Hacker Chronicles 1/HACKER1.ISO/miscpub1/chapter7.txt

Text File | 1992-09-26 | 20KB | 319 lines

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

     Overweight and overwrought motorists drive by in their Detroit Dinosaurs,
pass a jogger, and mutter, "Damn stupid schmuck."  It's the human way to hate
what and whom you don't understand.  Joggers are often thought of as nuts,
oddballs, and kooks to be dealt with.

     Marty Jones, a landowner, is more specific, saying, "They run across a
corner of my property, using a path I put in for my own use.  I posted the
land, but they ignored the postings.  I have tried to talk to them, but they
may or may not even stop to listen.  If they stop they keep running in place
while I'm raising hell about trespass.  I think most joggers are rude,
self-centered, and selfish.  I was thinking about hiding in the bushes and
ambushing them with my kid's BB gun."

     For a variety of reasons, many people don't like joggers.  Some folks even
actively plot against joggers, using cars and motorcycles, then arming
themselves with boards, pies, and other objects with which to strike the
runners.  There are less barbaric ways, however.

     Tire spikes are a World War II relic.  During the hostilities, they were
dumped from low-flying aircraft onto enemy airfields and main transportation
roadways, where they caused havoc.  Your use may not be so widespread, but with
equally exasperating results.  The tire spike is a simply made piece of
one-eighth-inch-thick steel cut in the form of a four-pointed star.  Its
purpose is to puncture rubber tires.  The original wartime models were three
inches in diameter and had four points at forty-five-degree angles.  One of the
points always stuck upward, ready to impale a vehicle tire.  Even today, there
are many uses for tire spikes.

     One anti-jogger has already suggested that these spikes be reduced in size
and dropped strategically near the running habitat of these long-range exercise
buffs.  The purpose, I presume, is to penetrate the expensive bottom of
expensive jogging footwear and, perhaps, the expensive foot of the jogger.  One
critic called this tactic "a really sick pain in the metatarsus."

     Ultrathin piano wire strung shin high on a pathway is excruciatingly
nasty.  That's another World War II stunt redrafted for this book by Colonel
Jake Mothra.  Many military manuals offer equipment and directions, he adds.

     Another contribution to joggermania would be to sprinkle marbles on their
special little pathways.  Another nasty trickster, Hidell Crafard, told me
about an acquaintance at the Hunt Sporting Club in Dallas who actually put
ground glass into the running shoe of a bitter enemy.  Perhaps that's where
filet of sole originated.

     There aren't many counteractivities a jogger can use in retaliation.  Once
is to carry MACE for obvious use.  Another tactic is to carry cans of
garish-hued spray paint.  These can be directed against attackers' automobiles.

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  ║                             ┌─────────────┐                              ║
  ║                             │ LAUNDROMATS │                              ║
  ║                             └─────────────┘                              ║
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     In addition to the dryer for a pizza oven, as outlined in another section
of this book, you can use laundromats to harass an individual mark, or the
business itself can be your mark.  It is not very hard, for example, to dump
several packets of dye into someone's wash, ruining his/her clothing.  Doing
this at random will bring grief to the owners of the laundromat.  One
antisocial chap used to put small piles of moistened rust particles in the
dryer used by his mark so the mark's clothing would have large rust stains.
Roadkill may also be used to good advantage in these operations.

     Additives that are positive ingredients for a good time at the laundromat
includes raw eggs, fish, peanut butter, and fiberglass.  If your mark is the
operator of the business, you will find a variety of his/her ancillary services
to bugger, including vending machines, customer seats, and restrooms.  Small
nails or staples driven partly into seats, and restrooms.  Small nails or
staples driven partly into chairs make good items for customers to snag
themselves and their clothing on, for example.  And vending machines can be
made to steal money from patrons.

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  ║                                 ┌──────┐                                 ║
  ║                                 │ LAWN │                                 ║
  ║                                 └──────┘                                 ║
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     Our outdoor correspondent, Lother Gout, came up with a scheme to hassle
your mark's lawn.  It's a simple matter of spilling quantities of tomcat lure
on the targeted lawn.  The urine of Felix Domesticus will do wonders for the
lawn and the mark's disposition.

     There are also a number of commercial lawn-care products that may used to
good advantage by the serious dirty trickster.  One stunt is to select a large,
open chunk of you mark's lawn.  Using concentrated weed killer, you spell
socially offensive words on the lawn with the defoliant.  The grass dies, and a
nasty word or legend is spelled out for all the neighbors to see.  This works
best on a slight slope facing a street for maximum exposure.  Salt or vinegar
will work almost as well as commercial vegetation killer.  If you're the sort
of fun person who's read this far, I'm certain you'll need no suggestions as to
what to say in your little message.

     Serious defoliation is one of the many techniques our Vietnam experiences
made available to the dirty trickster.  Defoliation is the most potent way to
get back at dastardly people who also have unreasonable pride in their lawns
and ornamentals.  These are usually the type of fussy people who also own
small, yipping, bitchy dogs the size of rats -- more on that later.

     This time we're going to take out everything that grows.  There are many
commercial products available that will kill anything growing.  Look on the
label to see that it says the stuff is nonselective and/or that it makes the
soil barren.  You just load up your sprayer -- or the mark's, if you can get to
it -- and fire away.  Like a good guerilla, pick out what he loves most and hit
it first and heaviest.  Don't leave a single blade or stem standing.  No
prisoners.  Be cautious, though, that you stay upwind from the spray.  At night
you can't tell how much of the gunk you are inhaling or getting on your skin.
We have enough Agent Orange victims without adding you to the list.

     Reinhard Ray, a former special-operations man for the U.S. navy, suggests
a selective use of the weed killer in a psychological battle against a mark who
is a true worrier, fringing on paranoia.  You apply the solution fairly heavily
around the mark's natural or LP gas meter; then, broadcasting a bit more
lightly, you follow the fuel line directly to the mark's house.  A final,
heavier dose would be appropriate at the jointure of home and line.  Within a
few days the frightened mark will be convinced that his entire gas system is
leaking badly.  Obviously, this is effective only if your mark's house uses
natural or LP gas.  But you could also do this to a water-supply line coming
into the house or a buried electric line.

     A related scam would be to spray the stuff in a circle around the house.
Then, on bogus official letterhead you've either duplicated or had printed,
send the mark a letter from the Nuclear Regulatory Commision explaining how
they've just discovered some long lost records revealing that the mark's home
was built over a former repository for nuclear wastes.  I'm sure your
imagination can embellish the rest of the letter's content to convince the mark
that he, his family, and home are now radiation victims.  Obviously, you can't
use this if the mark's house is more than twenty years old, because nuclear
waste dumps weren't built much before then.

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  ║                               ┌─────────┐                                ║
  ║                               │ LAWYERS │                                ║
  ║                               └─────────┘                                ║
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     Punxy Phil Ferrick decided to get back at a dishonorable attorney who
decided to try hoodwinking the public by becoming a politician.  Ferrick got
hold of the attorney's legal letterhead and got it duplicated by a printer who
was equally outraged at this crook's trying to capitalize his larceny by
becoming an elected thing.

     Using the letterhead for starters, Ferrick sent out blatant dunning
letters over the mark's signature demanding campaign contributions from
politically sensitive people.  Another mailing was a group of threatening
letters to local civic, church, and charity groups about their winked-at
illegal bingo and 50/50 fundraisers.  In the bogus letter, the lawyer
threatened action.

     The bogus mailings made the local newspaper when the lawyer -- who had
been a big booster, campaigner, organizer, etc., for Nixon in '68 and '72 --
complained of the dirty tricks.  The newspaper treated the story straight:  The
attorney's denials only aroused more suspicion.  And no one ever suspected
Ferrick...until now.

     Another scheme is this:  Get a blank deed of trust, fill in your mark's
name and address, use your notary seal, and you have a legitimate-looking phony
document.  File it at the courthouse, and you have an action in the works
against your mark.  It means the mark has defaulted on a mortgage or some other
promissory note and that "you" are filing against it.  "You" can be an attorney
if you wish when "you" sign this form.  Days of frustration, anger, and
bureaucratic disbelief directed at the mark will follow before things are
straightened out.  Don't get caught doing this one.  The best point here is
that no one ever does things like this illegally, so the bureaucrats will never
suspect it as a dirty trick.

     But there's more.  If you have access to a law library or law-library
materials, you can play games with the mark's mind, claims Oswald Helms, an
observer of the legal scene.  He suggests, "Law libraries have standardized
legal-practice forms, form books, and routine stationary forms that lawyers,
clerks, judges, and the like use to help draft legal letters and proper legal
forms.  A dummy form or letter, photostated with some dummy legal notices,
using, for example, arrest warrants, summonses, condemnations, search warrants,
etc., can often pass for the real thing.  It will shake the mark very much.

     "The secret behind this," Helms explains, "is that real legal people
sometimes use the Xerox machine and routine forms, too.  It saves time and
money.  It will easily fool the target and will probably force his or her
attorney to at least follow it up."

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  ║                            ┌────────────────┐                            ║
  ║                            │ LICENSE PLATES │                            ║
  ║                            └────────────────┘                            ║
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     There are many sophisticated and clever ways to obtain additional
vehicular license plates that aren't registered in your real name.  However,
it's not necessary to fool around with all that esoterica.  Be like a street
punk and simply steal what you need.  A bad guy who needs a plate simply
removes one from someone's car or truck.  That simple.  This is also highly
illegal.  But if you're careful and use a bit of common sense, can you think of
a simpler and safer way of getting the extra plates you need for dirty tricks?

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  ║                               ┌─────────┐                                ║
  ║                               │ MA BELL │                                ║
  ║                               └─────────┘                                ║
  ╚══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

     Did you ever see those office signs that say, THINK?  In one
telephone-company office I visited, I saw signs saying, SNEER.

     People have been messing with Ma Bell for as long as that corporate
dictator has been monopolizing telephone service.  For years stories have been
circulated about using strips of Scotch tape on coins, which allows their use
again and again in pay telephones.  Do you know what a number-fourteen washer
will accomplish in a pay telephone?

     The Yippies and other groups have developed marvelously ingenious ways of
sabotaging telephone-company operations.  Some of their literature is sheer
technological genius, almost as if it were written by a Bell Laboratoris
dropout.  I once spoke with a radical who had become a "mole," an agent of his
political beliefs who secreted himself away in five years of deep cover working
as a technician for Illinois Bell.  His purpose was to learn about the
technical side of the company so he could later control or destroy telephonic
communication.

     Gordon Alexander presents an alternative manner, simple but novel in these
complex days.  A professional dirty trickster for more than twenty years,
Alexander uses the dangerous but simple method of physically cutting telephone
lines.  If you are looking for instructions on how to safely cut Ma Bell's
lines here, forget it.  Unless you know what you are doing and have the proper
equipment you could easily light up like an insect hitting an electric bug
trap.  I said it was simple; I didn't say it was easy or safe.

     Lee Jenner, an accountant, suggests that you overpay your telephone bill
if you're alienated from Ma Bell.  He says, "Overpay by a constant seventeen
cents a month.  Make it consistent.  Then, after a few months, underpay by
seventeen cents.  Start another pattern for a while of overpayment; then
underpay again.  It drives them nuts."

     Jenner continues, "The local telephone company had screwed a client of
mine and refused even give him the time of day.  He started this seventeen-cent
bit, and before the year was out he had the manager of the local company
begging him to stop.  It worked totally to his satisfaction."

     Meanwhile, on other battlefield fronts, Bell-hater Leo Garry says you
should have your printer make a bunch of OUT OF ORDER signs with the local Ma
Bell's logo on them.  Hang them on every public telephone you find.  Speaking
of pay telephones, only punks and idiots damage them.  Much as you may hate
them, they're the only game in town.  If you've ever needed a pay phone in an
emergency, you know what I mean.

     You can play games with your local service representative (Ma Belltalk for
salesperson) by ordering phones and equipment for marks or ordering service
shutoffs.  Always make these type of calls from a pay phone, for obvious
reasons.

     Bandit calling may have been developed by the Yippies.  Certainly they are
among its champions, both as practitioners and as cheerleaders.  Aside from the
blue boxes, which make free calls for you, there is a tactic that can be used
by the nontechnical wizard and doesn't cost you anything.  It's the use of the
bogus credit-card numbers, and it works like this.

     Always use a pay telephone and not always the same one.  Next, you need a
credit-card number.  Here is where knowledge of Ma Bell's codes comes in.  For
that information check OVERTHROW, a tabloid published by the Youth
International Party.  A subscription cost you ten dollars a year, but each
issue contains all sorts of other dirty tricks, as well as an updated listing
of not only Ma Bell's codes, but also the complete credit-card numbers for many
corporations, public utilities, and government agencies.  To order a
subscription, send ten dollars to Overthrow, P.O. Box 392, Canal Street
Station, New York, N.Y. 10013.  It's a good investment, according to most
readers.

     After you get credit-card codes or numbers, the Yippies claim, the rest of
bandit calling is simple.  You simply dial the long distance operator from your
pay phone and sound very, very businesslike when you say, "This is a credit
card call, and my number is [give the operator the credit-card number].  I want
to call [give the operator only the number of the party you are calling]."  Be
sure you can tell a suspicious operator the area code from which the card was
supposedly issued.  If the operator wants to know who holds the card, either
make up a legitimate-sounding company name or use the name of the agency or
company whose card number it really is, depending upon the circumstance.  It
helps if your party at the other end of the call knows what's happening.

     Talk straight and businesslike for the first five minutes, as a snoopy
operator -- that's the way Ma Bell trains them -- might stay on the line that
long to listen in.  Avoid sensitive subjects like your name, politics, drugs,
or dirty tricks since you never know who is recording calls these days.  Break
off the call within twelve minutes.  Obviously, your callee should act very
dumb when Ma Bell's security people do come to investigate a month or so after
the fraud is discovered.  And don't let them intimidate you or your friends,
either.  They're good at that -- many of them are former federal or state
police.

     One Bell employee told me that their security people utilize warrantless
wiretaps, blackmail, and physical surveillance to catch persons suspected of
making bandit calls.  The employee also told me these tactics are used against
persons who even publicize such practices.  I consider myself warned.  So
should you.  Ma Bell can be one nasty mother.

     By the time you read this, though, the game may be up.  In Washington
state, the Supreme Court there upheld the conviction of a newspaper for
publishing the telephone company's secret codes.  The telephone company, which
has both security and propaganda sections that rival the government's, was
working furiously behind the scenes to influence the verdict.

     Abbie Hoffman suggested this next trick, so if it doesn't work, call him.
Restrict Hoffman's idea to corporate, utility, or institutional telephone
systems.  Cut the female end off an ordinary extension cord.  Unscrew the
mouthpiece on the telephone in any one office.  You will see a terminal for a
red wire and one for a black wire.  Attach one of the wires from the extension
cord to the red and one to the black.  Finally, plug the extension cord into a
power socket.

     According to Hoffman, you are sending 120 volts of electricity back
through equipment designed for six volts.  He says this will knock out
thousands of other telephones and the main switchboard, "if all goes right."
Even if his numbers are somewhat exaggerated, you've had a good day.
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