Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace by Michele Slatalla
Book: Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace by Michele Slatalla
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Authors: Michele Slatalla
Tags: General, Social Science, Sociology, Computers, True Crime, New York, New York (State), Political Science, Technology & Engineering, gangs, security, Computer Hackers, Computer Security, Computer security - New York (State) - New York, Computer crimes - New York (State) - New York, Computer crimes, Computer hackers - New York (State) - New York, Gangs - New York (State) - New York
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the Hollis switch (and unknown to New York Telephone). When a caller dialed this customized number from anywhere in the world, the call was forwarded to the Ladopoulos's real and unpublished number. So a caller could connect with Eli but not know who Eli really was or where he lived.
Armed with 555-ACID, and a phone number to connect to the Hollis switch, Mark went to work. Of course, for Mark, the task was moronically simple.
Within minutes, the phone rang in the Ladopoulos household.
Mark calmly read off the Ladopoulos's real phone number, as well as selected billing information. You had to be impressed.
Eli was:
Another hacker and telco computer specialist also seemed to be very prominent and knowledgable then as well. He wasn't liked very much, because he seemed to have a rather large ego, which I may add, makes it okay to have when you know so much as he did. He declared he was "Phiber Optik of the LOD!" Scorpion, Acid, and Phiber exchanged ideas on switching theory for a long while, but then came the time when PO wanted to know Acid Phreak's phone number since he found it "unfair. " AP mentioned that he could prove himself by finding it for himself. Armed with a dialup, PO called Acid back on his real number and casually proclaimed victory. And so, Phiber Optik was "brought into" the group.
Months later, when Mark would actually see "The History of MOD, " he would smile, the way he always did, and pronounce it all "nonsense, " the way he always did.
But it grew and grew and grew. It was the nonsense that legends are made of, like Billy the Kid. "The History of MOD"
would be widely disseminated, passed along in one perfect copy after another, freely distributed across the electronic bulletin boards of cyberspace, where publishing costs nothing. It was read more hungrily than any dime store western.
Eli loved to write. He always had. He created MOD as a joke, and then the joke became real. He kept adding new members to the joke, until after awhile it wasn't a joke anymore. It was a gang. It attracted some of the quirkiest talent to roam the wired wilderness.
Like Supernigger. Eli met him on a New York City bulletin board called The Toll Center. The handle was not the most politically correct, nor did it accurately invoke the person who uses it. Supernigger according to some people who claim to have met him was a slight white kid, a teenager who affected a remarkable array of accents and voices to trick people into giving him information. Nobody was a better social engineer than Supernigger. He held the world's speed record for talking a phone company employee out of his password. Supernigger just called up, said, "This is Bob from Service.
What's your password?" He got it, clocked the whole call under ten seconds. Usually he spoke in a lazy southern drawl, telling the woman in the business office, "Lady, I'm twenty feet up on the pole. " She gives him whatever he wants. On a BBS, Eli tells Supernigger to give him a call, at (718) 555-ACID. Supernigger dials, connects, and is blown away. Imagine having your own customized phone number. Absolutely free. Phone company doesn't even know it's there. Sign me up.
Supernigger, it turned out, had social engineered the phone number of a conference bridge. A conference bridge is a lot of fun. Big corporations use conference bridges all the time. They're really just big party lines for companies. A dozen people in different cities can be on a conference bridge at once, hearing the chairman of the board predict the quarterly earnings. Supernigger gave the number to everybody in MOD, and the MOD conference bridge was born. Every day, at the same time, all the MOD members would call the number and talk to one another. It was way cool for a while. But after a few days, it got kind of boring. What good was a conference bridge if nobody knew you had one? So they started phoning lamers. They called preadolescent dorks who posted stupid things on BBSes, giving real hackers a
Armed with 555-ACID, and a phone number to connect to the Hollis switch, Mark went to work. Of course, for Mark, the task was moronically simple.
Within minutes, the phone rang in the Ladopoulos household.
Mark calmly read off the Ladopoulos's real phone number, as well as selected billing information. You had to be impressed.
Eli was:
Another hacker and telco computer specialist also seemed to be very prominent and knowledgable then as well. He wasn't liked very much, because he seemed to have a rather large ego, which I may add, makes it okay to have when you know so much as he did. He declared he was "Phiber Optik of the LOD!" Scorpion, Acid, and Phiber exchanged ideas on switching theory for a long while, but then came the time when PO wanted to know Acid Phreak's phone number since he found it "unfair. " AP mentioned that he could prove himself by finding it for himself. Armed with a dialup, PO called Acid back on his real number and casually proclaimed victory. And so, Phiber Optik was "brought into" the group.
Months later, when Mark would actually see "The History of MOD, " he would smile, the way he always did, and pronounce it all "nonsense, " the way he always did.
But it grew and grew and grew. It was the nonsense that legends are made of, like Billy the Kid. "The History of MOD"
would be widely disseminated, passed along in one perfect copy after another, freely distributed across the electronic bulletin boards of cyberspace, where publishing costs nothing. It was read more hungrily than any dime store western.
Eli loved to write. He always had. He created MOD as a joke, and then the joke became real. He kept adding new members to the joke, until after awhile it wasn't a joke anymore. It was a gang. It attracted some of the quirkiest talent to roam the wired wilderness.
Like Supernigger. Eli met him on a New York City bulletin board called The Toll Center. The handle was not the most politically correct, nor did it accurately invoke the person who uses it. Supernigger according to some people who claim to have met him was a slight white kid, a teenager who affected a remarkable array of accents and voices to trick people into giving him information. Nobody was a better social engineer than Supernigger. He held the world's speed record for talking a phone company employee out of his password. Supernigger just called up, said, "This is Bob from Service.
What's your password?" He got it, clocked the whole call under ten seconds. Usually he spoke in a lazy southern drawl, telling the woman in the business office, "Lady, I'm twenty feet up on the pole. " She gives him whatever he wants. On a BBS, Eli tells Supernigger to give him a call, at (718) 555-ACID. Supernigger dials, connects, and is blown away. Imagine having your own customized phone number. Absolutely free. Phone company doesn't even know it's there. Sign me up.
Supernigger, it turned out, had social engineered the phone number of a conference bridge. A conference bridge is a lot of fun. Big corporations use conference bridges all the time. They're really just big party lines for companies. A dozen people in different cities can be on a conference bridge at once, hearing the chairman of the board predict the quarterly earnings. Supernigger gave the number to everybody in MOD, and the MOD conference bridge was born. Every day, at the same time, all the MOD members would call the number and talk to one another. It was way cool for a while. But after a few days, it got kind of boring. What good was a conference bridge if nobody knew you had one? So they started phoning lamers. They called preadolescent dorks who posted stupid things on BBSes, giving real hackers a
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