2600 Flash
Phreak Roundups
Three teen-age computer experts face charges that they used their home computers to cheat telephone companies out of hundreds of thousands of dollars of service.
Officials of Illinois Bell Telephone Company, who have not finished adding up their losses, speculate the youths began by tapping into long-distance lines of local businesses. From there, they started using computers to bypass telephone billing systems.
The youths also raided the American Telephone and Telegraph Company's teleconferencing network [watch future issues for stories on this], permitting up to 59 parties to communicate, as well as other long-distance carriers.
The young computer experts, all 15-years-old, face juvenile theft charges. Court hearings are scheduled to begin next month.
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Seven St. Thomas teenagers have been arrested in Bell Canada's crackdown on the hundreds of Ontario computer buffs who use an illegal softwear [ sic] program to place long-distance phone calls for free.
The teenagers, two of whom are juveniles, were charged last week with theft of telecommunications services, and possession of illegal equipment. Police raided their homes and seized computers and softwear valued at $7,000. Unpaid phone calls were placed to points as far away as Florida, police said. In Windsor, Ontario, police charged four youths with telecommunications theft early in January. In December, five University of Waterloo students received absolute discharges after a judge found them guilty of the offense.
All of the charges were laid after complaints from Bell Canada, which is able to detect and identify telephone pirates with its own computer equipment. "We want people to know that there are ways and means of finding out who's circumventing the tolls," said Superintendent William Lawson of the St. Thomas police.
The illegal softwear is a low-cost, high-technology version of the "blue boxes" built by electronic hobbyists in the sixties [and described in full on page 2-7]. "It's a relatively new phenomenon," said James McPeak, a Bell Canada spokesman. "These kids don't know what they're doing. They think it is fun to beat the phone company."
TRW Breached By Non-Hackers
The records of TRW Information Services, which says it holds credit data on 120 million Americans, have been invaded and compromised on a far-reaching scale by adult criminals - not just a handful of teenage hackers - according to law enforcement officials.
On Long Island alone, nearly 30.000 TRW reports were allegedly pilfered by phone in 1982, a figure based on discrepancies in billings between TRW and two banks, a consumer loan firm and two department stores. While three credit collection agencies were separately suspected in the thefts, only one - said to be responsible for the theft of 3,000 reports - will be prosecuted, law enforcement sources said.
The FBI is continuing the investigation, it has been learned, and indictments are said to be imminent.
The collection agency is reported to have used its pilfered data to locate assets of debtors it had been hired to investigate. "They [the collection agency intruders] had a right to subscribe; they just chose to steal the service," said TRW spokeswoman Delia Fernandez. A spokesman for one of the New York-based department store, said his firm had received refunds of about $10.000 from TRW because its password had been used by unauthorized individuals.
This Month's Mischief and Mayhem
A series of phony University of Southern California degrees may have been sold for up to $25,000 each and backed by transcripts illegally placed in the school's computer system.
Thirty USC students are already under investigation for allegedly paying to have unauthorized grade changes made on their transcripts. "Our investigation has widened beyond grade changes." USC Vice Provost Sylvia Manning said. "We are now investigating the possibility that someone may have created entire transcripts as well."
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Fans trying to call television star Tom Selleck to wish him a happy birthday reached a Honolulu morgue instead after a Boston radio station announced the wrong phone number.
The snafu started when disc jockeys of WROR-FM came up with the idea of having their listeners call Selleck in Hawaii and congratulate him on his 40th birthday. The DJ's called directory assistance for Selleck's home phone number but were apparently given the number for the Honolulu medical examiner's office. By Wednesday afternoon, the medical examiner's office reported receiving more than 1,000 calls.
"The office was out of control," said Joyce Fujimoto, morgue attendant. "When people found out it was the medical examiner's office, they thought Tom Selleck had expired. All these hysterical girls kept calling... there were males, too."
On Friday, Lorna Ozmon, WROR program director, read a statement on the air apologizing for the confusion and saying listeners would be reimbursed for any calls made to the Honolulu number on January 29.
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Because of a computer mix-up, the Middle Atlantic district office of the Internal Revenue Service has lost the records of more than $300 million in payroll withholding tax payments made by about 10,000 companies last fall. The businesses have been told by computer-generated notices from the IRS that their property and bank accounts will be seized if they do not make the payments within 10 days. The companies are gathering official records of bank transfers to the government so they can convince the IRS that they have already paid.
An IRS spokesman said the agency was trying to reconcile its records manually.
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Plain brown envelopes full of $100 bills are turning up in residents' mailboxes in central Florida, according to Federal agents, who say the money is counterfeit.
"The bills are all being mailed out of Inglewood, California," said Donald A. Stebbins, of the Orlando office of the United States Secret Service. "They contain no advertising literature, no note, no return address, nothing!"
2600 Bulletin Board Online
2600 Enterprises, Inc. now has an official computer bulletin board system (BBS) operating 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week. Operating out of New Jersey, the board is called Private Sector. Hobbyists from allover the country use the system to converse on telecommunications topics. Now, subscribers and non-subscribers will be able to send articles, letters, or questions to 2600 instantly.
The system supports 300 and 1200 baud. At present, the maximum length per article sent to 2600 is 100 lines. At command level, users can type 2600 to enter this section. The access number is: 201-366-4431
According to 2600 co-founder Richard Petrovich, the bulletin board is part of a steady expansion. "We recently acquired 516-751-2600 as the 2600 Hotline. Now with the board, we'll improve and add to our communications even more. And that's not the end. We're looking into all kinds of networking possibilities - overseas bureaus, that kind of thing. What's closest on the horizon right now though is our plan for a publishing center for lengthy articles and tutorials on phones and computers, phreaking and hacking. We've found quite a few talented writers and this would be a way for them to have their words read in full."
Full details on the publishing/distribution center will be announced in the future. Interested writers are urged to call us. Donations will, of course, make things happen faster.
"We have every intention of becoming as big as Exxon," Petrovich said. "And think what that could mean to the hackers of the world."
AT&T Keeps "800" Data to Self
The judge who ordered the breakup of American Telephone and Telegraph Co. has ruled that AT&T does not have to share its sophisticated 800 database with the competition.
U.S. District Judge (((Harold H. Greene))) has turned down a request from the Justice Department asking that portions of AT&T's "Common-Channel Interoffice Signaling" data be made available to other phone companies, new and old, until they can develop their own systems.
All telephone companies are entitled to use the 800 prefix on phone numbers designated for calls paid for by the receiver.
In 1981 AT&T developed a more sophisticated system so that numbers in the second "field" - the three after the 800 prefix could be any three numbers and the computer would still be able to find the right phone in the right city to ring. This allows for numbers with verbal significance, like: 800-CAR-RENT
The non-AT&T companies are using a less sophisticated database which doesn't have all of the extras of the AT&T system.