Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace (16 page)

A beleaguered AT&T official says, "We'll get back to you. "

Don't wait for someone from AT&T to get back to you. It's better to answer the question now, to know as soon as possible if the AT&T crash is related to the hacker case.

Harris immediately dials again. Kaiser answers.

"Tom, we need to know every single number the hackers have dialed in the hours preceding the crash, " Harris says.

Of course, Kaiser and Staples already know every single number. They've been staring at every single one so long that they start to feel hypnotized by the damn numbers.

The more difficult task is to figure out if any of the numbers the hackers dialed is a clue to what caused the crash. Staples comes down to Kaiser's office, where they print out the list from the electronic DNR. It's easier to read that way. Then they go over the list yet again, this time checking off each phone number as they eliminate it. Here's a call from one hacker to another. Check it off. Here's a call to New York Telephone. Check it off.

By late afternoon, Kaiser and Staples are finished. They are relieved. They pass along the news to the Secret Service.

"There's nothing here that would have caused any particular jeopardy, " Staples concludes. At least, not within the last twenty-four hours.

And by evening, AT&T was taking the blame for the crash, announcing that internal system problems caused the failure.

That was another relief, because it meant that nobody seriously believes that the hackers did the damage.

It turned out that the failure could be traced to a routine update of AT&T software. Three weeks earlier, software that controls 114 superswitches nationwide was changed, ironically, to improve the reliability of the system. A minor problem had developed first within the Broadway 51, a switch in Manhattan that was trying to obey the buggy lines of code that had been loaded into it three weeks earlier. The switch shut down to reset, just as it was supposed to whenever it swallows a bug, putting its calls on hold for up to six seconds during the reset process. But in the meantime, a second computer developed a similar problem, and then a third, and then before you knew it, several switches were shutting down to reset, diverting their calls elsewhere to other computers that couldn't handle the load. So the backup switches got caught in the reset loop, too.

By seven P. M., AT&T had figured out how to patch the system to avoid the bugs in the code that set off the reaction. The system recovered.

In Manhattan, at New York Telephone headquarters, Kaiser and Staples recover from their anxieties.

And in Secret Service headquarters, Rick Harris recovers from his worries.

But the events of the day have made them uneasy all the same. What if.

Nearly two weeks later, Mark stands outside a little neighborhood grocery store on Corona Avenue. In the dark and the cold, he hangs out with a group of guys from his block, everybody smoking and talking, interrupting their evening walks from the subway to supper. Mark puffs a mentholated 100, as usual. He feels pretty good; he's no longer fretting over the AT&T crash and no longer worries that hackers caused it. His only real worry, right now, is the cramp in his right foot. He flexes, trying to work it out.

So it catches Mark by surprise when someone in the group, a kid who lives next door to the Abenes, says, "Something strange is going on over at your house. "

"What do you mean?" asks Mark.

A bunch of men are going in and out of his house, carrying boxes out to cars. They've been there for a while. No one else has gone in or out. A lot of the neighbors have noticed. It's kind of weird.

"One of them told my dad to move his Jeep, " the kid says.

Mark forgets the cramp. He stubs out his cigarette, and heads off toward home, not exactly running, but moving as fast as you can without running. It's a one-block walk, but it takes him from one ecosystem to another. He turns the corner, hustling from the tropical-colored storefronts and strings of flashing lights of Corona to the frosty darkness of Alstyne Avenue's row houses. He passes by the place in the street where many summers ago a long-lost teenage gang, the Alstyne Avenue Boys, carved initials in the hot tar to claim their turf. Mark is really nervous now. He always feels stress first in his stomach, and it's churning now. Who could be at his house?

He can see the house now, but Mark doesn't see anyone outside. He's breathing a little hard from the hustle, and he wonders fleetingly if the kid was putting him on. He's filled with a moment of hot relief, but then he's suddenly seized by an even stronger feeling: dread.

Mark skitters up the stoop to the front door with the three colored panes of glass. In one pane, his mother has taped a picture of the Virgin Mary. As soon as the door closes behind him, Mark hears knocking. Someone's out on the stoop. He opens it, and a tall stranger wearing a three-quarter-length tan quilted jacket blocks the entryway. Mark is scared in fact,

he's freaking out. The man says his name is Agent Russo. He says he's from the Secret Service. All Mark can think about is how cheap his jacket looks. It's an odd thought, totally inappropriate to the moment, but it's the one idea that Mark's mind consciously reaches out to grab as a million other urgent images fly past. It's the thought Mark uses to divert himself from the terrible truth of what is happening in his house.

He's being raided.

No, actually it's a hacker named Phiber Optik who is being raided. But wait, no, it's not just Phiber Optik taking the fall.

Mark Abene, age seventeen, a junior in high school, avid reader of the book Gnomes as well as the circuitry repair tips of Forrest P. Mims III, enthusiastic intern at the Queens Hall of Science, is being raided by the Secret Service.

Mark lets Russo enter the house.

Other agents appear in the living room. Mark figures there must be nearly a dozen of them, all wearing those dark blue windbreakers you see on TV cop shows, jackets that say u. s. SECRET SERVICE on the back. Mark sees the holsters under their jackets. It's an incongruous sight, all these big gruff agents filling the narrow dark space of Mark's mustard-colored living room. Everything looks just the way it did when he left for school this morning, but now it's hostile territory, invaded by an occupying army: navy blue sofa, dining room table swathed in a clear plastic cover, the coffee table books about Dom DeLuise and Marilyn Monroe, his dad's jazz records stacked so neatly, his mother's shiny black boots lined up on an old Newsday by the front door.

Soon the agents tell Mark all his computer stuff has been packed up and removed from his bedroom. "The room is so empty you can paint the walls, " one agent says.

From somewhere, Mark's mother and father appear. They seem to be floating in the doorway, floating into and out of Mark's vision, as if they were next to the mirror at the Hall of Science.

An agent tells them, "Your son has caused billions of dollars' worth of damage. "

The agent is referring to the AT&T crash. Wait a minute! All the agents seem to think Mark is responsible. There's been some mistake! It was all just a software bug! But Mark can't scream it out. He finds himself unable to speak at all.

Everyone sits down at the dining room table, Mark at the head. For some reason, all he can do is focus on each intruder, taking a mental snapshot of each face around the table. One weather-beaten old guy with a gray moustache in an Australian cowboy hat with one side of the brim turned up. Two men from New York Telephone security, including one so old he had to put on glasses to read. Agent Russo, thin with plain brown hair and a bald face. One of them says to Mark,

"I'm from Bellcore in Piscataway. "

A Secret Service agent says, "Pumpkin Pete says hi. " This (false) statement has the desired effect of making Mark think that his friend ratted him out. Mark is starting to feel paranoid. (But can you just be "paranoid" if the thing you're paranoid about is really, truly, absolutely happening

happening right in front of you in the dining room before supper?)

It's all happening really fast. An agent says, "We want to ask you some questions. " They would like Mark to come back to Manhattan to headquarters with them, though he is not under arrest.

Mark's parents finally get angry. They say no.

Mark's parents tell the agents to leave. Then they look at Mark. The agents look at Mark. The Bellcore guy looks at Mark.

The New York Telephone security guys look at Mark. Everybody wants Mark to speak, to say something. Finally, they leave, funneling out into the chill January night.

And Mark has never said a word.

Thirty miles east, a car pulls up to the lighted security booth at the entrance of Polytechnic University on Long Island.

The driver asks for directions to the dormitory.

Five minutes later, Paul Stira hears a knock on the door of Room 4B, the dorm suite he shares with three other students.

It is around six o'clock, and the roommates have just finished cooking dinner. Paul opens the door and sees the director of student life standing in the cluttered hallway, looking stricken and flanked by three burly men dressed in business suits.

One of them has his jacket off and wears a holster and gun.

Paul is scared, but he's not showing it. His face is a blank. If you went just by his expression, you could just as easily believe Paul was watching a TV rerun as being raided by the Secret Service. Inside, Paul's roiling. But it sure won't help to let the Secret Service know that.

One of the men introduces himself as Special Agent Jeff Gavin of the Secret Service. Gavin looks over Paul's shoulder into the common living room with the brown couch and his gawking roommate. Gavin asks Paul if there's someplace private to talk. Paul, typically, is noncommittal. Gavin finally asks the roommate to leave.

What happens next is in dispute.

The way Paul remembers it, Gavin comes down on him like a tough guy, tells him that his older brother, Tom Stira, has been arrested for credit card fraud that morning and that Tom "told us everything" about Paul's hacking exploits. This is very confusing to Paul, because as far as he knows, his older brother has never been involved with any kind of fraud, and doesn't know the first thing about computers. In fact, Tom Stira never was accused of any crime.

Then, Gavin waves a manila envelope around, with the figures $70 million and $40 million written on it, and says, "You're responsible for a $110 million lost to the phone company. " That would be the AT&T crash again. Doesn't the Secret Service believe AT&T's explanation?

Gavin asks, "Are you Charles Stira?"

"No, " says Paul. "I'm Paul. "

Gavin remembers a very different version of the scene. He had not heard thing one about the hacker investigation until agents in the city called him in the Melville office at five P. M. They told him that New York City agents have already arrived at Paul's family's house in Cambria Heights with a search warrant, only to find that their quarry and his computer were at college. Fearful that Paul would get wind of the visit before they could drive out there with a new warrant to search Paul's dorm room, the agents called Gavin and asked for assistance. Gavin took notes on a manila envelope, he says, but he later lost the envelope. He doesn't remember what he wrote on the envelope, and doesn't remember saying that Paul was responsible for $110 million in damage. Gavin says he doesn't remember telling Paul his brother had been arrested for credit card fraud.

In one version of this story, you have a bully trying to intimidate a college student. In the other, you have a helpful federal agent introducing himself to Paul. The rest of the events are not in dispute.

Gavin asks Paul for written permission to search his dorm room. He tells Paul that if he doesn't sign, then they'll all have to sit around together in the dorm until a judge signs a search warrant. That could take hours.

Paul asks if he can call his mom. Gavin says he'll go with Paul to the pay phone in the hallway. He stands right next to Paul, even dials the call. Paul feels like a prisoner.

His mom answers. "What have you done?" asks Jean Stira, who has hurried home from her job as a secretary at the Queens District Attorney's office after learning that Secret Service agents were in her house. Now, agents mill around her as she talks on the phone to Paul.

"I don't know, " says Paul. "It must be something with the computer. It must be something through bulletin boards or something they got my name from. "

"Cooperate and do what they say, " she advises him. In Queens, agents are confiscating all kinds of stuff from the basement. They take Paul's dot matrix printer. They take a spare keyboard. They take his Master modem, and his Volks modem, too. They take a fax machine, and a Western Electric telephone. They take his Commodore 64 programmer's manual. But they don't stop there. They take a box of fourteen cassette tapes, a baseball scorers' sheet with various notes, and personal letters. They take something that they label "Notes to Hack Canadian Ministry of Technology. " (The notes about hacking our neighbors to the north are actually notes that Paul jotted in 1985 while watching a fictional television program called "Hide and Seek. ")

And now, in his dorm room, Paul signs. Gavin hands him a one-page form titled CONSENT TO SEARCH, and Paul reads it over and scrawls his name at the bottom.

Then Paul watches while one agent takes Polaroid photos and another carries away boxes full of his computer equipment.

Out the door go the last vestiges of Paul's identity as Scorpion: his computer, a hundred-and-fifty floppy disks, more modems, his connection wires.

When they're finished, Gavin tells Paul that some agents from the New York City office will contact him shortly.

In fact, they do, the very next day. They tell Paul that they left behind a printer, a joystick, and a mouse, and would it be okay to remove them?

Paul says OK.

It is nearly midnight, and Eli stands in the lobby of the Secret Service headquarters in the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. This is a building that in a few years would be the site of the worst terrorist bombing ever on American soil, but tonight the place is empty and quiet as a library.