Hacker Chronicles 1/HACKER1.ISO/miscpub1/chapter6.txt

Text File | 1992-09-26 | 18KB | 284 lines

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  ║                                ┌────────┐                                ║
  ║                                │ HOTELS │                                ║
  ║                                └────────┘                                ║
  ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

    Suppose you are staying at a hotel and get into a bad beef over the poor
quality of the meal you get in their restaurant.  After trying to be
reasonable, here is how Ralph Charell, a champion-class advocate for the little
guy, handled it.  Seeing absolutely no satisfaction and no end of snobbish
treatment, Charell took the following steps.  He requested a deposit box in the
hotel safe and placed the offending rib roast, which he felt was of poor
quality, in the box and locked it.  The box had two separate locks and two
separate keys.  One was held by the hotel, the other by Charell.

     "At this point, the hotel management has absolutely no idea what I'd
placed in the box," Ralph Charell explained.  "I told them it was valuable
evidence in a possible legal action I was considering against an organization
with whom I was having a disagreement about the quality of one of their
products."

     In a short time, someone at the desk caught the disagreeable odor of decay
coming from the area of the safe.  Within another short time, Charell was
called by the manager and asked to clear whatever was in the box out of the
box.  Charell explained about the "evidence" in this legal action.  The hotel
manager threatened to force open the box anyway.  Charell reminded him of the
laws against destroying evidence, then explained the whole situation.

     "What do you want from me, Mr. Charell?" was the manager's beaten reply.

     Ralph Charell then reported the details of the dinner he and his party had
had at the hotel.  It takes a real expert like Ralph Charell to turn a trick
into something positive for all sides.

     In Homer City, Pennsylvania, a group of the locals told about the time a
fellow had a room at a nearby boardinghouse.  He was the pompous sort of
smartass who just begged to be dirty tricked.  The locals went to a junkyard
and brought a huge gang plow.  It was in pieces and was relatively easy for
these husky lads to put in the mark's rooms.  They assembled it and welded the
pieces together with a small, portable machine.  They and their machine left.
There was a great deal of consternation on the part of the mark and the
landlord, who parted company faster than the room and the plow.  Automobiles
and other bits of large machinery work equally well in rooms and apartments
today.

     A collegiate trick reported by Whitney Clapper called for hiding small
dead things, such as mice, sparrows, or moles, in out-of-the-way places in the
marks rented room.  Good secret places include light fixtures, inside switch
boxes, unused overcoat pockets, and inside appliances.  Within a few days, the
mark will be aware that something is wrong.  A few more days, and he'll be
sure.  Left unattended, this stunt will provide the mark with a mass of pet
maggots to raise.

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  ║                                ┌───────┐                                 ║
  ║                                │ HOMES │                                 ║
  ║                                └───────┘                                 ║
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    All sorts of things have homes -- snails, snakes, groundhogs, weasels,
Japanese beetles, even marks.  One vengeful way of getting even with a mark is
to destroy the moat to the castle of his/her home.  The idea is to hit close to
home, for both physical and the psychological destruction involved.

     One example started at the apartment of Pat Konely.  Because the landlord
refused to make needed roof repairs, seceral rainstorms flooded Konely's
apartment, damaging personal property.  The landlord also refused to pay
damages, and Konely didn't have the money to fight the landlord's attorney.

     Pat Konely admits the response wasn't very funny, but it did put a damper
on the mark's day and his own home.  It worked because the mark's front door
had one of those mail slots cut in it.  Konely says that this stunt works
wonders when the mark is not aware of what's going on until the poor drip
really gets the message.  Here's what Konely suggests.  Hook a hose, ideally
the mark's, to the outdoor faucet.  Unscrew the power nozzle so you have the
bare hose.  Carry it to the mail slot and quietly fit the bare hose end through
the slot and into the house.  Got the picture?  Good.  Konely says you just
turn on the faucet and hope the mark has slow reactions.  Most tricksters would
agree that it's hardly sporting to do this when the mark is away from home.

     "That would be like shooting puppies in a barrel," Konely snorts.  "At
least tip the barrel over and give them a running start, so to speak."

     If your mark hates cats, be sure to place dead fish in obscure and
unpleasant places around his/her abode.  Do this at night.  If you want feline
audio accompaniment, tie a large dead fish from a tree limb or pole just out of
the reach of the neighborhood cats.  The nearer to the mark's bedroom window,
the better.

     The modern epoxy glues are a miracle to many and a menace to others.  The
latter is exemplified by the exasperation of a person who's just discovered
that someone has squirted a load of strong glue into her/his door lock.
(Liquid solder works too.)

     You know all those vents in the back and top of a television set?  If you
ever pour a bunch of iron filings down in there, some interesting things will
happen to the mark's set the next time it is turned on.

     How about some party humor?  If your mark doesn't know you're getting back
at him yet, you might even find yourself a guest in the target home.  You could
start off your festivities by quieting yourself away from the crowd, locating
the family freezer, and either turning the unit down greatly, pulling the plug
(unless it's equipped with a safety signal unit), or switching it to defrost.

     A trickster by the name of Micki related how she once came bearing gifts
for the mark's family freezer.  She had matched the hostess's freezer wrapping
paper and style perfectly.  Then, nestled among the nice beef roasts, steaks,
hamburgers, and chickens belonging to the mark, Micki added her own packages of
frozen roadkill -- dead cats, small dogs, groundhogs, and crows.

     Happy eating, all you mystery-meat fans.

     While doing your tour of the targeted facilities don't forget to dump some
fierglass or insulation dust into the mark's washing machine.  It will be
picked up by the clothes, ideally undergarments.  Within half an hour of
getting dressed, a person wearing clothing impregnated by the fiberglass or
insulation dust will wish he/she weren't.  It creates terrible itching that
takes two or three days to disappear.  The best part is that no one ever thinks
to blame the rash on sabotaged clothing.  Repeated doses of this stunt are
enough to make a strong mark crumble.  A continual supply of "product" is
assured if you mix the nasty dust in with the laundry detergent.

     Every real kid knows what sulfur smells like when burned -- horribly
rotten eggs.  Once, some of my peergroup delinquents put some three pounds of
it in a nasty neighbor's furnace, after somehow gaining entry to the basement.
The house had to be aired out for nearly forty-eight hours.  It was awesome.
If you want some fireworks with your sulfur-in-the-furnace gimmick, throw in a
mixture of potassium permanganate and sugar.  It will flare, smoke grandly,
and, with the sulfur present, stink all the more.

     Here is one of Leon Specre's recipe for ill humor.  He hopes you dig it.

     Your mark (and family if there is one) is away for at least the weekend,
and you know about it enough ahead that you can hire a backhoe operator.  Also,
rent a pickup truck and tape a cardboard sign to its door with some vague
identification on it about a landscaping business.  Smear the license plate
with mud or borrow another plate for a short while.

     You should arrive at the mark's house about half an hour before the
backhoe.  Naturally, you used the mark's name when you engaged the backhoe and
you told the operator you'd have a landscape contractor (you) there to meet
him.  The neighbors should think everything is in order if you act as if you
know what you're doing.

     Don't give the backhoe operator a good look at you, and use some disguise
kit if possible.  The premise is that the mark wants to add a basement room
somewhere on the house.  You must tell the backhoe operator exactly where to
excavate.  In most suburban areas, underground utility lines are indicated with
aboveground markers.  You can pick up gas lines and water lines from the
meters.  Pick an area clear of utility lines and pipes and lay out some string
and stakes.  Do all this before your operator arrives.  Tell him your client,
the mark, wants that area excavated and to bill the mark directly.  Further,
tell him that you have to leave to pick up your foreman and crew and that
you'll be back in about twenty minutes.  Ideally, you'll never see the backhoe
operator again.

     As Frank Foge points out, "My chemistry teacher always said there'd be a
practical use for these high school science courses someday."  She was right.
Do you remember what termites look like?  Good.  If not, any insect book will
tell you.  Or visit your local Orkin man and tell him you need to obtain some
termite eggs for an experiment.  Or get them from a science-supply house.

     I bet you already know the experiment.  It's called how fast can the
little eggs hatch into hungry termites and devour the mark's house?  There's no
trick here; you just infest your mark's home with the little buggers.  They'll
do the rest.  This last one was prompted by a frustrated renter whose landlady
refused to have the cockroaches and other pests exterminated from an apartment.
A serious illness to an infant child, traced directly to the landlady's
refusal to follow sanitary laws, triggered the nasty "bugging" by the renter.

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  ║                         ┌─────────────────────┐                          ║
  ║                         │ INSURANCE COMPANIES │                          ║
  ║                         └─────────────────────┘                          ║
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    In the intelligence business, access to insurace company files is regarded
as an operational goldmine.  A former executive explains, "These files
contained detailed analysis of actual and potential weaknesses, trouble spots,
and other problems of any sort facing clients.  Insurance companies stand to
lose millions of dollars in the event of an actionable accident or difficulty,
such as the Three Mile Island fiasco.  Obviously, these very thorough and
detailed investigative data would be of immense interest to a saboteur.  In
other words, these companies want to know the details by which anything and
everything could go wrong with a client.  These data are like a printer on
sabotage."

     Getting access to these reports and data may not be so easy for the
nonprofessional.  But if you have enough dedication and imagination you will
find a method.  The kids who blackbagged the FBI offices in Media,
Pennsylvania, were nonprofessionals, and look what they pulled off!  They
managed to liberate entire files of illegal domestic espionage, which later
blew apart COINTELPRO, the blackest eye Hoover's FBI ever suffered.

     Now let's get to the insurance companies themselves.  Suppose you get
turned down for insurance and you want to know why.  By law, the insurance
company must show you the file it has on you.  Suppose you learn that all sorts
of misinformation and other lies are in there.  There are organizations and
lawyers that deal in just that sort of thing, and a load of simultaneous
lawsuits for such things as invasion of privacy and slander would be great.

     Deborah Bodenhead hates junk mail, especially mail-order insurance
hustles.  So she answers these requests with affirmative orders; "I'll buy,"
she tells them.  Then she runs salespeople and clerks through all sorts of
scheduled, broken, rebroken, etc., appointments.  She settles finally on a
policy, then waits for the second billing to cancel.  Why the second billing?

     "They rarely send out the policy before the first billing," Deborah
explains.  "I want them to go to the expense of preparing and processing the
policy.  I usually get a second bill with a polite dunning letter.  That's when
I cancel.  It drives the salespeople to anguish every time.  Usually when they
whine and ask me why, I just tell them I really hate mail-order advertising and
just decided to cancel on a matter of principle about junk mail."

     I asked an insurance agent about this stunt, and he cursed people like
Deborah, saying these people drove our rates up.  I asked him if it wasn't
really the companies' own obnoxious marketing techniques that drove up rates!
He cursed me, too.

     Don't ever pity or sorrow for insurance companies.  They make more profit
in an hour than any of us make in salary in a year.

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  ║                                 ┌─────┐                                  ║
  ║                                 │ IRS │                                  ║
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     A veteran dirty trickster named Michael Mertz has something good to say
about the Internal Revenue Service -- it can be used to furnish a hard time for
your mark.  Mertz knows his way around government agencies, and here's one of
his IRS offerings.

     "You'll need your mark's Social Security number and some other obvious
personal data.  Once you get those data you're on your way.

     "Call a regional IRS office and 'confess' that you have cheated on your
income tax, you conscience has bothered you, and you want to make things right
by this great nation.  Make an appointment with an auditor, using your mark's
name, Social Security number, address, etc."

     The kicker comes when the mark doesn't show up to keep the appointment,
for obvious reasons.  The IRS will send a visitor around to talk with the mark,
and chances are he will be audited, regardless of his explanations.

     So much for using IRS to hassle your mark.  Many more folks would prefer
the IRS were the mark.  As in dealing with any large bureaucracy and its
people, many of the stunts mentioned in other chapters may be brought to play
against the IRS.  However, there are a few specefic tricks that may be used to
bring rain on the IRS picnic.

     You could start by picking up a bunch of blank returns and filing them in
the names of your least favorite people.  I have been assured by a former IRS
field auditor that someone will have to make an effort to verify each return.

     With the help of your printer and your newly found forgery skills, prepare
some financial documents indicating that some person or corporation has
received some substantial income.  Make copies of copies several times until
you have a fifth- or sixth-generation copy that is not too clean but is still
easily sharp enough to read.  The idea is to make it look like copies of a
purloined original.  Call an IRS office from a phone booth and tell them you
are an honest employee of the mark and you think he is evading taxes.  Offer to
send the IRS person the papers.  Get off the phone very quickly, then send the
papers.  If the IRS gets nasty they may find themselves in court.  I got this
idea from a man who worked for a company that did fight IRS in court and won
big -- through an honest IRS error.  Think what could happen to IRS if you fed
them a dishonest error!

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  ║                           ┌──────────────────┐                           ║
  ║                           │ THOMAS JEFFERSON │                           ║
  ║                           └──────────────────┘                           ║
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     A quote by Thomas Jefferson can be used to confuse your friends or critics
if they question your activities as a dirty trickster.  A very sharp man who
would be as upset with things in America as you are, Jefferson is quoted as
saying, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

     Let the authoritarians and their domestic gestapo choke on that one.  It's
enough to make them thump a few Bibles.  What would be Thomas Jefferson's views
on revolution, anarchy, busing, the draft, marijuana, and excessive taxation?
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