Ok, that was Scan Man's side to the story, now that he had a few months to
come up with one. Lets do a critical breakdown;
-*- "He was flown in from Charleston, West Virginia to New York every week for
a four to five day duration."
Gee, wouldn't that get awfully expensive? Every week...and "made
available a leased executive apartment..." He must have been quite an
asset to "Telecom Management" for them to spend such large amounts on him.
Kinda interesting that he lived in Charleston, West Virginia (where
surprisingly enough there is a branch of TMC) and flew to New York every
week.
-*- "Scan Man claimed to have no ties with TMC in Las Vegas..." Ok, I'll buy
that. Notice how he didn't say that he had no ties with TMC in
Charleston. Furthermore if he had no ties with TMC in Charleston why
would they have his name in their company records? Why would all those
employees know him or dislike him for that matter?
-*- "Scan Man then went on to say that the same day Sally Ride called Pauline
Frazier was the day he received his notice." Well now, how can there be a
connection between the two events at all when Scan Man works for Telecom
Management and has "no ties with TMC" and claimed "not to work for TMC"?
If TMC and Telecom Management are truly independent of each other then
nothing Sally Ride said to Pauline Frazier could have affected him in ANY
way. That is unless he did work for TMC in the first place.
-*- "...and back this up by saying that Ben Graves had been fired six months
previously to the conversation with Sally Ride." Well first of all, PWN
did not give a date as to when Ben Graves was fired from TMC. Second of
all and more important, how does Scan Man know so much about TMC when he
works for "Telecom Management" and has "...no ties with TMC..."?
The rest of his statements were highly debatable and he showed no proof as to
their validity. As for why Sally Ride waited so long to come forward, well he
didn't wait that long at all, he came forward to myself in late May/early June
of 1986. My decision was to do nothing because there wasn't enough proof.
After three months of research we had enough proof and the article was
released.
With this attempt to cover up the truth, Scan Man has only given more
ammunition to the idea that he isn't what he claims to be.
Special Thanks to TeleComputist Newsletter
______________________________________________________________________________A rebuttle to this has been left in file 13 created by me (Scan Man) and added to the end of this issue. In addition to this you may also find the rebuttle printed in issue 12 of prack.
The Cracker Cracks Up? December 21, 1986
----------------------
"Computer 'Cracker' Is Missing -- Is He Dead Or Is He Alive"
By Tom Gorman of The Los Angeles Times
ESCONDIDO, Calif. -- Early one morning in late September, computer hacker Bill
Landreth pushed himself away from his IBM-PC computer -- its screen glowing
with an uncompleted sentence -- and walked out the front door of a friend's
home here.
He has not been seen or heard from since.
The authorities want him because he is the "Cracker", convicted in 1984 of
breaking into some of the most secure computer systems in the United States,
including GTE Telemail's electronic mail network, where he peeped at NASA
Department of Defense computer correspondence.
He was placed on three years' probation. Now his probation officer is
wondering where he is.
His literary agent wants him because he is Bill Landreth the author, who
already has cashed in on the successful publication of one book on computer
hacking and who is overdue with the manuscript of a second computer book.
The Institute of Internal Auditors wants him because he is Bill Landreth the
public speaker who was going to tell the group in a few months how to make
their computer systems safer from people like him.
Susan and Gulliver Fourmyle want him because he is the eldest of their eight
children. They have not seen him since May 1985, when they moved away from
Poway in northern San Diego county, first to Alaska then to Maui where they
now live.
His friends want him because he is crazy Bill Landreth, IQ 163, who has pulled
stunts like this before and "disappeared" into the night air -- but never for
more than a couple of weeks and surely not for 3 months. They are worried.
Some people think Landreth, 21, has committed suicide. There is clear
evidence that he considered it -- most notably in a rambling eight-page
discourse that Landreth wrote during the summer.
The letter, typed into his computer, then printed out and left in his room for
someone to discover, touched on the evolution of mankind, prospects for man's
immortality and the defeat of the aging process, nuclear war, communism versus
capitalism, society's greed, the purpose of life, computers becoming more
creative than man and finally -- suicide.
The last page reads:
"As I am writing this as of the moment, I am obviously not dead. I do,
however, plan on being dead before any other humans read this. The idea is
that I will commit suicide sometime around my 22nd birthday..."
The note explained:
"I was bored in school, bored traveling around the country, bored getting
raided by the FBI, bored in prison, bored writing books, bored being bored. I
will probably be bored dead, but this is my risk to take."
But then the note said:
"Since writing the above, my plans have changed slightly.... But the point is,
that I am going to take the money I have left in the bank (my liquid assets)
and make a final attempt at making life worthy. It will be a short attempt,
and I do suspect that if it works out that none of my current friends will
know me then. If it doesn't work out, the news of my death will probably get
around. (I won't try to hide it.)"
Landreth's birthday is December 26 and his best friend is not counting on
seeing him again.
"We used to joke about what you could learn about life, especially since if
you don't believe in a God, then there's not much point to life," said Tom
Anderson, 16, a senior at San Pasqual High School in Escondido, about 30 miles
north of San Diego. Anderson also has been convicted of computer hacking and
placed on probation.
Anderson was the last person to see Landreth. It was around September 25 --
he does not remember exactly. Landreth had spent a week living in Anderson's
home so the two could share Landreth's computer. Anderson's IBM-PC had been
confiscated by authorities, and he wanted to complete his own book.
Anderson said he and Landreth were also working on a proposal for a movie
about their exploits.
"He started to write the proposal for it on the computer, and I went to take a
shower," Anderson said. "When I came out, he was gone. The proposal was in
mid-sentence. And I haven't seen him since."
Apparently Landreth took only his house key, a passport, and the clothes on
his back.
Anderson said he initially was not concerned about Landreth's absence. After
all this was the same Landreth who, during the summer, took off for Mexico
without telling anyone -- including friends he had seen just the night before
-- of his departure.
But concern grew by October 1, when Landreth failed to keep a speaking
engagement with a group of auditors in Ohio, for which he would have received
$1,000 plus expenses. Landreth may have kept a messy room and poor financial
records, but he was reliable enough to keep a speaking engagement, said his
friends and literary agent, Bill Gladstone, noting that Landreth's second
manuscript was due in August and had not yet been delivered.
But, the manuscript never came and Landreth has not reappeared.
Steve Burnap, another close friend, said that during the summer Landreth had
grown lackadaisical toward life. "He just didn't seem to care much about
