The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (15 page)

It's Independence Day 1994. I
wander down to the curb, pick
up the
Times,
and strip off the blue plastic wrapper.

There he is, staring back at me from the front page of the
New
York Times,
the fugitive I've been talking with down at the local pay
phone. It's the same old menacing picture of Kevin Mitnick.

cyberspace's most wanted: hacker eludes f.b.i. pursuit
By John Markoff

He did it! He actually managed to get Kevin Mitnick on the front
page. I scan the article looking for the breaking news that catapulted
this old story to the premier spot. But there's no hot lead, no men-
tion of a victim company or individual, no promise of an imminent
capture. There are plenty of allegations, but the only solid charge
against Mitnick appears to be a probation violation, generally not
the sort of stuff that lands a year-and-a-half-old fugitive case on the
front page of the
New York Times.

The story reads like a feature article, beginning with the rehash of
an old myth Markoff helped propagate in
Cyberpunk.
Markoff must
know the NORAD War Games tale is nothing more than a story
told by one of Mitnick's cohorts famous for his fictional accounts.

I flip to the inside page and read about a Mitnick hacking ram-
page that Markoff claims could threaten the "future of cellular tele-
phone networks." When I finish the story, I look for a source for
Mitnick's alleged crimes, or a sign that someone other than Markoff
believes Mitnick threatens the future. But I can't even find a refer-
ence to the possibility of a grand jury indictment, and there's not a
single quote from an Assistant U.S. Attorney, FBI agent, or Justice
Department spokesman.

I slowly notice items missing from the fifteen-hundred-word ar-
ticle. Like the word "hacker," the term chosen by the
Times's
headline
writers. Markoff never calls Mitnick a hacker. He uses phrases like
"computer programmer run amok" and derogatory terms like "grif-
ter," and "criminal." He's right in a sense. Mitnick definitely has the
skills of a grifter. But Markoff himself acknowleges in his article that
Mitnick doesn't appear to have a profit motive. Why then does he call
him a grifter? Grifting is about conning people out of money.

And what about Justin Petersen (aka Eric Heinz)? The govern-
ment's informant isn't even mentioned. Why is Markoff ignoring
Petersen's role in entrapping Mitnick and sending him on the run?
Several paragraphs recount decade-old Mitnick myths, yet Petersen's
involvement is timely and newsworthy. Why is there no reference to
the Janet Reno letter alleging FBI misconduct? Markoff had a copy
of if. If Markoff thinks the Reno letter is off base, why doesn't he
take the opportunity to debunk it?

Combining technical wizardry with the ages-old guile of a grifter,
Kevin Mitnick is a computer programmer run amok. And law en-
forcement officials cannot seem to catch up with him.

. . . Now one of the nation's most wanted computer criminals, Mr.
Mitnick is suspected of stealing software and data from more than
a half dozen leading cellular telephone manufacturers. ...

As a teenager he used a computer and a modem to break into a
North American Air Defense Command computer, foreshadowing
the 1983 movie "War Games.". ..

Mr. Mitnick is now a suspect in the theft of software that com-
panies plan to use for everything from handling billing information

to determining the location of a caller to scrambling wireless phone
calls to keep them private. Such a breach could compromise the
security of future cellular telephone networks.... Last year, while a
fugitive, he managed to gain control of a phone system in Califor-
nia that allowed him to wiretap the F.B.I, agents who were search-
ing for him.

... F. B. I. and Justice Department officials said they were still
uncertain of his motives and did not have absolute proof that he was
behind the attacks on cellular phone companies....

In July and early August, numerous Los Angeles newspaper stories
pour out of my fax with their version of events. Stories about Mit-
nick and stories about Justin Petersen, aka Eric Heinz. The differ-
ence between the
New York Times's
and the Los Angeles papers'
coverage is striking. The L05
Angeles Times
and the
Los Angeles
Daily News
report several aspects of the story, making tentative con-
nections between Petersen's alleged FBI undercover work and the
investigation of Kevin Mitnick. I don't doubt De Payne and Mitnick
helped spur the stories, both by initiating the Janet Reno letter and,
on De Payne's part, by actually phoning the
Daily News.
But either
way Petersen's role is part of the picture. In short, in sharp contrast
to Markoff's article, the Los Angeles papers raise as many questions
about the government's conduct as they do about hackers.

Los Angeles Times, July 31, 1994

HACKER IN HIDING: DIGITAL DESPERADO WHO CLAIMS TO HAVE
WORKED FOR THE FBI IS NOW BEING SOUGHT BY THE AGENCY

By John Johnson

First there was the Condor, then Dark Dante. The latest computer
hacker to hit the cyberspace most wanted list is Agent Steal, a slen-
der, good-looking rogue partial to Porsches and BMWs who
bragged that he worked undercover for the FBI catching other
hackers.

... Ironically, by running he has consigned himself to the same
secretive life as Kevin Mitnick, the former North Hills man who is

one of the nation's most infamous hackers, and whom Petersen al-
legedly bragged of helping to set up for an FBI bust....

. . . But was he really working as a government informant?. . . The
FBI refused to talk about Petersen directly. But J. Michael Gibbons,
a bureau computer crime expert, expressed doubts. ...

"It's not safe. Across the board, hackers cannot be trusted to
work — they play both sides against the middle." The agents
"could have had him in the office," Gibbons said. "They probably
debriefed him at length. Send him out to do things? I doubt it."

Los Angeles Daily News, July 31, 1994

FORMER FBI INFORMANT A FUGITIVE
AFTER HELPING TRACK FELLOW HACKERS

Keith Stone — Computer outlaw Justin Tanner Petersen and pros-
ecutors cut a deal: The Los Angeles nightclub promoter known in
the computer world as "Agent Steal" would work for the govern-
ment in exchange for freedom.

. . . Now FBI agents are searching for their rogue informant —
scouring computer conventions and nightclubs for a man they say
can change his identity and fill his pockets with cash just by pushing
a few buttons.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it had
found no proof of criminal wrongdoing in the government's han-
dling of Petersen, but the case was referred to the FBI's Office of
Professional Responsibility for more investigation.

Pushing the investigation is Santa Monica attorney Richard G.
Sherman, who contends the FBI used Petersen as an informant
while knowing he was breaking the law. . . . "How can you let a
man like this run loose who had a record he had — who had the
criminal problems he had?" Sherman said.

"They don't want to find this guy because then they are really in
trouble. Why? Because he will tell what he was doing for them,"
Sherman said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David Schindler ... disputed Sherman's
core allegation — that the government knowingly allowed Petersen
to break the law.

"He describes this nefarious plot by the Justice Department and FBI
to run around the city and do wrong things — and this is patently
wrong," Schindler said.

... De Payne and Sherman insist that Petersen knew how to manip-
ulate Pacific Bell computers to create false records to try and impli-
cate De Payne and Mitnick.

Kevin Pazaski gets a call the
afternoon of July 27, 1994.
He's sitting in his cramped, windowless, eight-foot-square office by
Yarrow Bay in Kirkland, Washington, a phone pressed to his ear.
The customer service rep is puzzled. A new account is complaining
about several hundred dollars of unauthorized charges on his bill.
And he hasn't made a single call.

Could Pazaski look into it?

Pazaski is a fraud analyst with CellularOne. He looks like the
marathon runner he is: broad chest, trim waist, early thirties. He
wears jeans, a sport shirt, and athletic shoes to work. His duties keep
him active, tracking cases in Washington, Colorado, Utah, and
Alaska and helping cops with subpoenas for criminals using cell
phones. Pazaski views his job in old-fashioned terms. He helps nail
the pirates of the cellular phone revolution. He calls them Clone
Jockeys, Call Sell Operators, and Skip Jackers, but to him they're all
the same. Criminals swiping cellular phone time.

Cellular phone fraud always has one common component. The
perpetrator uses someone else's legitimate number, their electronic
serial number, to bill calls. Pazaski's job is to find out who's actually
swiped the ESN, and perhaps, how they did it.

Pazaski scans the billing statement. The first call is from Eugene,

Oregon, on June 27, 1994, 1:16 p.m. A call to information. Pazaski
knows the pattern. A phone hacker dials information to test his
clone job before making calls.

The investigator scans the remaining calls made the afternoon of
June 27, calls from Oregon — Albany, Salem, Portland. Pazaski
knows the route. The phone hacker was heading north on the I-5. At
3:52 p.m., in Portland, the phone hacker made his last call of the
afternoon, to Las Vegas.

Pazaski dials the number on the bill.

"SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Modem breath. The phone hacker's jacking into a modem in Vegas.

Weird, Pazaski thinks. He walks down the hall to Information Ser-
vices, and asks a techie to try the same number. But all he gets is the
prompt of some anonymous, online computer system. The techie would
need a password to get in, a password he hasn't a clue how to crack.

The calls continue. By 6:07 p.m. on June 27, the phone hacker was
in Seattle. The next morning, June 28, the hacker dialed at 11:13
a.m. It's the last call on the Oregon-based pirated cellular number.

Customer service alerts Pazaski to a new pirated number that
sprang to life June 28 at 11:29 a.m. — calls to taxi cabs, the local
Metro bus line, and an alternative Seattle movie theater, the Seven
Gables. But most of the numbers are dead ends, modem numbers or
calls to roamer access numbers.

A roamer access number works as a bridge to phone a mobile
cellular customer who has left his or her area code. First you dial one
of the roamer numbers in the cellular subscriber's general area, say
Los Angeles, then you dial their full cellular number.

The hacker is dialing roamers so often that Pazaski wonders
whether he's using them for another reason. When you dial a roamer
it's the only number that shows up on a bill. There's no trace of the
person actually called. Roamers are a great way to mask long dis-
tance calls.

The investigator begins to form a sketchy profile of the pirate: no
car, frugal, a movie buff. But Pazaski has no idea where he gets his
ESNs. Maybe he's got a scanner and he's listening to calls and pick-
ing up ESNs? Maybe he's hacking ESNs with a computer? Maybe
he's social engineering?

Pazaski can only guess.

The first week of August, Ron
Austin phones with strange
news. While talking with De Payne, Mitnick's pal, totally out of
context, dropped phrases like "roller blading," and mentioned how
Austin had met me at the airport. De Payne never explained these pro-
vocative non sequiturs, and Austin never asked. He got the message.

We both know at least two ways Mitnick and De Payne could
have gotten the information. The FBI, via its informant Eric Heinz,
helped supply De Payne and Mitnick with SAS. But while I don't
doubt Mitnick and De Payne's wiretapping abilities, I figure the sec-
ond possibility is far more likely. Cracking into someone else's
e-mail, for Kevin Mitnick, at least, would be child's play.

I think back over my e-mail exchanges with Austin. I mentioned
roller blading in a recent message, and about a week ago, on one of
my L.A. research trips, Austin met me at the airport. We discussed
the airport arrangements both in e-mail and on the phone, but we
never talked about roller blading on the phone.

That settles it in my mind. Mitnick and De Payne have cracked my
Internet gateway, the Well, and are reading my e-mail. The question
is what can I do?

"The Well," welcomes a young, hip female voice.

Calling the Well isn't like calling any other Internet provider. The
men and women who answer the phones and work the computers
have a hippy, sixties look and attitude. I know because I've driven
from my home to visit their nearby offices in Sausalito, California.
It's not a big operation, but it's become a trendy Internet club, fre-
quented by a close-knit community of upscale ex-hippy libertarians,
liberals, Greatful Dead fans, technophiles, and journalists. The co-
gnoscenti have e-mail addresses there, people like Mitch Kapor, the
founder of Lotus, and the privacy group the Electronic Frontier
Foundation. Markoff, too, has a Well address.