Even though I had been into computers since a very early age, I unfortunately did not get
a computer with a modem until high school. If my memory serves me correctly, a kid named
Chuck gave me my first modem. I believe it was a 1200 baud internal modem.
Modems led to BBS's. In the 1990s, having a computer without a modem was like being a
disconnected island. Computers want to be networked. Larger and larger networks.
Ultimately I made a new group of nerd friends in high school that turned me onto "elite" BBS's.
A small handful of these kids were already members of some elite BBS's. I guess I eventually
displayed a deep enough knowledge of computers for them to recommend that I join a
local elite BBS. If I remember correctly, this BBS was called The Crypt. You almost always
had to have "references" to join an elite board, so I assume these guys agreed to vouch for
me as well.
Getting into one elite board led to getting into others. And getting onto a handful of
elite boards meant almost certainly getting into lots of other elite BBS's, especially
for one determined enough to be "super elite" I guess.
Within a year or two, I was probably on something like 20 to 30 or more elite BBS's. I
eventually met in-person huge numbers of the local elite BBS'ing community. I came
to eventually think of myself as the "BBS ambassador to our area code."
The elite BBS scene would eventually lead me to meet someone who would become my
one of my closest friends during high school, as well as my phone system hacking
partner-in-crime. I'll call him "Steve" throughout any of the phone hacking articles
that I manage to write.
Becoming friends with Steve would eventually lead to, in a very circuitous manner,
meeting a group of "older guys" (in their early 20s I think, as opposed to us being
around age 16). I'll call these guys "The Three Bad Ass Dudes" in my phone hacking
articles and give them the following names: "Kris", "John", and "Terry."
By the time we met them, these guys were WAY ahead of us when it came to phone hacking.
And they were much more bold as well, as I shall write about later. One of them had
already been featured on the cover of 2600 Magazine and two of them had articles
published in Phrack on more than one occasion. I think this puts them in fairly rare
company. In some ways, Steve and I had really stumbled upon quite the crew and quite
the knowledge base in meeting these guys. And were pretty keen on "taking us in"
and on sharing information with us.
And since this an introductory article, I want to elaborate a bit on the type of
"phone hacking" that we were involved in. This was in the mid-to-late 1990s and
"analog" phone hacking was pretty much dead (impossible) at this point, aside from things
like making illicit use of telephone company terminal boxes to make anonymous phone
calls and things of that nature. What we were involved in almost exclusively was
hacking into the telephone system via the computers that controlled it. Switching
system computers. Order entry systems. Billing systems. So-called "inventory" systems.
And many other such systems. These were the days of landline phones and dial-up modems.
Getting access to unpublished phone numbers for phone company dial-up modem and their
associated usernames and passwords was king. As was trying to map out all of these systems
and make sense of them. Steve and I were never really in it for anything sinister.
Rather, we were in it almost exclusively for the thrill of being somewhere we weren't
supposed to be; for understanding highly-complex and labyrinthine systems; and in a lot
of ways simply to stare in awe of what we thought was the beautify of The Telephone System.
Although that's not to say that we didn't enjoy the "power" of having this sort of access
and understanding of a system so central to the 1990s electronically-connected life.
Notes to self for future writing:
* GTE Data Services / Explorer Post / "Lewis"
* Friend introduces Steve and I to trashing at a local "C.O."
* Steve somehow becomes acquainted with Kris and possibly some of the other Bad Ass Dudes
* Kris: "Action?"
* Kris: "Want to get together?"
* ...
* A small alliance
* Trashing with Kris
* "Field hacking" with Kris
* Breaking into and stealing from telco vans at CO with Kris
* ...
* Obsessive and systematic trashing with Steve
* Hacking from other people's houses
* Hacking from shady motels
* "The File" (on a floppy disk)
