The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (6 page)

Mitnick phones the Oakwood Apartments offices in the Valley. He
knows it's part of a massive, national chain serving over 400 cities
across the country. He knows Oakwood provides short-term corpo-
rate housing for businesspeople, and is the choice "of 300 of the
Fortune 500" companies. He knows Oakwood couldn't possibly be
the choice of Eric and his torn jeans.

Mitnick enjoys the game, the masquerade he's about to play. Eric
is pretending to be someone he isn't, so Mitnick will pretend to be an
Oakwood employee to find out more about Eric. It's only fair.

Mitnick already knows the people structure of the corporation,
but when he calls he apologizes, explaining he's a "new" Oakwood
employee. Mitnick is friendly and easy to trust, and people just seem
naturally to like him. The woman pulls the application of the current
occupant of 107b.

It's no problem at all.

Mitnick scours the routine information on the rental contract: so-
cial security number, date of birth, driver's license, previous ad-
dresses. Good information, but not the critical clue Mitnick seeks.
He knows Eric Heinz is renting apartment 107b and paying the
phone bills under another name, Joseph Wernle. He knows this mys-
terious Wernle is self-employed and has provided no references. But
what's this business phone number he's left? It doesn't match either
of the two lines in the apartment.

■ ■ ■

Pac Bell helps Mitnick research the calling patterns of the inhabitant
of Oakwood apartment 107b.

When Mitnick wants Pac Bell to do his research, he finds less-
knowledgeable technicians. Rather than admit their ignorance, or
ask a question, they'll freely issue a command on the switch for a
knowledgeable superior, like Kevin Mitnick.

Take a line history block (LHB), for example, a command that
generates the last number dialed on a line. Mitnick finds a technician
to run the check, and it spits back the last number dialed from apart-
ment 107b.

Three separate times Mitnick cons technicians into running LHBs.

On the fourth LHB, the number 310-477-6565 comes back. Mit-
nick doesn't have to dial it. The number is permanently filed in his
head: Los Angeles headquarters of the FBI.

It's the proof Mitnick wanted. Eric is phoning the FBI.

Next, Mitnick researches the business number Oakwood gave
him for Joseph Wernle. He learns it's a cellular number, but still
there's a puzzle. Why is Eric's Pac Tel Cellular number, 213-
507-7782, registered in the name of Mark Martinez?

It shouldn't take Mitnick long to find out.

"This is Mary with Pac Tel Cellular," the service rep answers
cheerfully.

"Hi, this is Mark Martinez, 213-507-7782," Mitnick introduces
himself. "I don't know why, but I didn't get my bill. What address
did you send it to?"

"Just a minute, Mr. Martinez. . . .We sent your bill to P.O. box..."

"That's funny, it's the right address."

Mitnick has the postal application pulled on the P.O. box. On one
level, the cover is good. From all appearances, Mr. Martinez appears
to be a real estate attorney who works in Bel Aire, California. But
whoever Martinez may or may not be, Kevin Mitnick deploys his
social engineering tricks to trace Mr. Martinez's P.O. box to 1100
Wilshire Boulevard, FBI headquarters. Within hours, Pac Tel Cellu-
lar diligently faxes Mitnick the toll records on the FBI cellular num-
ber: calls to government agencies, the IRS, the Army, internal Bureau
numbers.

The cellular tolls are the beginning of a web. Mitnick gets the bills
on all the other cellular numbers. Mitnick doesn't stop. He can't.

Gotta know how I'm being screwed. Who he is. Why they're do-
ing it.

■ ■ ■

Mitnick continues investigating Joseph Wernle. He's amazed how
easy it is to investigate the FBI.

Wernle's Pennsylvania driver's license reveals he's forty, far too old
to masquerade as rocker Eric Heinz. Mitnick tracks down Wernle's
uncle, adopting his favorite Social Security Administration ruse.

"Hello, this is Tom Bodette with the Social Security Administra-
tion. I wonder if you could help me with a problem we're trying to
clear up."

"I'll try."

"Our records seem to be confused. We think the cross reference
files for your relatives may be skewed. Let's see . . . Do you know
Mary Eberle?"

"That's my sister."

"Your sister? Then, who's Joseph Wernle? Doesn't Mary have a
son, Joseph Wernle?"

"No, her son is Joe Ways."

"Does he live in Pennsylvania?"

"No, he lives in Southern California. He's an FBI agent."

"I apologize, I must have the wrong Wernle."

Mitnick's cracked the cover! Wernle is FBI agent Joseph Charles
Ways. Mitnick runs Ways's California driver's license, learns his
height, weight, date of birth, address, even the name of his wife.
Once again, there's no match. The man's too short, too heavy, too
married, and too old to be Eric Heinz.

But Mitnick's got the identity of an active FBI undercover agent.
He's done it with hacking, with phones, and with his disarmingly
friendly voice. Most of all, he's done it because he's more possessed
than the System. The first page of Mitnick's file on the Bureau's op-
eration is extraordinary, the kind of information the FBI wishes it
had on the hacker. Mitnick has uncovered the real names of his pur-
suers and their wives, their IDs, their phones, their beepers, their
contacts, their home addresses. The phone numbers and the ad-
dresses are the ammunition for Mitnick's countersurveillance, to an-
ticipate the next moves of the agents, day by day, hour by hour.

FBI agent in charge: Joseph Charles Ways. CDL [California driver's
license]: A7988424 DOB 6/16/52 FBI eyes brown, hazel (hair) ht:
5'9", 175 lbs. (805) 529-xxxx home.

False ID: Joseph Wernle. DL A0519400 DOB 8/23/52. Phila-
delphia PA. Mom: Mary M. Wornley. Dad: Joseph Ways. Uncle:
Joseph Wornley, Sr. Uncle's sister: Mary Everly lives in P.A.

FBI business front. Alta Services. 18663 Ventura Blvd. Ste 301.
Tarzana, CA 91356. (818) 345-6435/3495.

Beeper Information. Type: Motorola Bravo Plus. (310) 785-4399.
Page frequency: 931.0375 Cap Code: 0806793. Mode: High-speed.
POCSAG signaling method.

Special Agent Stan Ornellas: (310) 645-6606 Inglewood. Contact
w/ (310) 215-xxxx. DOD Criminal Investigative service El
Segundo.

The game has just begun.

"Do you want to hear the Kevin
Poulsen story?" Eric Heinz
blandly offers.

"Oh yeah!" clamors the crowd.

They've got handles like Bloodaxe, Signal Surfer, Gatsby, The Ser-
pent, Stroke and Key, Republic, Slave Driver, and Drunkfux, and
they've driven and flown from every corner of the nation to this
dingy conference room at the Executive Inn in St. Louis, Missouri.
It's a sweltering, humid afternoon, and Eric Heinz flew all the way
from L.A., though this crowd knows him only by his handle, Agent
Steal. It's Summer Con 1992, a conference for hackers and wan-
nabes. Dentists do it. Lawyers do it. Accountants do it. Why not
hackers? Share a few secrets of the trade. Tell a few tales of un-
authorized computer access, a few intrusions into Ma Bell's
switches, a little wiretapping.

"You need to move over," a squeaky voice orders.

Bloodaxe, the famed, longhaired Texas hacker, motions Steal to
slide into the range of his video lens.

"But I'm so comfortable here," Agent Steal drawls, a hip ban-
dana neatly wrapped around his forehead, his frazzled locks fall-
ing around his shoulders, one blue-jeaned leg propped up on a
chair.

Bloodaxe obliges Steal. The camera jerks and focuses on Steal's
artificially tanned, bored face. He's the picture of detachment.

"Poulsen's a virgin, very obsessed with hacking," begins Steal.
"He takes it very seriously. Pretty much thinks he owns the phone
company. He was breaking into central offices. He had his own key.
He knew what time to go in when people weren't in there. ... Some
of you might have seen the story on
Unsolved Mysteries?"

The crowd breaks into laughter. Poulsen's two
Unsolved Mys-
teries
TV episodes are infamous among the hacker underground.
Steal delivers his second punch line.

"He was in touch with this guy that was a pimp."

He never mentions his name, but he's talking about Henry Spiegel
in Hollywood.

Steal smiles knowingly and finishes. "Who I had put him in touch
with."

The room erupts. Agent Steal is one cool hacker dude.

Steal quickly weaves through Poulsen's escapades, and cuts to
the chase. "They [the cops] kept finding me. I mean they were like
putting so much effort into it. Eventually we got the scanner fre-
quencies and we were listening to them, basically watching them
watch us."

The hackers roar.

"How I got caught I still don't know.... The main reason they
wanted me was to get to the bottom of Poulsen because Poulsen was
in the process, allegedly, of gathering top secret information, which
I'm not allowed to discuss because I signed an agreement saying I
wouldn't talk about it.

"Anyway ... what they're going to charge him with, is gathering
national defense related information with the intent to injure the
United States. If they can prove that, he's going to get twenty years.
And they don't mess around ... on that kind of stuff... . Poulsen's
going to be in jail for a long time."

"How come you didn't have to cut your hair?" Bloodaxe asks.

"Because I was in a federal jail."

"I'll remember that," Bloodaxe quips.

"So, let's see what else," Steal continues. "I got charged with
wiretapping, computer fraud .. . interstate transporation of an auto—

mobile." Steal continues reciting his resume. He's even stolen a
Porsche. To the hacker, that's Harvard with honors.

"What Porsche did you steal?" asks a teen.

"Nine forty-four Turbo."

"Gusto!" someone cries.

Encouraged by the enthusiastic response, Steal launches on a
primer on car fraud. He can't resist sharing his knowledge. You es-
tablish a bank account under a fake ID, he explains, and make a
small down payment. "A lot of times they just let it fold. You know
they won't bother trying to get it back."

"What about the title?" asks a teen.

"You never have title. You never own the car. But what the hell.
You know, if you wreck it you can buy another one."

The crack brings down the house.

"So Kevin Poulsen's trial is coming up pretty soon.... I anticipate
the whole thing to be a big media blitzkrieg. ..."

Bloodaxe zeroes in for one last close-up. Bloodaxe knows quite a
bit about Steal. He knows he's been up for membership a couple of
times in the notorious hacker gang Legion of Doom. He even knows
the single word used to describe the mercenary Steal in his latest,
unsuccessful nomination: "Crime."

Bloodaxe, of course, is himself a celebrated member of the Legion
of Doom, and he has lots of connections in the murky world of
computer hacking. When Steal was arrested in Dallas in June of
1991, word had reached Bloodaxe almost instantly, and he'd
quickly dispatched a junior hacker to check the court records. There
weren't any. That doesn't square with Steal's talk about being a
fugitive from California, wiretapping, computer fraud, or inter-
state transportation of a stolen vehicle. Bloodaxe quietly spreads the
word among the 1992. Summer Con attendees. Be careful of Steal.
Party with him? Sure. But don't
do
anything with him, don't
say anything.

"Dude, what are you doing saying that stuff about me?" Steal
confronts Bloodaxe in the lobby.

Word's reached Steal of Bloodaxe's warning. He's pissed.

"Well, you want to explain a few things for me?"

"Dude, I was arrested! Look, man, I can't talk about anything

'cuz they made me sign a bunch of things. They were trying to get me
to do all these other things and I wouldn't do it!"

Steal whips out several government forms.

"They made me sign all this stuff," Steal complains, flipping the
papers so fast that Bloodaxe has no chance to read them.

"It's cool. I'm not doing anything."

Bloodaxe shrugs.

He drives west on Las Vir-
genes on the road to Malibu,
past the tidy roadside apartments and million-dollar houses high on
the hill, over the busy 101 freeway. Right at the gas station, into the
strip mall, past the shops and the Jack In the Box. Sprints up the
terra-cotta stairs and turns left to the potted palms and the white
walls flooded with light from the upper windows.

Teltec Investigations. Suite 212.

"Push here. Identify yourself," the black speakerphone commands.