259 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
259 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
==Phrack Magazine==
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Volume Five, Issue Forty-Six, File 5 of 28
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****************************************************************************
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-:[ Phrack Pro-Phile ]:-
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This issue our prophile introduces you to one of the craziest people
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I've ever met from the Underground. And coming from a complete loon
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like me, that's saying something. This guy is a real Renaissance Man:
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Hacker, programmer, burglar, convict, star of stage and screen...
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Of course, that someone could only be:
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Minor Threat
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~~~~~~~~~~~~
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_____________________________________________________________________________
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Personal Info:
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Handle: Minor Threat
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Call him: MT, minor, lamer
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Born: 1972 in Walnut Creek, California
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Age: 22
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Height: 6'1"
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Weight: 155 lbs
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e-mail: mthreat@paranoia.com
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www: http://www.paranoia.com/~mthreat/
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Affiliations: Dark Side Research
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Computers owned: 1981: IBM PC
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1982: none
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1984: PCjr
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1988: XT Clone
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1990: 386/25 Clone
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1992: Too many to legally list
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1994: Pentium & 486
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How I got started
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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In 1981, my dad worked for IBM. In October of that year, he
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brought home a PC, and I jumped on BASIC. It wasn't until 1984 that
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I got my first modem. I had just moved to Florida with my dad, and
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he had a modem. I met some other kids with computers and modems and
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they taught me what modems were for: "You call other people's
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computers and try to get their passwords and intercept their mail".
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(That's what I was taught!) It wasn't until a few months later I
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realized that this wasn't the actual purpose of BBSs and modems.
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My first BBS was the Towne Crier BBS at FAU (Florida Atlantic
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University), 305-393-3891 (I still remember that damn number), but
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the NPA has since changed to 407. We thought it was so cool when
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we logged on as "All" and deleted all the messages posted to "All".
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In about 1985, I moved back to Austin. I screwed around for
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several years without doing any real hacking. When I got to high
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school, I wanted to change my grades like in War Games, so I looked
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through the counselor's office until I found a number to the
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Education Service Center. I had to scan a whole _100_ numbers
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(929-13xx) to find the HP3000 dialup. Once I found it, I had no
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idea what to do. I gave the number to a friend in high school,
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who gave it to some of his hacker friends. They hacked it and gave
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it back to me, complete with a full list of passwords and commands.
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It turns out, the two Austin hackers who did it were The Mentor and
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Erik Bloodaxe, but I didn't know that for another 3 years.
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Shortly after this, I picked my permanent handle. Minor Threat
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was an early-to-mid 1980's punk band from Washington, DC. They're no
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longer together, but Fugazi is pretty good and Ian McKaye (from
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Minor Threat) is in Fugazi. I actually got the handle off of one
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of my sister's tapes, before I even heard them. But now I like the
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music too.
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Eventually, I found a local pirate board, met all the local
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pirates, and got into the warez scene for a while. I joined PE
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(Public Enemy), the pirate group. (I cracked the warez!) Warez were
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only so fun, so I looked for other stuff. I met some VMB lamers and
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got into that scene for about a month, and got bored again.
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This was 1990, our 950s were running out, and we needed another
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way to call out. So I took an old VMB hacking program I had
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written, and changed it around to scan for tones, in random order
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to avoid Ma Bell problems. I nicknamed it ToneLoc, short for Tone-
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Locator. I gave it to some friends (Alexis Machine & Marko Ramius)
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and eventually, it ended up on some warez boards. It got pretty
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popular, so I made a version that worked for more people, called
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it 0.90, and released it. Then I lost the source in a hard drive
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crash, and stopped working on it.
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I was 18 and mom said it was time to get out of her house, so
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I got my own apartment. Marko Ramius and I learned about trashing
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central offices, and gained COSMOS access. We barely knew what
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COSMOS was .. I knew I had read about it in old Phrack articles, and
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I remembered that it was "elite." Our problem was, we still knew no
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other "real" hackers, and we had to learn COSMOS. After trashing
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and trashing, we still had no COSMOS manuals. We had to get them
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somehow. I can't say how, I'll leave it to your imagination.
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Marko and I started breaking in buildings and got pretty
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good at it. We had about a 60% success rate I would guess. But we
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never stole anything -- we just looked for cool information. In
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1991, we got caught in a building, and got charged with Criminal
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Trespassing. We both got probation for a Class A misdemeanor.
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We decided it was time to stop breaking in buildings.
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Late in 1991, I got e-mail on a bulletin board from someone
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named Mucho Maas. He said he had gotten ToneLoc and wanted a
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few new features. I told him I had lost the current source and
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all I had was an old (0.85) source. He said he would take the
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old source, add the new features, and bring it up-to-date with
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the current source. So he did, and we released ToneLoc 0.95.
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If it weren't for Mucho, ToneLoc would still be at version 0.90,
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and anyone who ran 0.90 knows how hard it was to get it running
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right.
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About the same time, I was getting on a few BBSs in the
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Washington DC area. (Pentavia was the best while it was up).
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I met several people there... including a guy named Codec. Codec
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was mostly a phone phreak, but did a little hacking as well. But
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when it came to PBX's, he was a master. Not only had he exploited
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PBXs for free long distance use like the rest of us, but he had
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actually REMOVED entire PBX systems from buildings! (See his
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article on how to do this, Phrack 43, article 15). But he had
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also gotten caught and was on federal probation.
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A few months after I met Codec, he had an 'incident'
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and was on the run again. I agreed to let him live with me, so
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he flew down and moved in. We got a 2 bedroom place, and set
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the place up d0pe. There were over 9 phone extensions, (not
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including cordless), and about the same number of computers (Most
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of which were Codec's). We had the funnest 3 months ever ...
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but about 2 weeks after SummerCon 1992, we got arrested.
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Favorite things
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Women: w0w
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Music: Sonic Youth, Cure, Fugazi, Minor Threat, Orb, B-Boys,
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Jane's Addiction.
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Favorite Book: 1984
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My Car: 1990 300ZX Twin Turbo, Wolf Chip mod to 360
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horsepower. It's fucking fast.
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Favorite Movies: Jackie Chan movies, The Killer, Reservoir Dogs,
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The Lost Boys, Near Dark, Hardware.
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Favorite TV: MacGyver
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What are some of your most memorable experiences?
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Being polygraphed by the Secret Service in 1991 for something having
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to do with some lamer threatening the president on an Alliance
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Teleconference. I failed the polygraph the first time, then I
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passed it the second time. (How's that for the government?)
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Eventually, some other 15-year old got probation for doing it.
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Being arrested with Codec in 1992. He ran, outran the cops, jumped
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a fence about 8 feet tall, and eventually got in a struggle with
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a cop over the his gun (Officer Sheldon Salsbury, Austin PD). The
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gun went off, and we were both booked on attempted capital murder.
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It turned out that the bullet hit no one, and all the blood was from
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the cop hitting himself in the head with his own gun, although the
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cop claims that Codec hit him in the forehead with a 2-meter ham
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radio from like 20 feet away. Right. A search warrant was executed
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on our apartment, and approximately $800,000 worth of AT&T Switching
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equipment was seized from Codec's closet. It turns out, we were
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narced on and set-up by :
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Jon R. Massengale
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6501 Deer Hollow
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Austin, TX 78750
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DOB: 9-7-62
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SSN: 463-92-0306
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Being the first in Texas to have Caller-ID, before it was legally
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available.
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Losing control of my car at 140mph, doing a slow 360 at about 120,
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living through it, and not doing too much damage to my car.
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Good times:
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Going up to Seattle to visit Cerebrum in May 1993, seeing Fugazi,
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getting our car towed, then reading the dialups to the towing
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company's xenix (login: sysadm). Finally getting our Oki 900's
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to clone/tumble/do other d0pe things. Calling each other on
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our Okis from 5 feet away, putting them together and causing
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feedback.
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Setting up my apartment with Codec with a 10-station Merlin system,
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and a 9-station network.
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SummerCon 1993. "Culmination of Coolness." Sorry, can't say any
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more.
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Some People To Mention:
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There are a lot of people who I would like to mention that have helped
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me greatly and who I have known for a very long time:
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Marko Ramius - First pirate/hacker I really knew in person. We
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did a lot of crazy shit together.
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Alexis Machine - Second hacker-type I met, and a true Warez Kid.
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(that's a complement!)
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Mucho Maas - Brought back ToneLoc from the dead. Always told
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me what I shouldn't do, and always said "I told
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you so" when I got busted.
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Codec - I had some of the funnest times of my life with
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Codec... unfortunately, it was so much fun it was
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illegal, and we got busted.
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Cerebrum - Very cool friend who got narced on by a fuckhead
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named Zach, 206-364-0660. Cerebrum is serving
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a 10 month federal sentence in a nice prison camp
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in Sheridan, Oregon. He gets out about December
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10, 1994.
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The Conflict - Unfortunately, I can't tell you. Maybe in about 8
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more years.
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ESAC Administrator - "Have you been drinking on the job?"
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What I'm up to now
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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When I heard that the next Phrack Pro-phile was going to be about
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me, I realized, "I must be retired". It's probably true.. at least I hope
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it is. The 5 months I spent in jail was enough. I just started going
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back to University of Texas, where they will only give me a VAX account
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(lame). For the first time in 4 years, I think my life is going in
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the 'right' direction.
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Advice
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~~~~~~
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I can only hope anyone who reads this will take this seriously.
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Here's my advice: If you ever get arrested or even simply questioned about
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ANYTHING AT ALL, DO NOT COOPERATE. Always tell the law enforcement
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official or whoever, "I'm sorry, I can't talk without my lawyer present"
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Cooperating will never help you. Codec recently pointed out to me, that
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we should be the "role models" of what people should do when they get
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busted. Both of us remained loyal and quiet during our whole case. I was
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in jail for 5 months, and Codec is still in prison, but we never talked.
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Being narced on by a 'buddy' is the worst thing that could ever happen
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to you, and narcing on a 'buddy' is the worst thing you could do to
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them. If you get busted for something, don't pass the punishment on
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to someone else. I hope most of you never have to face this, but if
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you do, you will live much better knowing that you didn't give in to
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a bunch of 'law enforcement' pricks.
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