Ghost in the Wires_ My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker - Kevin Mitnick [68]
“Yeah, one sec,” he said.
I was nervous as hell. If Bruce heard a car horn honking or some other nonoffice-like background noise, I’d be caught out. This was way too important—way too interesting—to screw up. I could hear Bruce typing, and I knew exactly what he was doing: querying the switch to trace the call.
“Tom, okay, the call is coming from the LA70 tandem”—meaning it was a long-distance call, coming from outside the LA area.
Bruce then gave me the detailed trunking information I needed to continue the trace. I also asked him for the number of the switching center that managed the LA70 tandem. My uncanny ability to remember telephone numbers came in handy once again: I didn’t have to scribble the number down with one hand while steering with the other. (In fact, most of the phone numbers and people’s names in this book are the real thing, still imprinted in my memory from as much as twenty years ago.)
At the end of the call, I told him, “Don’t forget me, Bruce. I’ll likely need your help again.” I was hoping he’d remember me the next time and not feel he needed to do that whole callback routine again.
When I called the switching center, the phone was answered, “LA70, this is Mary.”
I said, “Hey, Mary, this is Carl Randolph from Engineering in San Ramon. I have a circuit I’m tracing, and it appears to originate from your office.” Apparently I was on solid ground all around, since Mary didn’t hesitate, asking me for the trunking information. I gave it to her, and she put me on hold while she checked. Since phone phreaks rarely targeted toll switches, she didn’t even bother to verify my identity.
Mary came back on the line. “Carl, I’ve traced the trunk information you gave me. The call originated from the San Francisco 4E.” She gave me the trunking and network information she had found from her trace. I also asked her for the number for that 4E office, which she was kind enough to look up for me.
I was now approaching Interstate 15. My route would take me through the Cajon Pass, running between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains, making it likely that any call would be dropped. I would wait until I reached Victorville, on the far side of the pass.
In the meantime, I switched on the car radio and was treated to some favorite oldies from the fifties. “K-Earth-101,” the disk jockey said. “We’re giving away a thousand dollars an hour to lucky caller number seven after you hear the K-Earth jingle—‘the best oldies on the radio.’ ”
Wow! Wouldn’t it be cool to win a grand! But why even bother trying? I had never won any contest I had ever entered. Still, the idea planted itself in my mind and would eventually turn from a fantasy into a temptation.
As I approached Victorville, I dialed the number Mary had given me, reaching a guy who said his name was Omar. “Hey, Omar, this is Tony Howard with ESAC in Southern California,” I said. “We have a weird situation here. We were tracing a circuit, and it has a thousand-cycle tone on it.” I gave him the trunking information from the LA tandem, and he went off to check.
Leaving Victorville, I was now heading back into an empty stretch of desert and again concerned that the cell call might drop. I slowed down from my open-road speed of eighty miles an hour so I wouldn’t leave Victorville behind quite so quickly.
It was some time before Omar came back on the line. “I heard that high-pitched tone,” he said, and went “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” in imitation of the sound, which made me chuckle to myself—I had heard the tone and didn’t really need to hear his attempt to duplicate it.
He told me the call was originating from Oakland. “Cool,” I said. “Thank you, that’s a help. Give me the trunking information from your switch so we can trace it.”
He queried the switch and gave me the info.
My next call was to the Oakland Switching Control Center. “We’re trying to trace a call from the San Francisco 4E,” I said, and provided the trunking