Old hands introduced new phreaks into the “conference.” Foreign phreaks from all over the world were relayed into the “conference” by American contacts. Technical information was swapped, data which set up Ma Bell for plucking in a variety of ways by more and more phone trippers.
A rapport sprang up among those involved. Individual pranksters realized that they were members of a group with a potential for collective muscle. The leadership revolved around two experts: Tom Swift and Bugs Ameche.
The “conference” ended when complaints from local people about their inability to make long-distance calls alerted Ma Bell to the fact that all the L.D. lines leading in and out of the exchange were tied up. There was no choice but to shut down the exchange. As Phoebe explained it, the telephone company was at the mercy of its own system. No one exchange code could be made phreak-proof without altering the entire long-distance setup. According to the experts, that would take maybe twenty years and cost billions of dollars.
However, even with the “conference” over, Tom Swift and Bugs Ameche maintained constant contact with some thirty top phone phreaks. A schedule of calls was maintained to keep this elite group in communication with each other. Phone phreaks, generally, are lonely people. Now, for the first time for some of them, they were able to relate to others like themselves. But both Tom and Bugs had more grandiose things in mind than meeting the social needs of the phreaks.
Bugs wanted to organize them into a money-making operation. He figured that if the phreaks cooperated, they could set up a phone service of their own, sell it to people at half the rates Bell charged, and still come out with a tremendous profit. The idea was they’d use their M.F.-ers to get Bell’s equipment to perform the services.
At that time there were already college phreaks who were selling their friends long-distance calls at half-price. A phreak in Saigon regularly sold G.I.’s calls home at five dollars a throw and let the customer talk to his family for as long as an hour. But these were isolated ripoffs. Bugs wanted to establish a network, stabilize prices, and actually go into competition with the phone company. He also talked about manufacturing M.F.-ers and selling them in bulk. He thought there might be two or three hundred dollars’ profit per unit.
Tom Swift was against Bugs’s scheme. He wasn’t interested in making money, He wanted to organize the phreaks to take on the biggest technical challenge of all. He wanted to shut down Ma Bell completely.
“Is that really possible?” I asked Phoebe.
“Oh, yes!” She nodded firmly.
“But how?”
“It’s very technical. But given the technology, it’s not really difficult. Half a dozen phone phreaks at strategic points around the country, working in concert, could stack up enough tandems to busy out all the long-lines in the United States. A dozen or so-—maybe less, if they planned it right—-could busy out the large city exchanges, kill off local as well as long-distance service, and stop phone communication cold.”
“That,” I opined, “is a pretty wild scheme.”
“That’s what Bugs thought. He and Tom didn’t agree. Pretty soon the group they’d built up was split into two factions. Most of the blind phreaks stayed with Tom. I tried to keep neutral myself, but actually I thought Bugs was right. Particularly when Tom started in with the computer bit.”
My ears perked up. “The computer bit?”
Phoebe explained how Tom Swift had gone to work for a shared-time computer organization. Such operations sell “big-brain” computer time to other firms. The customer dials directly into the computer. He has a password which is “heard” by the computer as permission to perform certain tasks. The computer is set up so that the main memory bank is sectioned off from each individual program receiver to prevent customers from infiltrating one another’s business.
Once hired, Tom Swift easily cracked the code that enabled him to read each customer’s password. This gave him access to the information storage itself. With what he learned from it, he developed a technique for dialing his way into any shared-time computer from the outside. He was able to busy out all the input circuits, tap a verification tandem, eavesdrop on the passwords and instructions of any customer whose feeder line he’d released, and utilize the multifrequency code he’d cracked to feed the computer false information, tap it for data already stored, or reprogram it at will. Yeah, any computer!
“Including the FBI crime-control computer!” Phoebe added. “Did you know that every major city in the country has a local police computer terminal with direct access to the FBI computer? Tom figured out how to dial through the local terminal into the FBI’s memory banks, tap them, feed them phony data, even reprogram them. I don’t know how far he went with it. But I do know of at least one stunt he actually pulled.”
“What was that?” I asked.
“He fed an imaginary spy case into the FBI computer. He led the FBI step by step from the Soviet Embassy in New York to an underground Black Panther13 headquarters in California to a top-secret nuclear-energy project in Alaska. He made it look like the Soviet ambassador and Bobby Seale14 and Angela Davis15 and Father Daniel Berrigan16 and Dr. Spock17 were all in league to steal atomic secrets. Then, when the FBI was ready to close in on the espionage ring, Tom programmed a mysterious top agent who was supposedly in charge of the whole operation. He fed in data that led agents to a certain window at a certain race track where this Mr. Big could be nailed with the goods. Acting under the computer’s instructions, over a hundred FBI agents descended on a parimutuel window at the designated time.”
“And?”
“They came within a hair of arresting the late J. Edgar Hoover18 as a Communist spy!”
I savored that irony for a moment. Then: “Do you know where Tom Swift is now?” I asked the crucial question.
“No. But I do know he’s planning to get in touch with Bugs Ameche.”
That surprised me. “How do you know that?”
“Bugs told me.”
“Bugs Ameche told you? You’re in contact with him?”
“Yes. He’s holed up in a brothel not far from here. Across the Mexican border, in Ciudad Juarez. You see, Bugs had to get out of the country because of the Mafia thing. Also, the feds are after him because they think he’s responsible for some of the things Tom is doing. At least, that’s what Bugs thinks.”
“What’s he doing in a brothel?” I wondered.
“They’re legal in Juarez. Bookmaking isn’t. This brothel is a front for a horse parlor. Bugs runs the phone end.”
“How come he thinks Tom Swift will contact him? I thought you said they had a falling out.”
“They did. But Tom tracked Bugs down through some phreaks they both know, and the phreaks passed the word that Tom would call Bugs direct.”
“I guess the next thing is for me to talk to Bugs,” I decided.
Phoebe told me how to locate the brothel where Bugs was holed up. I thanked her and got up to leave.
“I’m coming too!” The little old lady spoke for the first time since I’d cut off her hearing aid.
I ignored her and started for the door.
“I know all the back roads, and I drive like a pistol. If you don’t take me, I’ll only beat you there. And I’ll blow the whistle on you.”
“Just where do you think I’m going?” I challenged her.
The little old lady repeated the address Phoebe had given me.