still visited Altos, but he seemed more withdrawn, at least whenever Par was around. After that day, Par ran into him once, on a phone bridge with a bunch of Australian hackers.

Phoenix said on the bridge, 'Hey, Electron. Par's on the bridge.'

Electron paused. 'Oh, really,' he answered coolly. Then he went silent.

Par let Electron keep his distance. After all, Par had what really counted--the girl.

Par called Theorem almost every day. Soon they began to make plans for her to fly to California so they could meet in person. Par tried not to expect too much, but he found it difficult to stop savouring the thought of finally seeing Theorem face to face. It gave him b.u.t.terflies.

Yeah, Par thought, things are really looking up.

The beauty of Altos was that, like Pacific Island or any other local BBS, a hacker could take on any ident.i.ty he wanted. And he could do it on an international scale. Visiting Altos was like attending a glittering masquerade ball. Anyone could recreate himself. A socially inept hacker could pose as a character of romance and adventure. And a security official could pose as a hacker.

Which is exactly what Telenet security officer Steve Mathews did on 27 October 1988. Par happened to be on-line, chatting away with his friends and hacker colleagues. At any given moment, there were always a few strays on Altos, a few people who weren't regulars. Naturally, Mathews didn't announce himself as being a Telenet guy. He just slipped quietly onto Altos looking like any other hacker. He might engage a hacker in conversation, but he let the hacker do most of the talking. He was there to listen.

On that fateful day, Par happened to be in one of his magnanimous moods. Par had never had much money growing up, but he was always very generous with what he did have. He talked for a little while with the unknown hacker on Altos, and then gave him one of the debit cards taken from his visits to the CitiSaudi computer. Why not? On Altos, it was a bit like handing out your business card. 'The Parmaster--Parameters Par Excellence'.

Par had got his full name--The Parmaster--in his earliest hacking days. Back then, he belonged to a group of teenagers involved in breaking the copy protections on software programs for Apple IIes, particularly games. Par had a special gift for working out the copy protection parameters, which was a first step in bypa.s.sing the manufacturers' protection schemes. The ringleader of the group began calling him 'the master of parameters'--The Parmaster--Par, for short.

As he moved into serious hacking and developed his expertise in X.25 networks, he kept the name because it fitted nicely in his new environment. 'Par?' was a common command on an X.25 pad, the modem gateway to an X.25 network.

'I've got lots more where that come from,' Par told the stranger on Altos. 'I've got like 4000 cards from a Citibank system.'

Not long after that, Steve Mathews was monitoring Altos again, when Par showed up handing out cards to people once more.

'I've got an inside contact,' Par confided. 'He's gonna make up a whole mess of new, plastic cards with all these valid numbers from the Citibank machine. Only the really big accounts, though. Nothing with a balance under $25000.'

Was Par just making idle conversation, talking big on Altos? Or would he really have gone through with committing such a major fraud?

Citibank, Telenet and the US Secret Service would never know, because their security guys began closing the net around Par before he had a chance to take his idea any further.

Mathews contacted Larry Wallace, fraud investigator with Citibank in San Mateo, California. Wallace checked out the cards. They were valid all right. They belonged to the Saudi-American Bank in Saudi Arabia and were held on a Citibank database in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Wallace determined that, with its affiliation to the Middle Eastern bank, Citibank had a custodial responsibility for the accounts. That meant he could open a major investigation.

On 7 November, Wallace brought in the US Secret Service. Four days later, Wallace and Special Agent Thomas Holman got their first major lead when they interviewed Gerry Lyons of Pacific Bell's security office in San Francisco.

Yes, Lyons told the investigators, she had some information they might find valuable. She knew all about hackers and phreakers. In fact, the San Jose Police had just busted two guys trying to phreak at a pay phone. The phreakers seemed to know something about a Citibank system.

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 a.s.sorted 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 rea.s.sured 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.

They confiscated Par's Apple IIe, printer and modem. But, just to be sure, they also took the Yellow Pages, along with the telephone and the new Nintendo game paddles Scott had just bought. They scooped up the very large number of papers which had been piled under the coffee table, including the spiral notebook with Scott's airline bookings from his job as a travel agent. They even took the garbage.

It wasn't long before they found the red s...o...b..x full of disks peeping out from under the fish tank next to Par's computer.

They found lots of evidence. What they didn't find was Par.

Instead, they found Scott and Ed, two friends of Par. They were pretty shaken up by the raid. Not knowing Par's real ident.i.ty, the Secret Service agents accused Scott of being Par. The phone was in his name, and Special Agent Holman had even conducted some surveillance more than a week before the raid, running the plates on Scott's 1965 black Ford Mustang parked in front of the house. The Secret Service was sure it had its man, and Scott had a h.e.l.l of a time convincing them otherwise.

Both Scott and Ed swore up and down that they weren't hackers or phreakers, and they certainly weren't Par. But they knew who Par was, and they told the agents his real name. After considerable pressure from the Secret Service, Scott and Ed agreed to make statements down at the police station.

In Chicago, more than 2700 kilometres away from the crisis unfolding in northern California, Par and his mother watched his aunt walk down the aisle in her white gown.

Par telephoned home once, to Scott, to say 'hi' from the Midwest. The call came after the raid.

'So,' a relaxed Par asked his room-mate, 'How are things going at home?'

'Fine,' Scott replied. 'Nothing much happening here.'

Par looked down at the red bag he was carrying with a momentary expression of horror. He realised he stood out in the San Jose bus terminal like a peac.o.c.k among the pigeons ...

Blissfully ignorant of the raid which had occurred three days before, Par and his mother had flown into San Jose airport. They had gone to the bus terminal to pick up a Greyhound home to the Monterey area.

While waiting for the bus, Par called his friend Tammi to say he was back in California.

Any casual bystander waiting to use the pay phones at that moment would have seen a remarkable transformation in the brown-haired boy at the row of phones. The smiling face suddenly dropped in a spasm of shock. His skin turned ash white as the blood fled south. His deep-set chocolate brown eyes, with their long, graceful lashes curving upward and their soft, shy expression, seemed impossibly large.

For at that moment Tammi told Par that his house had been raided by the Secret Service. That Scott and Ed had been pretty upset about having guns shoved in their faces, and had made statements about him to the police. That they thought their phone was tapped. That the Secret Service guys were still hunting for Par, they knew his real name, and she thought there was an all points bulletin out for him.

Scott had told the Secret Service about Par's red bag, the one with all his hacking notes that he always carried around. The one with the print-out of all the Citibank credit card numbers.