With the addition of The Wing, came a shitload of pranks and loads of fun.
He hadn't known much about telephone systems, but one thing he knew was
how to make Unixes do nifty things. Of course, he and Scorpion had
undertaken the task of taking on some worthwhile projects and providing
the group with some healthy side-benefits (which cannot be mentioned or
commented on at this particular moment in time).
At this point, the group consisted of the 4 original founders (flounders??)
-> Acid Phreak, HAC, Scorpion, and The Wing.
Around this time, 2600 Magazine had 2 boards in operation. The Central
Office, and The Toll Center. OSUNY had gone down for some strange reason
a short time earlier. It was on The Toll Center (Red Knight's bbs) that
AP had first met the next member of the group (and coincidentally Red
Knight which is the most recent member to the group). He called himself
"Supernigger" and had much the same ideology as the rest of the group.
It was following his group's original "knock down those who think they
know everything" attitude that MOD also adopted the same mentality.
Supernigger was drafted and with him came hours of discussions on
REAL phreaking and Social Engineering. There was also a loooong period
of time where MOD had a conference bridge set up by SN. Hours of
enjoyment and fun for the whole family and kids of all ages...
Another hacker and telco computer specialist also seemed to be very
prominent and knowledgeable 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 went by two
other handles a long time before, and when AP had first called him up
he had an idea he was also those 2 other people, but he had refused
to admit so. He declared he was "Phiber Optik of the LOD!" and asked
what AP wanted. 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. What was
different however, was the fact that he and AP had similar interests and
started "hanging" as friends "around the way" along with HAC and Scorpion
in the Village (NYC).
The Toll Center went down weeks later and PO, AP, and Scorpion found
themselves calling random "newjacks" to the scene. In this way they
stumbled across Crazy Eddie and a "question and answer forum" among the
four of them ensued with Crazy Eddie proclaiming his eagerness to learn.
Coincidentally after a few calls to CE on his home line he challenged
the MOD crew to find his other number. Sure enough they called it
but coincidentally enough, a few days later in the week, a rather nasal
sounding man had called him saying he was ITT security(?) and had tried to
convince him he was in deep shit for using codes and that he knows the
"numbers of the hackers that have been calling" him. In a rather idiotic
fashion, the ITT person attempted to coax the 3 MOD members to call him
using 10488 (equal access, fgd). He gave a bullshit number to where he
was at and waited by his little thermal printer for the phone numbers to
pop up. Of course, they realized what a futile attempt to catch them this
was, and Crazy Eddie had replied that "they say they don't feel like using
equal access but they'll call the number anyway". It turns out the number
wasn't even real and after meeting with the ITT man on a loop he declared
that they were smarter than he thought.
After a few months, Crazy Eddie was introduced to the group and so, he
had gotten to know the group very well. Unfortunately, so had the
Secret Service...
