ESS=CCIS
KP:NPA+0+00+NPA+XXX-XXXX:ST
11
clicks (unscramble)
22...etc.
It was gibberish. A few pages later:
1900-0700
(555) 481-3395/3368/3391
Nat Smicon Corp UNIX
Sys Op Acct.
Username: Vajraponi
Password: RJSV#3
At least it was a company’s name, maybe a phone number. Andi stared at the page until her mind soared elsewhere--it was Eugene's cyber-itinerary, a key, a guidebook, a diagram or journal. His aunt said he was compulsive about notes. Under each heading, dates and times were logged; she copied them into her notebook--at least the dates were unambiguous. June 3, June 5, June 6, some dates he visited many sites some only one--up to July 27. The last entry; July 27. She flipped back the pages in her appointment book, last Wednesday--consistent with Trafino's version.
There were three to five pages per entry, scribbles filled both side of each page. He didn't take weekends off. July 11th had "What the hell? Holy mackerel!" scribbled at an angle. Two weeks before he disappeared he was surprised by something he’d found. Andi paged through her notes on her first meeting with Trafino, underlined July 11th in her list of dates and wrote, Discover’s ID? There were three stars beside the Eugene’s entry, scribbled as if exclamation marks. Two weeks later he wrote his last entry and disappeared. She called Berg & Trafino.
Eileen answered, "Berg and Trafino" in a husky alto.
"Hi Eileen, it’s Andi Wicksham. I was wondering if you could tell me about Gene, when he worked last? anything?"
Eileen hummed between her teeth as if taking a moment to inspect her nails. "He was here every day but Friday. Left early.
“Early?”
“Took off 'bout eleven as if he expected to come back."
“Friday?”
“Thursday. Was here every day but Friday.”
“Did he work regular days?"
Eileen chuckled. "He was a freak, worked all night and still at it when I’d come in--sometimes he wandered in noonish...boss's nephew and all that."
"Goofed off?" Andi asked cautiously.
"No, probably did more than he was paid for. Solved the problems we’d had."
"Friends?"
"Here? Not likely."
"You like him?"
Eileen gave a bubbly laugh. "We had an e-mail correspondence."
"E-mail? Wouldn't it have been easier to walk over and chat?"
"Not if you take in being at work and my wearing leopard skin, fuchsia eye liner and studded-leather while he can’t do his shirt buttons right. Just a minute, OK?" Eileen chirped. The line went dead, but Andi was struck dumb momentarily anyway.
"I'm back." Eileen announced cheerfully. "Gene waxed poetic with a keyboard...coulda been a speech writer. He forgets that he stutters and it doesn't matter that he doesn’t bathe much."
"About?"
"Anything and everything."
"The computer intruder?"
"A little. He’d torn his hair for weeks before things started to break. I'd hand him a virtual towel and tell him to keep trying. What do you want to know?"
“Can you get into his computer?”
“No.”
"How about who he knew or where he hung out? He was going to meet somebody Thursday--did you know that?"
"Actually yes, but I don't know who or where."
"Here in town, I assume?"
"I assume. He wasn’t a commuter type. Buses and Max were his speed.”
"Think the intruder was here in Portland?"
"There any way to know?" Eileen's voice danced low and musical.
"Why would anybody breaking into your computers agree to meet a person wanting to bust them?"
Eileen clicked her tongue and puzzled on that a moment. "Hackers are weird," she confided. "They had a lot in common.”
Andi sighed and glanced over her half page of notes. The conversation was going nowhere. "Anything more you can tell me?"
"I guess I could print you some e-mail."
"Please." Andi said with a tired tone. "Can you send them e-mail?"
“Even easier. Address?"
Andi gave her e-mail, hung up and stared at the back of Lena's head. Lena had her hair in a boyish buzz with dangling earrings contrasting androgynously and the frog tattoo above her shoulder blade peaking from behind the strap of her blouse.
Andi chewed her lip and looked at her watch. It was quarter to five. The fax machine clicked. Andi made two copies of Eugene's binder pages--one for the file, one for Lena's friend. She returned Janice Thompson's call only to agree to call back next morning.
Andi retrieved Eugene’s e-mail to Eileen. "I’ve got a bunch of phone numbers one of us is going to have to call them.”
Lena gave a frown and reached a hand.
Andi passed her notebook. “Let's call it a day. We gotta' meet your friend at seven."
Lena tapped a final rhythmic patter on her keys, stretched and looked over her shoulder. "I want to do laundry, so I can't do dinner."
"Too bad."
"Maybe a desert after Francois?" Lena switched her computer off and straightened the piles on her table.
"Sure." Andi dumped one wastebasket into the other, threw in the coffee grounds and went for a wet paper towel to wipe the coffee machine. They finished puttering in silence and Andi flicked off the light.
"See ya at seven." she offered lightly. There wasn't anything she wanted to do at home. She drove across the river to Eugene's.
It was a four story brick, much-remodeled, medium-rent apartment among the hundred others scattered across the Northwest flats. After eight or ten minutes, Andi skipped to the door with an easy smile just as a middle aged man in a tweed jacket stepped out. He gave the door a push to keep it open and she flashed a smile in payment.
The walls were badly sheetrocked, plain, ugly, light-brown and scuffed and the linoleum squares looked like they were laid by somebody without experience paying off past-due rent. What once had once been a lobby had been chopped into another unit so the path to the stairs was a corridored loop of bare walls.
The ill-stretched, cheap carpet was frayed and dusty and showed a path darkened by years of shoes. She climbed to the third floor--apartment 316, a hall like any other--a blank door with peep-hole and doorknob. She knocked cautiously at the door. No one answered, but why should they--Eugene was missing. She glanced down the hall and tried the knob before knocking at the apartment across the hall.
A young woman in a housecoat answered, "What do you want?" she demanded, slurring her words and clinging to the door for support.
"I'm looking for friends of Eugene Trafino..." Andi jabbed her thumb over her shoulder at Eugene's door and left the statement hang as pseudo-question, inviting response.
"Gene's not here." the woman smiled.
"He hasn't been to work in over a week and his aunt, whose his boss, asked if I'd look in on him."
"He's gone?"
"Any idea where?" Andi tried.
"No. Maybe Texas?" The woman laughed.
"Do you know if I can get into his apartment?"
"Manager." Reflecting on her own answer, she broke into a smile and began laughing. "Do you have a warrant?"
Andi ignored the question. "Do you know any friends of his?" she tried.
"Jerry down at 227 went out for coffee with him. I don't think he had a girlfriend. Friend of his aunt's? You know, you're not supposed to be here." The closing door cut off the laughter that followed.
Andi walked to the end of the hall listening to the muffled sounds of music and TV--hoping somebody would step through their door. She stood alone in the dimly lighted corridor. It would be a perfect situation for picking the lock if she knew how. She’d have to put it on her list of skills to pick up.
She could check other neighbors on this floor, but as the woman just said, she wasn't supposed to be there. A manager or manager's toady could be behind any door--it wasn't worth the risk. She descended a floor and knocked on 227. No sounds came from behind it. She knocked again, but no one answered.
She gave up, got a piece of pizza and went home to kill an hour.
At six fifty-seven Lena swept into Coffee People’s, out of breath, wearing red blouse, overalls and bright yellow high-top tennies. Andi had been waiting twelve minutes, nursing an almond Italian soda and half-reading a science fiction book. "Is that your Colombo get-up?" Lena stood, hip a-kimbo, her head to a side and hands at her waist.
Andi’d come in grubby jeans, first grabbing a sweater then deciding she should dress down for meeting a hacker. She'd snagged a wrinkled jacket intended for the cleaners. "I'm dressing down for your friend."
"You sure are."
Andi returned to watching the door as Lena sauntered to the counter. A tourist couple in tee shirts and matching Bermuda shorts entered, then a bespectacled man in floral print silk shirt, wide tie, fedora, and tan slacks creased to a knife edge. His skin was brownish-amber and a gold watch chain hung from belt to watch pocket in a satisfying gilded loop. Andi smiled at the diversion. His cream colored shoes were immaculate and his leather briefcase reflected highlights. Needs spats Andi thought silently. The look was Harlem Renaissance--and far more immaculate than most anything south of Burnside. She turned back to the door as a youth in black-framed glasses, flannel shirt and baggy cut-off levi's came in with a clip board. He looked around, checking faces.
Andi cautiously raised her hand, then looked to see Lena kissing cheeks with the fancy dresser. She looped his arm and escorted him to Andi’s table.
"Andi, this is Francois."
"Francois?" Andi extended an awkward hand. He was proof that male could be a high-maintenance gender.
Francois gently squeezed her fingers.
"She's fashion challenged from years of Northwest butch, but she got a heart of gold.” Lena grinned like an innocent.
Francois sat directly across from Andi. "You need technical support?"
"Yeah. Do you know what we want?"
"I think so. You're Sherlock and she's Watson. You have a problem involving computers and you are willing to be discreet and pay cash." Statements, not questions--nice and direct. She nodded. "Lena says you're professional."
There was an awkward pause. "uhhh...retired.” He readjusted his gold rimmed glasses and looked suspiciously around the room. "Actually there's next to nothing we can talk about here. I just wanted to see if I liked you. Lena mentioned your office."
Andi showed the binder and gave a shortened version of the case.
Francois leaned against the edge of the desk. "If you find the intruder you find Eugene?"
"Seems a good theory."
He hefted the binder. "Besides understanding this...what else you want?"
"To track 'em down."
"It'll probably break laws."
Andi made a face. "Can you shield us and our clients?"
“Working slow costs time.” Francois set the binder back on her desk. "We stop when I want and I still get paid?"
Andi nodded solemnly.
"Anything else?"
"Explain what you do and why."
"How much will you pay?"
Andi looked him straight in the eye. "If you’re as good as Lena says, four hundred, three more when you're finished...three more as a bonus if things go well."
"Do you know how much time it will take?" He raised an superior eyebrow.
"No.”
"I don’t either...the money’ll do to start, got it?"
"I can get two hundred from a cash machine."
Francois relaxed and gave a quick casual smiled. "OK, two hundred now, then one to three hundred each day depending on how much I do and five hundred bonus if you're happy."
Andi considered it, "How will I know you're not dragging it out?"
"You probably won't." He shrugged, his eyes calm, his face relaxed.
"Done." They briefly touched fingers.
"You get the cash. I'll wait." He swung his briefcase onto the desk and pulled out a sandwich and apple as Andi quietly slipped out the door wondering just what she'd gotten herself into.
Lena and Francois were discussing neon artists when she got back. She fanned ten twenties on her desk and opened the binder.
"Where did this come from." Francois stared out the window.
"His aunt."
"Can you describe his work space?”
"Metal desk. Crowded, cluttered, sloppy, not a real cubical, just a blockaded space with notes and jumble everywhere. A couple keyboards, wires, manuals." She paged back in her notebook, "Hand held computer games, children's toys..."
"Children's toys?" He asked idly.
"Puzzles, blackboard."
"I bet this stuff's coded."
Andi stared without understanding. She looked down at the page, the numbers seemed like any others--complete with area codes.
Francois tapped his finger on the open page and shrugged. "It's got to be something easy. "Bump numbers up or down, maybe backwards or switch a few. He'd figure things out on the chalkboard, then erase it." Francois lifted his eyebrows again and gave a smug little smile.
Andi pointed to a string of numbers.
"Those are LEN's--Line Equipment Numbers...the actual numbers zipping through wires are longer than the seven you dial...they add a string of functions and services...long distance carrier and all...so machines on each end can keep track."
Andi pointed again.
"ESS=CCIS?" Francois looked down and smiled. "Internal telephone protocol. Electronic Switching System--back in the dark ages there were actual little mechanical switches for each connection. It must have been hell. Everything's ESS now. CCIS is Common Channel Interoffice Signaling, a direct-connect data line from one ESS switcher to another cranking at about half a billion bit’s a minute. It's where they tap and record calling patterns."
"Who?" Andi put her hand on her hip and asked the questions derisively.
"Who know? FBI, CIA, DEA, INS, IRS...no doubt all of 'em, but also the Republican Party, Ross Perot, General Motors or anyone else with money."
"Wiretapping without a warrant?"
"You only need a warrant for a legal wiretap. Without a warrant you save paper?"
"Anybody?"
"Well, maybe not anybody." Francois conceded, "but I can and that means you if you paid me. Certainly anyone who can afford it."
"DAMN."
“Why are you naive? This stuff's been around longer than I been alive." He peered over his glasses suspiciously.
"How about this?” Andi pointed.
ESS=CCIS
KP:NPA+0+00+NPA+XXX-XXXX:ST
11
clicks (unscramble)
22...etc.
"It's verification formula. The first NPA is your area code, the second NPA is the area code you want. The X's are the phone number, the 00, 11, and 22 are area identifiers. The line clicks and goes scrambled, so you got to unscramble it. It's all very James Bond and stupid since you can buy a Radio Shack box to decode it."
"How about this?" Andi pointed.
1900-0700
(555) 481-3395/3368/3391
Nat Smicon Corp UNIX
Sys Op Acct.
Username: Vajraponi
Password: RJSV#3
EPCRON/BOQESS/TMCLR/FLPIN
"Looks like a place to break into." Francois chuckled. "1900's probably seven PM, 0700, seven the next morning. Vajraponi probably works days so the system's safer at night. Their system's a UNIX." He turned a page. "The next one's a VAX 11/785, that's a Digital." Francois paged slowly through the binder. "Lots of PC networks. He's good, here's a note on RC MAC."
Andi put her hand down on the page to make him pause.
Francois closed his eyes and recited as if at a grade school blackboard. "RC MAC. Recent Change-Machine Administration Center. It's where the phone company processes number changes and service orders."
Andi stared and gave her head a shake.
"It's who forwards calls and gives extra services." Francois chuckled.
"The phone numbers are code?" Andi asked suspiciously. She looked again. "They look alright. See area code, three numbers, then four."
Francois looked up pityingly at her. "Eugene’s a pro. Real hacking's too complicated to do without notes. And, if you're doing something illegal you try to hide it. Eh?"
He peered patiently through his glasses, waiting for her nod. "We'll try one." He picked up the phone, tapped in a number and held it between them.
The phone rang twice, then clicked. "The number you have dialed is not in service at this time..."
Francois tried another. The phone rang until answered by an elderly sounding lady. "Hellooo..."
"Hello..." Francois responded politely. "Is this..." he glanced down to the page. "Signal Industries?"
"Nooo...I'm sorry..." the old woman responded. Francois lip-synched the words as she said them.
"Is Eugene Trafino there?" he asked.
"No, I'm sorry..." replied the woman.
"I'm sorry to have bothered you, ma'am." Francois looked up to Andi. "The numbers we want will have a computer beep like a fax line."
"So what do we do?" complained Lena.
"Well it's got to be something simple enough to figure out easy. The easiest is adding or subtracting a value to each digit...or some digits."
Lena and Andi stared at him without responding.
Francois looked back and exhaled a long breath, then turned back to the binder. "Give me scrap of paper. Cities are our likely targets because they have big public and private exchanges to route through for privacy. The most likely are 415, 206, 212, 214, 312, 617..like that. So we look to see if there's any obvious pattern in Eugene’s. See? Three of the six start with two, five of six have one as a second number." He circled the twos and ones and looked up to see if Lena and Andi were following.
Next, he copied area codes from the binder in a column down the side of the page. "071, two in 878, 862, 808. The zero in that first one is a clue something going on. Area codes don't begin with zero because punching in a beginning zero calls the operator right?"
Both Lena and Andi nodded. Francois continued.
"Now we have three numbers starting with eight, two with seven in the second place. If we use our earlier observations..." Francois tapped the top of the page and glanced up to catch their eyes. "...the second number might be a one, six subtracted from seven. Subtracting six from the first number leaves us two. A decent guess, eh? Anything really hard can't be figured over and over. Look--we get 415, 212, and 206. San Francisco, New York and Seattle."
"You also have 202 and 303." Andi pointed out dryly.
Francois smiled smugly, "Those are Washington DC and Denver." He grinned triumphantly. He decoded a number and dialed. It rang once and blared a piercing signal tone.
And nodded and looked at her watch. "So. Are you going to try it."
"From your phone?" Francois looked shocked. "Your lawyer need more business or something? Get the TV section of the paper and look for a ball game on cable then phone low rent motels and ask if they got it. Ask if they have phones and rent the room."
Lena sprang into action, Andi sank into her chair. She'd clear it with Trafino in the morning. How much risk were they running? What if one of the numbers was a military facility? She watched the traffic below. Why not? It would only take a couple of hours. The FBI would have to respond like the fire department to catch them. She looked up to find Francois and Lena staring at her. "All set up?" she asked. “Let's go."
The Myrtlewood Motel was a sleazy 1950's, single-story row of units on a narrow lot of a stretch of SE 82nd apparently waiting for somebody to put up a discount carpet warehouse. The paint on its concrete block walls was molding and peeling. Only two cars stood in the parking lot. Only the lights of the office showed from windows.
"They said thirty-eight dollars. I said I'd pay cash." Lena looked to Andi for approval.
Andi pulled out two twenties. "Ask for a receipt."
Lena returned with a key and a receipt made out to D.R. Watson.
They scurried across the drive to number six. It was damp and cool with a baseboard heater that clicked and hummed as it set to work against the smells of mold, sweat and stale tobacco.
Andi pulled one of the two wooden chairs from the table. The room was depressing--she could imagine the assignations consummated here. The setting alone assured they’d be tawdry and cheap. How many lonely people cried here? How many dreamed of work after a days on a bus? Or sold their bodies to make rent?
Lena settled on the bed watching a old John Wayne western. Francois lifted a lap-top computer from his briefcase, unplugged the phone and connected to it’s line. He tapped a few keys and looked up. "First thing, we'll get a little free long distance, then route through another number or two to confuse things."
Andi stared back without comment.
Francois decoded a number and dialed. The screen flashed WELCOME TO NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR and asked for a password. Francois looked down and tapped in RJSV#3@#. The screen went blank a second and returned with WELCOME DR. VAJRAPONI. Francois flipped back and forth through the pages. "Here it is. The phone number on that page relates to the info on the next page down." He typed another command and scanned a list of connected computers, then typed another to see who else was logged onto the system.
Andi was starting to lose focus.
Francois typed $ SHOW PROCESS/PRIVILEGES and hit enter.
The screen scrolled,
OPER
PRIVILEGED OPERATOR
BYPASS
SYSTEM PROTECTION
SECURITY
SECURITY SYSTEMS
ACNTING
ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS
CMKRNL
MODE CHANGE<
VOLPRO
VOLUME PROTECTION
READALL
ACCESS OVERRIDE
WRITEALL
ACCESS OVERRIDE
"Yeeha." Francois whooped. "This guy's a sysop, we can fiddle security or accounting, read anything." His voice held a mixture of awe and pleasure.
"No." Andi stalled. "Don't do anything."
Francois gave a disparaging look. "You think I'm a Luddite? I wouldn't mess things. We're tourists, maybe we’ll take a few snapshots...that’s all." He scrolled through lists and typed another line.
Another menu of directories popped into view. Francois opened and closed half-a-dozen, surveying file names quickly.
"EPCRON, BOQUES, these four are here. He pointed to the line in the binder." He typed in EPCRON.
The screen flashed BNR DES DECRYPTION SCHEME and then flooded with obscure numbers and symbols. Francois watched it scroll a few seconds, then pounded a key to stop the screen.
"Whoa-Nelly." He rolled his eyes.
"What.?" Andi asked impatiently.
"I think it's a program that decodes passwords." His faces was lit with excitement. "Eugene's got big number crunchers decoding what he needs."
He shook his head with pleasure and typed BOQESS.
The screen displayed a list of user files. Francois checked a half dozen, frowned--saved, exited and typed TMCLR. Andi fidgeted, ill at ease and Lena glanced over, bored, then turned back to flipping idly through the channels.
"Now this." He tapped the screen with a finger "This is a alarm...lets Eugene know if somebody’s tracing him." He shrugged. "Cute, but not special." He typed FLPINOUT. Francois read a obscure line of symbols as if they were a poem. "Now this is neat." He fumbled in his briefcase for a disk and made himself an extra copy. "A subroutine that remembers the positions of whatever he gets into and covers up his tracks, uncounts entry logs, switches things back he might have messed up. Kool, definitely kool." Francois read the lines over again in a kind of respectful rapture before typing another flurry of keystrokes. He glanced over--Andi shrugged. He hit a key and the screen went black.
Andi looked at her watch--almost 10 o'clock. "What do you want to do now?"
"Your call, bopping through these is gonna take time and it seems stupid for you to baby sit."
"Let's try another."
Francois turned a page and punched in another number.
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION SCIENCES
PLEASE ENTER YOUR PASSWORD _________.
Francois' fingers flashed and the screen blinked to life with a long directory of files. He scrolled down and typed, read and moved on to another, then another and another.
He glanced over at Andi who shrugged. He exited and typed another number.
ASKINKO TECHNOLOGY, INC. AUTHORIZED ENTRY ONLY. PASSWORD PLEASE _________.
The password was entered and the screen responded with, WELCOME FRANK, then it scrolled up a short menu of options. Francois turned to Andi, shook his head and frowned. "It’s going to take time."
"Give me an estimate." replied Andi irritably.
"Less than a thousand hours, more than ten. You've already paid your first installment. I'll let you know something tomorrow evening, you'll owe me another hundred or two. Decide then whether to keep me on."
Andi rose to her feet and stretched, she’d low tolerance for sitting around. Lena was already up. Francois made no move to rise.
"Staying here?" She asked impatiently.
"Why not?"
"Fine." Andi brought herself to warm up into a smile. "Thanks."
He grinned from ear to ear. "Actually this is a hacker's dream. I should be paying you."
Andi shot him a wry look. "We'll talk tomorrow."
He winked and turned back to his keyboard. Andi and Lena slipped out into darkness. It was too late to get a dessert at the Underground--she saw Lena to her door and drove home, very slow.
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