The Fugitive Game: Online With Kevin Mitnick (7 page)

Mitnick's got a key.

He opens one of the wood double doors and pads down the dull
gray carpet, past the boxes of phones, cables, and miscellaneous
junk that line the hallway. Teltec's half-dozen crowded private of-
fices are similarly cluttered with paper-strewn desks, girly calendars,
and computers.

Mitnick boots up the laptop he's linked to his scanner. He's en-
tered his "hot list" of fifteen cellular numbers into the program: FBI
agents, Pac Bell security agents, Eric Heinz; in short, the people try-
ing to stick him back in jail. Mitnick's scanning gear isn't unique.
Some of the best law enforcement agencies in the country use it to
pursue drug dealers, mobsters, and other bigtime criminals. Kevin
Mitnick uses it to track the FBI.

Mitnick knows a cellular telephone is a radio transceiver that
sends and receives. He knows that for each call, it broadcasts a mo-
bile identification number (MIN), the phone number, and the elec-
tronic serial number (ESN), the phone's unique identification.

He knows each call bounces to the cellular site that covers that
geographic region. He knows his scanner picks up the local "hand-
shake," the "forward control channel" of each call, as the caller
moves into a new cell site.

Mitnick's program constantly scans for his MIN "hot list." If the
FBI makes a cellular call in an area he's monitoring, it pops automat-
ically onto his screen. He watches the FBI's movements and moni-
tors who they call. The agents might as well be wearing electronic
dog collars.

Mitnick moved a few weeks ago, with his father's friend Mark
Kasden, into the tony Malibu Canyon Apartments at 5810 Las Vir-
genes, just a four-minute drive to Teltec. For the first time in his life,
Mitnick's finally earning a good living, enjoying luxuries he's never
known. He loves water, and the resort-like complex boasts a sprawl-
ing pool and a man-made waterfall and creek — nothing at all like
the ordinary apartments of his youth.

Mitnick does his detective work mostly with phones. He imperso-
nates the target, faxes release documents with authentic signatures,
says a fire burned the records. Any kind of ruse he can imagine. He
tracks down bank accounts and foreign assets. Talks people into
revealing wire transfers. It's a talent. In most cases, some attorney is
suing somebody, and if Mitnick can dig up substantial assets, Teltec
sells the information to its clients. While other detectives at Teltec
waste days on cases, trying to determine someone's whereabouts,
Mitnick, equipped with a laptop, a phone, and his soft, puppy voice,
digs up answers in minutes or hours: tax returns, credit and employ-
ment histories, phone bills, and bank accounts.

Joseph Wernle, the undercover FBI agent renting Eric's Oakwood
apartment, isn't a Teltec assignment, but Mitnick investigates him
anyway. Mitnick comes up empty at Bank of America, Union Bank,
and Security Pacific, but it doesn't take long. Joseph Wernle banks at
Wells Fargo, the second largest bank in the state.

Great, Mitnick thinks. Wells Fargo requires just one daily code

and a social security number to get a customer's private informa-
tion. Mitnick phones a branch listed in a banking guide, imperson-
ates a manager, and tricks someone into giving him the code for the
day. Next, he calls Wernle's branch, and convinces the teller
to read everything on Wernle's signature card: his account and
social security numbers, his mother's maiden name, his business
address.

Mitnick keys Wernle's account number and the last four digits of
his social security number via his touchtone phone into Wells's
automated banking system. He listens to the synthesized voice recite
the account activity: a deposit for $5,000, checks for $3,000 and
$6,000. Mitnick's already impersonated Wernle to get his phone
bills. Where are the matching checks for those amounts? Why hasn't
Wernle paid his Oakwood phone bill?

■ ■ ■

Mitnick's been having fun investigating Wernle and Eric. First, he
found the apartment the feds stashed Eric in at Oakwood, then he
tracked down his latest hideaway, McCadden Place, apartment #9
in Hollywood. Mitnick and De Payne are playing a high-tech game
of hide and seek, and Eric isn't totally to blame for the security
breakdown. The FBI agents call Eric's new phone numbers on their
cell phones, which Mitnick continues to monitor. And they even
continue to take out phone service under the name Joseph Wernle.

Fully aware that the feds are tapping Mitnick's phone, his boss at
Teltec sees an opportunity to throw the feds a curveball. He prepares
an impromptu script for the FBI, including the names and numbers
of competing detective firms that might be engaged in illegal activity.
What better way to level the playing field than to trick the FBI into
investigating his competitors?

At the same time, Mitnick and De Payne meet with an attorney
friend and play the tapes of Eric's clumsy attempts to entrap them.
Just like Mitnick's boss, the attorney coaches them for their next
conversation.

"Eric, I know this guy who has access to [Pac Bell] billing sys-
tems," Mitnick confides. "Can you keep this to yourself?" The guy is
a detective at one of Teltec's competitors.

"I just want to make some fucking money this time!" Mitnick
blurts out in another call to Eric.

The FBI shoves, Mitnick shoves back.

"We're trading stuff with Rop and Bill Squire in Holland," Mit-
nick and De Payne tempt Eric.

"Yeah, they can come in through their channel, and that way, it's
not illegal," the hackers tell Eric. "They get the information and
download it for us."

Eric's hit the jackpot! Holland's an international center of hack-
ing. The Dutch-based hackers are notorious.

SAS is a powerful hacker's tool for the simple reason that it can be
used to wiretap almost any phone line, and therefore let the wiretap-
per hear all sorts of secret conversations. Just how far Mitnick and
De Payne go with the technology only they and perhaps the FBI
know. But De Payne knows what you can "theoretically" do with
SAS: listen to law enforcement lines and monitor how officers call in
to get information. Glean their names, badge numbers, and IDs. Pick
up the lingo. Who works what shift. Who to make requests to.

If Mitnick could learn the routine, he could get the same results as
the real officers. With SAS someone could learn how anything
works. Anything that involves a phone.

"There's no way they could actually be monitoring us?" the FBI
agent asks Eric on the phone one day.

De Payne says he and Mitnick heard the call. He doesn't say
whether it was a cellular or a regular phone call, and he doesn't say
when it happened. It's not every day a couple of hackers can turn the
tables and listen to the FBI. But Mitnick's puzzled by one fact. Why
hasn't the government pulled the plug on SAS? Is it a setup, a game
to entice Mitnick into hacking, into illegally accessing the secret Pac
Bell system?

The FBI must know Eric spilled the beans on Pac Bell's wiretap-
ping system. Why wouldn't the FBI or Pac Bell shut it down or at
least spend the few thousand bucks necessary to make it secure?

Why sit by while millions of telephones in the state of California are
vulnerable to massive, untraceable eavesdropping?

No accountability. No audit trails. SAS is the ultimate hacker
tool. And Mitnick knows as time passes, SAS will only get better.
The new, Northern Telecom DMS (Digital Multiplex System) phone
switches being installed by Pac Bell all over California make SAS an
even more foolproof wiretapping system. On a fully digital DMS
switch, SAS wiretaps make no audible click and can stay up for
hours or days at a time.

Kevin knows the FBI believes he can't resist the temptation, and
he feels the same way about them. If all it takes to wiretap someone
illegally with SAS is a PC and a couple of phone lines, why would the
FBI bother with a court order?

■ ■ ■

Pac Bell is wiretapping.

On July 31, 1992., John Venn of Pac Bell Security places a DNR
tap on 818-880-6472, the home number of Mark Kasden and Kevin
Mitnick.

At 8:09 p.m., the tap picks up Pac Bell's computer activating the
Priority Ringing and Speed Dialing custom calling features for Kas-
den and Mitnick's line, an ordinary event except for the fact that Pac
Bell has yet to offer the new features to the general public.

Over the next week, the tap picks up calls to various voice mail
boxes. Calls to the voice mail of Pac Bell security investigator Lillie
Creeks and the voice mail of Pac Bell investigator Darrell Santos.

On August 6, 1992, Venn connects a tape recorder to the tap,
capturing the first two minutes of any subsequent call. Venn doesn't
need a court order. He works for Pac Bell. He can tap whoever he
wants to under Title 18 Section 2511 (2) (a) (i) and (h). Mr. Venn
believes Pac Bell's property rights are in danger. That's all he needs.

On August 25, FBI Special Agent Ken McGuire meets with Venn
and Terry Atchley, another veteran Pac Bell security investigator.
Atchley briefs McGuire on the activity he's been monitoring since
late January. Pretext social engineering calls to Pac Bell central of-
fices to check for taps. Calling features that mysteriously appear on
the home phones of Alan Mitnick and Lewis De Payne. A mysterious

Ernie from "ESAC," an internal Pac Bell division, who instructs
technicians to make specific entries into Pac Bell's computers. And
modem calls made from De Payne's offices into Pac Bell's computers.

But it's the wiretap recordings the FBI agent wants to hear. Venn
hits play, and the men listen to three calls made to Pac Bell security
voice mail boxes, and three more phone calls made to a mysterious
"Dave."

Atchley's sure of it. He worked the first case against Mitnick and
De Payne back in 1981. The voice on the tape is one Kevin David
Mitnick.

■ ■ a

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

It's the morning of September 28, 1992. The warning bell on
Kevin's scanner, programmed to pick up the local FBI agent's calls,
is ringing in his office. Mitnick bursts in and scans the screen. The
number, he knows that number. They're closing in on his apartment.

That's McGuire, fucking Special Agent Ken McGuire, calling a
pay phone. The Village Market, right next to my apartment!

The doorknob wiggles.
Why do they always have to
come so early in the morning?

"Excuse me, who's breaking in?" Mitnick yells.

"Open up! It's the FBI."

Mitnick hops out of bed, unlocks the door, and swings it open.

Mitnick stands eye to eye with a female FBI agent in her late thir-
ties. She's surrounded by several middle-aged male FBI and law en-
forcement agents in suits, craning to get a better look.

Kevin Mitnick is stark naked. He takes after Marilyn. He always
sleeps in the nude.

"Can I put some clothes on?"

Mitnick pulls on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and returns to count
the FBI agents, officers of the peace, and phone company security
personnel. There are more than a dozen of them milling through his
apartment, numbering the few rooms, sorting through his things.

"This is your second time around, Kevin," Special Agent Richard
Beasely warns, sitting Mitnick down in a chair.

"Do you have a cassette recorder I could borrow for a minute?"
Beasely asks.

Why don't you bring your own goddamned cassette recorder?

Mitnick hands his player to the FBI agent, who pops in a cassette.

CRACK!

Mitnick looks, and sure enough, the door on his player is broken.

I'd like to break something of his.

The FBI agent presses play, and the law enforcement agents gather
round to listen. It's a tape recording of somebody who sounds an
awful lot like Kevin Mitnick, talking and listening to what sounds
like Pac Bell security's voice mail.

"That's an interesting tape," Mitnick volunteers, impressed.

Amazing what the FBI can do with technology.

"Do you have any more?" Mitnick inquires.

The FBI doesn't. And they don't appreciate Mitnick's sense of
humor.

"Time is running out, Kevin," Beasely tells him in jargon that
sounds straight out of a B movie. "Lewis is spilling his guts. You're
gonna be left behind."

"So, are you going to arrest me?"

Mitnick knows there's no way in the world they are going to ar-
rest him. That's not the way the FBI works. They usually get a search
warrant first, gather the evidence, and then come back with an arrest
warrant. That's why Mitnick's there. He wants to know the FBI's
cards before they play them.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

Several minutes go by without any response. The agents are get-
ting impatient. They know the hacker's inside, but they don't dare
try a forced entry. Why won't he open the door?