It Could Happen To You!

A bizarre story is unfolding in New York City, one which typifies both hacker ingenuity and corporate indifference to the average customer.

It all started when Hacker A met Hacker B on a loop somewhere.  At first, they got along quite well, exchanging all kinds of information.  Over time, however, Hacker B got more and more obsessed, while Hacker A wanted to get on with a normal life.  Hacker B would not stop calling Hacker A, which led Hacker A to tell Hacker B that if he didn't stop bothering him, he would get the authorities on his case.  Well, Hacker B didn't and Hacker A did.  And that's where the trouble really started.

For the last couple of years, almost every few minutes, Hacker A's phone has been ringing.  At the other end is Hacker B or someone or something that Hacker B has programmed.  Sometimes nothing is said; sometimes a threat is uttered; sometimes the caller just laughs.  Hacker A and his family have been trying, literally for years, to put an end to this.  At first they simply changed the number to an unlisted one.  Within an hour, Hacker B had found the new one.  So they tried to change it again.  New York Telephone refused.  Either they would have to pay an exorbitant fee this time, or the number would not be changed.  They said it was impossible for somebody to find out their number so fast - he must have been told by somebody in the family.

This scene was repeated a number of times, with Hacker A's family changing their number practically a dozen times and having to pay the fee for most of them.  It reached the point where Hacker B would call them before they received their new number to tell them what the new number would be.

This wasn't all.  Hacker B had also managed to charge outrageous amounts to the family's phone bill.  He would call their answering machine collect on a long-distance trunk and make it sound to the operator as though he'd said "Yes".  Then he'd leave the connection open for hours.  He also managed to place third party calls, using their number as the billing number.  Their bill was outrageous and the phone company insisted that they were responsible for it.  Their service was disconnected and today they are slowly paying back the huge debt.

Meanwhile, Hacker A has tried to get the authorities to look at Hacker B (whose address and phone number he has), with only lukewarm interest.  The FBI says it has an eye on him, but won't help Hacker A deal with the phone company.

To this day it continues.  The calls keep coming and Hacker A is powerless to do anything.  Hacker B knows the phone system like the back of his hand and he can make it do almost anything.  The phone company does not want to admit this and, on many levels, is incapable of understanding it themselves.

The result: an innocent victim gets it from both ends.