Ghost in the Wires_ My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker - Kevin Mitnick [66]
“They aren’t,” I told him, “but three lines at Teltec are being monitored.”
His reaction was pretty much like my father’s. He looked like he was thinking, This kid is full of it. No way he’d be able to find out if a phone line was being wiretapped. I was excited to share my capabilities. It was cool because ordinarily this was stuff you had to keep to yourself unless you wanted to end up in a dormitory at a prison camp.
“You don’t think I could find wiretaps? Just using my computer and any telephone, I can monitor anyone I want.”
The look on his face said, Why am I wasting time with this blowhard?
I asked if he wanted a demonstration. He replied with a skeptical, cocky, “Sure. Let’s see if you can listen to my girlfriend’s line.” She lived in Agoura Hills, he told me.
In my notebook I had handwritten notes of the dial-up numbers for the SAS remote access test points (RATPs) in several COs in the San Fernando Valley. I looked up the number for the RATP in the Agoura CO that served her area. There were four numbers listed.
Since I knew my dad’s lines didn’t have any intercepts on them, I could use one of them to dial in to SAS: because it was a local call, no billing record would be generated, meaning no evidence could be found later showing that anybody had ever dialed SAS from this line. I sat down at a desktop computer—which was actually my friend’s, though my dad had agreed to say it was his if a Probation Officer ever dropped by, since I wasn’t supposed to use computers except with prior approval. I used the computer modem to dial in to the SAS unit in the Agoura CO.
On the second one of my dad’s lines, I called another number and put the phone in speakerphone mode. They heard the ring, ring, ring.
Then I typed some commands on the computer. All of a sudden, the ringing stopped with a loud click, as if someone had picked up the phone. They watched, intrigued, as I hummed loudly into the speakerphone: mmmmmmmmm. Immediately, we heard a series of touch tones as if someone picked up the line and started to initiate a call.
I asked Mark for his girlfriend’s phone number as I entered a series of commands on the computer. We were now listening on the girlfriend’s phone line.
Bummer. She wasn’t on the phone. The line was silent.
“Mark, your girlfriend’s not on the line,” I told him. “Try calling her from your cell phone.” As he took out his cell phone and speed-dialed the number, my dad was giving me a look of disbelief, as if he were watching some Harry Houdini wannabe trying to perform a magic trick he didn’t really know how to do.
From the speakerphone on my dad’s phone line, we heard the brrrrr-brrrr that meant the number was ringing. After four rings, we heard an answering machine pick up, then the girlfriend’s outgoing message. “Leave a message,” I told him with a big grin. As he talked into his cell phone, we could hear his words coming out over my dad’s speakerphone.
Mark’s jaw dropped. His eyes widened and locked on mine with a look of awe and admiration. “That’s fucking incredible,” he said. “How did you do that?!”
I replied with what has since become a tired cliché: “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
On his way out, he said, “I think you’ll be hearing from me.” The idea of working for a PI firm sounded fantastic. Maybe I could learn some great new investigative techniques. I watched him walk out the door and hoped I really would hear from him again.
FOURTEEN
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A couple of days after meeting my father’s friend Mark Kasden, from the PI firm, I set out on the long drive back to Vegas to pick up my clothes and personal belongings. The Probation Department had approved my request that I be allowed to move in long-term with my dad.
I left my dad’s at an early hour that didn’t much suit my nocturnal lifestyle but would let me escape LA before the