There's one gun, probably more; and the others are pointing at our backdoor.
-- from `Knife's Edge', Bird Noises.
When Par failed to show up for his hearing on 10 July 1989 in the
Monterey County Juvenile Court in Salinas, he officially became a
fugitive. He had, in fact, already been on the run for some weeks. But
no-one knew. Not even his lawyer.
Richard Rosen had an idea something was wrong when Par didn't show up
for a meeting some ten days before the hearing, but he kept hoping his
client would come good. Rosen had negotiated a deal for Par:
reparations plus fifteen days or less in juvenile prison in exchange
for Par's full cooperation with the Secret Service.
Par had appeared deeply troubled over the matter for weeks. He didn't
seem to mind telling the Feds how he had broken into various
computers, but that's not what they were really looking for. They
wanted him to rat. And to rat on everyone. They knew Par was a kingpin
and, as such, he knew all the important players in the underground.
The perfect stooge. But Par couldn't bring himself to narc. Even if he
did spill his guts, there was still the question of what the
authorities would do to him in prison. The question of elimination
loomed large in his mind.
So, one morning, Par simply disappeared. He had planned it carefully,
packed his bags discreetly and made arrangements with a trusted friend
outside the circle which included his room-mates. The friend drove
around to pick Par up when the
room-mates were out. They never had an inkling that the now
eighteen-year-old Par was about to vanish for a very long time.
First, Par headed to San Diego. Then LA. Then he made his way to New
Jersey. After that, he disappeared from the radar screen completely.
Life on the run was hard. For the first few months, Par carried around
two prized possessions; an inexpensive laptop computer and photos of
Theorem taken during her visit. They were his lifeline to a different
world and he clutched them in his bag as he moved from one city to
another, often staying with his friends from the computer underground.
The loose-knit network of hackers worked a bit like the
nineteenth-century American `underground railroad' used by escaped
slaves to flee from the South to the safety of the northern states.
Except that, for Par, there was never a safe haven.
Par crisscrossed the continent, always on the move. A week in one
place. A few nights in another. Sometimes there were breaks in the
electronic underground railroad, spaces between the place where one
line ended and another began. Those breaks were the hardest. They
meant sleeping out in the open, sometimes in the cold, going without
food and being without anyone to talk to.
He continued hacking, with new-found frenzy, because he was
invincible. What were the law enforcement agencies going to do? Come
and arrest him? He was already a fugitive and he figured things
couldn't get much worse. He felt as though he would be on the run
forever, and as if he had already been on the run for a lifetime,
though it was only a few months.
When he was staying with people from the computer underground, Par was
careful. But when he was alone in a dingy motel room, or with people
completely outside that world, he hacked without fear. Blatant,
in-your-face feats. Things he knew the Secret Service would see. Even
his illicit voice mailbox had words for his pursuers:
Yeah, this is Par. And to all those faggots from the Secret Service
who keep calling and hanging up, well, lots of luck. 'Cause, I mean,
you're so fucking stupid, it's not even funny.
I mean, if you had to send my shit to Apple Computers [for analysis],
you must be so stupid, it's pitiful. You also thought I had
blue-boxing equipment [for phreaking]. I'm just laughing trying to
think what you thought was a blue box. You are so lame.
Oh well. And anyone else who needs to leave me a message, go ahead.
And everyone take it easy and leave me some shit. Alright. Later.
Despite the bravado, paranoia took hold of Par as it never had before.
If he saw a cop across the street, his breath would quicken and he
would turn and walk in the opposite direction. If the cop was heading
toward him, Par crossed the street and turned down the nearest alley.
Police of any type made him very nervous.
By the autumn of 1989, Par had made his way to a small town in North
Carolina. He found a place to stop and rest with a friend who used the
handle The Nibbler and whose family owned a motel. A couple of weeks
in one place, in one bed, was paradise. It was also free, which meant
he didn't have to borrow money from Theorem, who helped him out while
he was on the run.
Par slept in whatever room happened to be available that night, but he
spent most of his time in one of the motel chalets Nibbler used in the
off-season as a computer room. They spent days hacking from Nibbler's
computer. The fugitive had been forced to sell off his inexpensive
laptop before arriving in North Carolina.
After a few weeks at the motel, however, he couldn't shake the feeling
that he was being watched. There were too many strangers coming and
going. He wondered if the hotel guests waiting in their cars were
spying on him, and he soon began jumping at shadows. Perhaps, he
thought, the Secret Service had found him after all.
Par thought about how he could investigate the matter in more depth.
One of The Atlanta Three hackers, The Prophet, called Nibbler
occasionally to exchange hacking information, particularly security
bugs in Unix systems. During one of their talks, Prophet told Par
about a new security flaw he'd been experimenting with on a network
that belonged to the phone company.
The Atlanta Three, a Georgia-based wing of The Legion of Doom, spent a
good deal of time weaving their way through BellSouth, the phone
company covering the south-eastern US. They knew about phone switching
stations the way Par knew about Tymnet. The Secret Service had raided
the hackers in July 1989 but had not arrested them yet, so in
September The Prophet continued to maintain an interest in his
favourite target.
Par thought the flaw in BellSouth's network sounded very cool and
began playing around in the company's systems. Dial up the company's
computer network, poke around, look at things. The usual stuff.
It occurred to Par that he could check out the phone company's records
of the motel to see if there was anything unusual going on. He typed
in the motel's main phone number and the system fed back the motel's
address, name and some detailed technical information, such as the
exact cable and pair attached to the phone number. Then he looked up
the phone line of the computer chalet. Things looked odd on that line.
The line which he and Nibbler used for most of their hacking showed a
special status: `maintenance unit on line'.
What maintenance unit? Nibbler hadn't mentioned any problems with any
of the motel's lines, but Par checked with him. No problems with the
telephones.
Par felt nervous. In addition to messing around with the phone
company's networks, he had been hacking into a Russian computer
network from the computer chalet. The Soviet network was a shiny new
toy. It had only been connected to the rest of the world's global
packet-switched network for about a month, which made it particularly
attractive virgin territory.
Nibbler called in a friend to check the motel's phones. The friend, a
former telephone company technician turned freelancer, came over to
look at the equipment. He told Nibbler and Par that something weird
was happening in the motel's phone system. The line voltages were way
off.
Par realised instantly what was going on. The system was being
monitored. Every line coming in and going out was probably being
tapped, which meant only one thing. Someone--the phone company, the
local police, the FBI or the Secret Service--was onto him.
Nibbler and Par quickly packed up all Nibbler's computer gear, along
with Par's hacking notes, and moved to another motel across town. They
had to shut down all their hacking activities and cover their tracks.
Par had left programs running which sniffed people's passwords and
login names on a continual basis as they logged in, then dumped all
the information into a file on the hacked machine. He checked that
file every day or so. If he didn't shut the programs down, the log
file would grow until it was so big the system administrator would
become curious and have a look. When he discovered that his system had
been hacked he would close the security holes. Par would have problems
getting back into that system.
After they finished tidying up the hacked systems, they gathered up
all Par's notes and Nibbler's computer equipment once again and
stashed them in a rented storage space. Then they drove back to the
motel.
Par couldn't afford to move on just yet. Besides, maybe only the
telephone company had taken an interest in the motel's phone system.
Par had done a lot of poking and prodding of the telecommunications
companies' computer systems from the motel phone, but he had done it
anonymously. Perhaps BellSouth felt a little curious and just wanted
to sniff about for more information. If that was the case, the law
enforcement agencies probably didn't know that Par, the fugitive, was
hiding in the motel.
The atmosphere was becoming oppressive in the motel. Par became even
more watchful of the people coming and going. He glanced out the front
window a little more often, and he listened a little more carefully to
the footsteps coming and going. How many of the guests were really
just tourists? Par went through the guest list and found a man
registered as being from New Jersey. He was from one of the AT&T
corporations left after the break-up of Bell Systems. Why on earth
would an AT&T guy be staying in a tiny hick town in North Carolina?
Maybe a few Secret Service agents had snuck into the motel and were
watching the chalet.
Par needed to bring the paranoia under control. He needed some fresh
air, so he went out for a walk. The weather was bad and the wind blew
hard, whipping up small tornadoes of autumn leaves. Soon it began
raining and Par sought cover in the pay phone across the street.
Despite having been on the run for a few months, Par still called
Theorem almost every day, mostly by phreaking calls through bulk
telecommunications companies. He dialled her number and they talked
for a bit. He told her about how the voltage was way off on the
motel's PABX and how the phone might be tapped. She asked how he was
holding up. Then they spoke softly about when they might see each
other again.
Outside the phone box, the storm worsened. The rain hammered the roof
from one side and then another as the wind jammed it in at strange
angles. The darkened street was deserted. Tree branches creaked under
the strain of the wind. Rivulets rushed down the leeward side of the
booth and formed a wall of water outside the glass. Then a trash bin
toppled over and its contents flew onto the road.
Trying to ignore to the havoc around him, Par curled the phone handset
into a small protected space, cupped between his hand, his chest and a
corner of the phone booth. He reminded Theorem of their time together
in California, of two and a half weeks, and they laughed gently over
intimate secrets.
A tree branch groaned and then broke under the force of the wind. When
it crashed on the pavement near the phone booth, Theorem asked Par
what the noise was.
`There's a hurricane coming,' he told her. `Hurricane Hugo. It was
supposed to hit tonight. I guess it's arrived.'
Theorem sounded horrified and insisted Par go back to the safety of
the motel immediately.
When Par opened the booth door, he was deluged by water. He dashed
across the road, fighting the wind of the hurricane, staggered into his
motel room and jumped into bed to warm up. He fell asleep listening to
the storm, and he dreamed of Theorem.
Hurricane Hugo lasted more than three days, but they felt like the
safest three days Par had spent in weeks. It was a good bet that the
Secret Service wouldn't be conducting any raids during a hurricane.
South Carolina took the brunt of Hugo but North Carolina also suffered
massive damage. It was one of the worst hurricanes to hit the area in
decades. Winds near its centre reached more than 240 kilometres per
hour, causing 60 deaths and $7 billion in damages as it made its way
up the coast from the West Indies to the Carolinas.
When Par stepped outside his motel room one afternoon a few days after
the storm, the air was fresh and clean. He walked to the railing
outside his second-storey perch and found himself looking down on a
hive of activity in the car park. There were cars. There was a van.
There was a collection of spectators.
And there was the Secret Service.
At least eight agents wearing blue jackets with the Secret Service
emblem on the back.
Par froze. He stopped breathing. Everything began to move in slow
motion. A few of the agents formed a circle around one of the guys
from the motel, a maintenance worker named John, who looked vaguely
like Par. They seemed to be hauling John over the coals, searching his
wallet for identification and quizzing him. Then they escorted him to
the van, presumably to run his prints.
Par's mind began moving again. He tried to think clearly. What was the
best way out? He had to get back into his room. It would give him some
cover while he figured out what to do next. The photos of Theorem
flashed through his mind. No way was he going to let the Secret
Service get hold of those. He needed to stash them and fast.
He could see the Secret Service agents searching the computer chalet.
Thank God he and Nibbler had moved all the equipment. At least there
was nothing incriminating in there and they wouldn't be able to seize
all their gear.
Par breathed deeply, deliberately, and forced himself to back away
from the railing toward the door to his room. He resisted the urge to
dash into his room, to recoil from the scene being played out below
him. Abrupt movements would draw the agents' attention.
Just as Par began to move, one of the agents turned around. He scanned
the two-storey motel complex and his gaze quickly came to rest on Par.
He looked Par dead in the eye.
This is it, Par thought. I'm screwed. No way out of here now. Months
on the run only to get done in a hick town in North Carolina. These
guys are gonna haul my ass away for good. I'll never see the light of
day again. Elimination is the only option.
While these thoughts raced through Par's mind, he stood rigid, his
feet glued to the cement floor, his face locked into the probing gaze
of the Secret Service agent. He felt like they were the only two
people who existed in the universe.
Then, inexplicably, the agent looked away. He swivelled around to
finish his conversation with another agent. It was as if he had never
even seen the fugitive.
Par stood, suspended and unbelieving. Somehow it seemed impossible. He
began to edge the rest of the way to his motel room. Slowly, casually,
he slid inside and shut the door behind him.
His mind raced back to the photos of Theorem and he searched the room
for a safe hiding place. There wasn't one. The best option was
something above eye-level. He pulled a chair across the room, climbed
on it and pressed on the ceiling. The rectangular panel of
plasterboard lifted easily and Par slipped the photos in the space,
then replaced the panel. If the agents tore the room apart, they would
likely find the pictures. But the photos would probably escape a quick
search, which was the best he could hope for at this stage.
Next, he turned his mind to escaping. The locals were pretty cool
about everything, and Par thought he could count on the staff not to
mention his presence to the Secret Service. That bought him some time,
but he couldn't get out of the room without being seen. Besides, if he
was spotted walking off the property, he would certainly be stopped
and questioned.
Even if he did manage to get out of the motel grounds, it wouldn't
help much. The town wasn't big enough to shield him from a thorough
search and there was no-one there he trusted enough to hide him. It
might look a little suspicious, this young man running away from the
motel on foot in a part of the world where everyone travelled by car.
Hitchhiking was out of the question. With his luck, he'd probably get
picked up by one of the agents leaving the raid. No, he wanted a more
viable plan. What he really needed was to get out of the area
altogether, to flee the state.
Par knew that John travelled to Asheville to attend classes and that
he left very early. If the authorities had been watching the motel for
a while, they would know that his 5 a.m. departure was normal. And
there was one other thing about the early departure which seemed
promising. It was still dark at that hour.
If Par could get as far as Asheville, he might be able to get a lift
to Charlotte, and from there he could fly somewhere far away.
Par considered the options again and again. Hiding out in the motel
room seemed the most sensible thing to do. He had been moving rooms
around the motel pretty regularly, so he might have appeared to be
just another traveller to anyone watching the motel. With any luck the
Secret Service would be concentrating their search on the chalet,
ripping the place apart in a vain hunt for the computer equipment. As
these thoughts went through his head, the phone rang, making Par jump.
He stared at it, wondering whether to answer.
He picked it up.
`It's Nibbler,' a voice whispered.
`Yeah,' Par whispered back.
`Par, the Secret Service is here, searching the motel.'
`I know. I saw them.'
`They've already searched the room next to yours.' Par nearly died.
The agents had been less than two metres from where he was standing
and he hadn't even known it. That room was where John stayed. It was
connected to his by an inner door, but both sides were locked.
`Move into John's room and lay low. Gotta go.' Nibbler hung up
abruptly.
Par put his ear to the wall and listened. Nothing. He unlocked the
connecting inner door, turned the knob and pressed lightly. It gave.
Someone had unlocked the other side after the search. Par squinted
through the crack in the door. The room was silent and still. He
opened it--no-one home. Scooping up his things, he quickly moved into
John's room.
Then he waited. Pacing and fidgeting, he strained his ears to catch
the sounds outside. Every bang and creak of a door opening and closing
set him on edge. Late that night, after the law enforcement officials
had left, Nibbler called him on the house phone and told him what had
happened.
Nibbler had been inside the computer chalet when the Secret Service
showed up with a search warrant. The agents took names, numbers, every
detail they could, but they had trouble finding any evidence of
hacking. Finally, one of them emerged from the chalet triumphantly
waving a single computer disk in the air. The law enforcement
entourage hanging around in front of the chalet let out a little
cheer, but Nibbler could hardly keep a straight face. His younger
brother had been learning the basics of computer graphics with a
program called Logo. The United States Secret Service would soon be
uncovering the secret drawings of a primary school student.
Par laughed. It helped relieve the stress. Then he told Nibbler his
escape plan, and Nibbler agreed to arrange matters. His parents didn't
know the whole story, but they liked Par and wanted to help him. Then
Nibbler wished his friend well.
Par didn't even try to rest before his big escape. He was as highly
strung as a racehorse at the gate. What if the Secret Service was
still watching the place? There was no garage attached to the main
motel building which he could access from the inside. He would be
exposed, even though it would only be for a minute or so. The night
would provide reasonable cover, but the escape plan wasn't fool-proof.
If agents were keeping the motel under observation from a distance
they might miss him taking off from his room. On the other hand, there
could be undercover agents posing as guests watching the entire
complex from inside their room.
Paranoid thoughts stewed in Par's mind throughout the night. Just
before 5 a.m., he heard John's car pull up outside. Par flicked off
the light in his room, opened his door a crack and scanned the motel
grounds. All quiet, bar the single car, which puffed and grunted in
the still, cold air. The windows in most of the buildings were dark.
It was now or never.
Par opened the door all the way and slipped down the hallway. As he
crept downstairs, the pre-dawn chill sent a shiver down his spine.
Glancing quickly from side to side, he hurried toward the waiting car,
pulled the back door open and dove onto the seat. Keeping his head
down, he twisted around, rolled onto the floor and closed the door
with little more than a soft click.
As the car began to move. Par reached for a blanket which had been
tossed on the floor and pulled it over himself. After a while, when
John told him they were safely out of the town, Par slipped the
blanket off his face and he looked up at the early morning sky. He
tried to get comfortable on the floor. It was going to be a long ride.
At Asheville, John dropped Par off at an agreed location. Par thanked
him and hopped into a waiting car. Someone else from his extensive
network of friends and acquaintances took him to Charlotte.
This time Par rode in the front passenger seat. For the first time, he
saw the true extent of the damage wreaked by Hurricane Hugo. The small
town where he had been staying had been slashed by rain and high
winds, but on the way to the Charlotte airport, where he would pick up
a flight to New York, Par watched the devastation with amazement. He
stared out the car window, unable to take his eyes off the storm's
trail of havoc.
The hurricane had swept up anything loose or fragile and turned it
into a missile on a suicide mission. Whatever mangled, broken
fragments remained after the turbulent winds had passed would have
been almost unrecognisable to those who had seen them before.
Theorem worried about Par as he staggered from corner to corner of the
continent. In fact, she had often asked him to consider giving himself
up. Moving from town to town was taking its toll on Par, and it wasn't
that much easier on Theorem. She hadn't thought going on the lam was
such a great idea in the first place, and she offered to pay for his
lawyer so he could stop running. Par declined. How could he hand
himself in when he believed elimination was a real possibility?
Theorem sent him money, since he had no way of earning a living and he
needed to eat. The worst parts, though, were the dark thoughts that
kept crossing her mind. Anything could happen to Par between phone
calls. Was he alive? In prison? Had he been raided, even accidentally
shot during a raid?
The Secret Service and the private security people seemed to want him
so badly. It was worrying, but hardly surprising. Par had embarrassed
them. He had broken into their machines and passed their private
information around in the underground. They had raided his home when
he wasn't even home. Then he had escaped a second raid, in North
Carolina, slipping between their fingers. He was constantly in their
face, continuing to hack blatantly and to show them contempt in things
such as his voicemail message. He figured they were probably
exasperated from chasing all sorts of false leads as well, since he
was perpetually spreading fake rumours about his whereabouts. Most of
all, he thought they knew what he had seen inside the TRW system. He
was a risk.
Par became more and more paranoid, always watching over his shoulder
as he moved from city to city. He was always tired. He could never
sleep properly, worrying about the knock on the door. Some mornings,
after a fitful few hours of rest, he woke with a start, unable to
remember where he was. Which house or motel, which friends, which
city.
He still hacked all the time, borrowing machines where he could. He
posted messages frequently on The Phoenix Project, an exclusive BBS
run by The Mentor and Erik Bloodaxe and frequented by LOD members and
the Australian hackers. Some well-known computer security people were
also invited onto certain, limited areas of the Texas-based board,
which immediately elevated the status of The Phoenix Project in the
computer underground. Hackers were as curious about the security
people as the security people were about their prey. The Phoenix
Project was special because it provided neutral ground, where both
sides could meet to exchange ideas.
Via the messages, Par continued to improve his hacking skills while
also talking with his friends, people like Erik Bloodaxe, from Texas,
and Phoenix, from The Realm in Melbourne. Electron also frequented The
Phoenix Project. These hackers knew Par was on the run, and sometimes
they joked with him about it. The humour made the stark reality of
Par's situation bearable. All the hackers on The Phoenix Project had
considered the prospect of being caught. But the presence of Par, and
his tortured existence on the run, hammered the implications home with
some regularity.
As Par's messages became depressed and paranoid, other hackers tried
to do what they could to help him. Elite US and foreign hackers who
had access to the private sections of The Phoenix Project saw his
messages and they felt for him. Yet Par continued to slide deeper and
deeper into his own strange world.
Subject: DAMN !!!
From: The Parmaster
Date: Sat Jan 13 08:40:17 1990
Shit, i got drunk last night and went onto that Philippine system...
Stupid Admin comes on and asks who i am ...
Next thing i know, i'm booted off and both accounts on the system are gone.
Not only this .. but the
whole fucking Philippine Net isn't accepting collect calls anymore. (The thing
went down completely after i was booted off!)
Apparently someone there
had enough of me.
By the way, kids, never
drink and hack!
- Par
Subject: gawd
From: The Parmaster
Date: Sat Jan 13 09:07:06 1990
Those SS boys and NSA boys think i'm a COMRADE .. hehehe i'm just glad
i'm still fucking free.
Bahahaha
<Glastnost and all that happy horseshit>
- Par
Subject: The Bottom line.
From: The Parmaster
Date: Sun Jan 21 10:05:38 1990
The bottom line is a crackdown. The phrack boys were just the start,
i'm sure of it.
This is the time to watch yourself. No matter what you are into,
whether it's just codes, cards, etc.
Apparently the government has seen the last straw. Unfortunately, with
all of this in the news now, they will be able to get more government
money to combat hackers.
And that's BAD fucking news for us. I think they are going after all
the `teachers'--the people who educate others into this sort of thing.
I wonder if they think that maybe these remote cases are linked in any
way. The only way they canprobably see is that we are hackers. And
so that is where their energies will be put. To stop ALL hackers--and
stop them BEFORE they can become a threat. After they wipe out the
educators, that is. Just a theory.
- Par
Subject: Connection
From: The Parmaster
Date: Sun Jan 21 10:16:11 1990
Well, the only connection is disconnection, as Gandalf [a British
hacker] would say.
That's what i'm putting
on my epitaph.
THE ONLY CONNECTION IS
DISCONNECTION ...
Oh well, maybe i'll take
a few of the buggers with me when they come for me.
- Par
Subject: Oh well.
From: The Parmaster
Date: Tue Jan 23 19:30:05 1990
`And now, the end is near. I've traveled each and every byway ...' in
the words of the King. Oh well. Who cares? He was a fat shit before he
died anyway.
To everyone who's been a good friend of mine and help me cover up the
fact that i don't know a fucking thing--i thank u. And to everyone
else, take it easy and hang tough.
i was temporarily insane at the time
See you smart guys at the funny farm.
- Par
Subject: Par
From: Erik Bloodaxe
Date: Tue Jan 23 23:21:39 1990
Shit man, don't drink and think about things like that. It's not
healthy, mentally or physically.
Come to Austin, Texas.
We'll keep you somewhere until we can get something worked out for
you.
A year in minimum security (Club Fed) is better then chucking a whole
life. Hell, you're 19!! I have discarded the `permanent' solution for
good. Dead people can't get laid, but people in federal prisons DO get
conjugal visits!!!
Think of
Theorem.
Call over here at whatever time you read this ... I can see you are
really getting worried, so just fucking call ...
- Erik
Subject: Hah
From: The Parmaster
Date: Thu Jan 25 18:58:00 1990
Just keep in mind they see everything you do. Believe me. I know.
- Par
Subject: Well shit.
From: The Parmaster
Date: Mon Jan 29 15:45:05 1990
It's happening soon guys.
I wish i could have bought more time. And worked out a deal. But
nada. They are nearby now.
I can tell which cars are theirs driving by outside. This is the
weirdest case of Deja vu i've ever had.
Anyway got an interesting call today. It was from Eddie, one of the
Bell systems computers.
It was rather fantasy like ... Probably just his way of saying
`Goodbye'. Eddie was a good friend, smartest damn UNIX box around ...
And he called today to tell me goodbye.
Now i know i'm fucked. Thanks, Eddie, it's been real. (whoever you
are) `ok eddie, this one's for you'
Much Later,
- Par
Subject: Par
From: Erik Bloodaxe
Date: Mon Jan 29 19:36:38 1990
Buddy, Par, you are over the edge ... lay off the weed. Not everyone
with glasses and dark suits are Feds. Not all cars with generic
hubcaps are government issue.
Well, hell, I don't know what the hell `Eddie' is, but that's a real
bizarre message you left.
Fly to Austin ... like tomorrow ... got plenty of places to stash you
until things can be smoothed out for a calm transition.
- Erik
Subject: eehh...
From: Phoenix [from Australia]
Date: Tue Jan 30 07:25:59 1990
hmmmmmmmm...
<wonders real REAL thoughtufully> [sic]
<and turns up a blank...>
what is young Par up to?
Subject: Par and Erik
From: Daneel Olivaw
Date: Mon Jan 29 21:10:00 1990
Erik, you aren't exactly the best person to be stashing people are
you?
Subject: You know you are screwed when.
From: The Parmaster
Date: Wed Jan 31 14:26:04 1990
You know you are screwed
when:
When surveyers survey
your neighbors regularly, and wear sunglasses when it's like 11 degrees
farenheit and cloudy as hell out.
When the same cars keep
driving by outside day and night. (I've been thinking about providing coffee an
d
doughnuts).
- Par
Subject: heh, Par
From: The Mentor
Date: Wed Jan 31 16:37:04 1990
Ummm. I wear sunglasses when it's 11 degrees and cloudy ... so you can
eliminate that one. :-)
Subject: Hmm, Par
From: Phoenix
Date: Thu Feb 01 10:22:46 1990
At least you arent getting shot at.
Subject: Par, why don't you ...
From: Ravage
Date: Thu Feb 01 10:56:04 1990
Why not just go out and say `hi' to the nice gentleman? If i kept
seeing the same people tooling around my neighborhood, i would
actively check them out if they seemed weird.
Subject: Par, jump 'em
From: Aston Martin
Date: Tue Feb 06 18:04:55 1990
What you could do is go out to one of the vans sitting in the street
(you know, the one with the two guys sitting in it all day) with a
pair of jumper cables. Tell them you've seen them sitting there all
day and you thought they were stuck. Ask them if they need a jump.
- Aston
Between these strange messages, Par often posted comments on technical
matters. Other hackers routinely asked him questions about X.25
networks. Unlike some hackers, Par almost always offered some help. In
fact, he believed that being `one of the teachers' made him a
particular target. But his willingness to teach others so readily,
combined with his relatively humble, self-effacing demeanour, made Par
popular among many hackers. It was one reason he found so many places
to stay.
Spring arrived, brushing aside a few of the hardships of a winter on
the run, then summer. Par was still on the run, still dodging the
Secret Service's national hunt for the fugitive. By autumn, Par had
eluded law enforcement officials around the United States for more
than a year. The gloom of another cold winter on the run sat on the
horizon of Par's future, but he didn't care. Anything, everything was
bearable. He could take anything Fate would dish up because he had
something to live for.
Theorem was coming to visit him again.
When Theorem arrived in New York in early 1991, the weather was
bitterly cold. They travelled to Connecticut, where Par was staying in
a share-house with friends.
Par was nervous about a lot of things, but mostly about whether things
would be the same with Theorem. Within a few hours of her arrival, his
fears were assuaged. Theorem felt as passionately about him as she had
in California more than twelve months before. His own feelings were
even stronger. Theorem was a liferaft of happiness in the growing
turmoil of his life.
But things were different in the outside world. Life on the run with
Theorem was grim. Constantly dependent on other people, on their
charity, they were also subject to their petty whims.
A room-mate in the share-house got very drunk one night and picked a
fight with one of Par's friends. It was a major row and the friend
stormed out. In a fit of intoxicated fury, the drunk threatened to
turn Par in to the authorities. Slurring his angry words, he announced
he was going to call the FBI, CIA and Secret Service to tell them all
where Par was living.
Par and Theorem didn't want to wait around to see if the drunk would
be true to his word. They grabbed their coats and fled into the
darkness. With little money, and no place else to stay, they walked
around for hours in the blistering, cold wind. Eventually they decided
they had no choice but to return to the house late at night, hopefully
after the drunk had fallen asleep.
They sidled up to the front of the house, alert and on edge. It was
quite possible the drunk had called every law enforcement agency his
blurry mind could recall, in which case a collection of agents would
be lying in wait. The street was deadly quiet. All the parked cars
were deserted. Par peered in a darkened window but he couldn't see
anything. He motioned for Theorem to follow him into the house.
Though she couldn't see Par's face, Theorem could feel his tension.
Most of the time, she revelled in their closeness, a proximity which
at times seemed to border on telepathy. But at this moment, the
extraordinary gift of empathy felt like a curse. Theorem could feel
Par's all-consuming paranoia, and it filled her with terror as they
crept through the hall, checking each room. Finally they reached Par's
room, expecting to find two or three Secret Service agents waiting
patiently for them in the dark.
It was empty.
They climbed into bed and tried to get some sleep, but Theorem lay
awake in the dark for a little while, thinking about the strange and
fearful experience of returning to the house. Though she spoke to Par
on the phone almost every day when they were apart, she realised she
had missed something.
Being on the run for so long had changed Par.
Some time after she returned to Switzerland, Theorem's access to Altos
shrivelled up and died. She had been logging in through her old
university account but the university eventually killed her access
since she was no longer a student. Without access to any X.25 network
linked to the outside world, she couldn't logon to Altos. Although she
was never involved with hacking, Theorem had become quite addicted to
Altos. The loss of access to the Swiss X.25 network--and therefore to
Altos--left her feeling very depressed. She told Par over the
telephone, in sombre tones.
Par decide to make a little present for Theorem. While most hackers
broke into computers hanging off the X.25 networks, Par broke into the
computers of the companies which ran the X.25 networks. Having control
over the machines owned by Telenet or Tymnet was real power. And as the
master of X.25 networks, Par could simply create a special account--just
for Theorem--on Tymnet.
When Par finished making the account, he leaned back in his chair
feeling pretty pleased with himself.
Account name: Theorem.
Password: ParLovesMe!
Well, thought Par, she's going to have to type that in every time she
gets on the Tymnet network. Altos might be filled with the world's
best hackers, and they might even try to flirt with Theorem, but
she'll be thinking of me every time she logs on, he thought.
Par called her on the telephone and gave her his special present. When
he told her the password to her new account, Theorem laughed. She
thought it was sweet.
And so did the MOD boys.
Masters of Deception, or Destruction--it depended on who told the
story--was a New York-based gang of hackers. They thought it would be
cool to hack Altos. It wasn't that easy to get Altos shell access,
which Theorem had, and most people had to settle for using one of the
`guest' accounts. But it was much easier to hack Altos from a shell
account than from a `guest' account. Theorem's account would be the
targeted jump-off point.
How did MOD get Theorem's Altos password? Most probably they were
watching one of the X.25 gateways she used as she passed through
Tymnet on her way to Altos. Maybe the MOD boys sniffed her password en
route. Or maybe they were watching the Tymnet security officials who
were watching that gateway.
In the end it didn't matter how MOD got Theorem's password on Altos.
What mattered was that they changed her password. When Theorem
couldn't get into Altos she was beside herself. She felt like a junkie
going cold turkey. It was too much. And of course she couldn't reach
Par. Because he was on the run, she had to wait for him to call her.
In fact she couldn't reach any of her other friends on Altos to ask
for help. How was she going to find them? They were all hackers. They
chose handles so no-one would know their real names.
What Theorem didn't know was that, not only had she lost access to
Altos, but the MOD boys were using her account to hack the Altos
system. To the outside world it appeared as though she was doing it.
Theorem finally managed to get a third-hand message to Gandalf, a
well-known British hacker. She sought him out for two reasons. First,
he was a good friend and was therefore likely to help her out. Second,
Gandalf had root access on Altos, which meant he could give her a new
password or account.
Gandalf had established quite a reputation for himself in the computer
underground through the hacking group 8lgm--The Eight-Legged Groove
Machine, named after a British band. He and his friend, fellow British
hacker Pad, had the best four legs in the chorus line. They were a
world-class act, and certainly some of the best talent to come out of
the British hacking scene. But Gandalf and, to a lesser extent, Pad
had also developed a reputation for being arrogant. They rubbed some
of the American hackers the wrong way. Not that Pad and Gandalf seemed
to care. Their attitude was: We're good. We know it. Bugger off.
Gandalf disabled Theorem's account on Altos. He couldn't very well
just change the password and then send the new one through the
extended grapevine that Theorem had used to get a message through to
him. Clearly, someone had targeted her account specifically. No way
was he going to broadcast a new password for her account throughout
the underground. But the trouble was that neither Par nor Theorem knew
what Gandalf had done.
Meanwhile, Par called Theorem and got an earful. An angry Par vowed to
find out just who the hell had been messing with her account.
When the MOD boys told Par they were the culprits, he was a bit
surprised because he had always been on good terms with them. Par told
them how upset Theorem had been, how she gave him an earful. Then an
extraordinary thing happened. Corrupt, the toughest, baddest guy in
MOD, the black kid from the roughest part of New York, the hacker who
gave shit to everyone because he could, apologised to Par.
The MOD guys never apologised, even when they knew they were in the
wrong. Apologies never got anyone very far on a New York City street.
It was an attitude thing. `I'm sorry, man' from Corrupt was the
equivalent of a normal person licking the mud from the soles of your
shoes.
The new password was: M0Dm0dM0D. That's the kind of guys they were.
Par was just signing off to try out the new password when Corrupt
jumped in.
`Yeah, and ah, Par, there's something you should know.'
`Yeah?' Par answered, anxious to go.
`I checked out her mail. There was some stuff in it.'
Theorem's letters? Stuff? `What kind of stuff?' he asked.
`Letters from Gandalf.'
`Yeah?'
`Friendly letters. Real friendly.'
Par wanted to know, but at the same time, he didn't. He could have
arranged root access on Altos long ago if he'd really wanted it. But
he didn't. He didn't want it because it would mean he could access
Theorem's mail. And Par knew that if he could, he would. Theorem was
popular on Altos and, being the suspicious type, Par knew he would
probably take something perfectly innocent and read it the wrong way.
Then he would get in a fight with Theorem, and their time together was
too precious for that.
`Too friendly,' Corrupt went on. It must have been hard for him to
tell Par. Snagging a friend's girlfriend's password and breaking into
her account was one thing. There wasn't much wrong with that. But
breaking that kind of news, well, that was harsh. Especially since
Corrupt had worked with Gandalf in 8lgm.
`Thanks,' Par said finally. Then he took off.
When Par tried out the MOD password, it didn't work of course, because
Gandalf had disabled the account. But Par didn't know that. Finding
out that Theorem's account was disabled didn't bother him, but
discovering who disabled it for her didn't make Par all that happy.
Still, when he confronted Theorem, she denied that anything was going
on between her and Gandalf.
What could Par do? He could believe Theorem or he could doubt her.
Believing her was hard, but doubting her was painful. So he chose to
believe her.
The incident made Theorem take a long look at Altos. It was doing bad
things to her life. In the days that she was locked out of the German
chat system, she had made the unpleasant discovery that she was
completely addicted. And she didn't like it at all. Staring at her
life with fresh eyes, she realised she had been ignoring her friends
and her life in Switzerland. What on earth was she doing, spending
every night in front of a computer screen?
So Theorem made a tough decision.
She decided to stop using Altos forever.
Bad things seemed to happen to The Parmaster around Thanksgiving.
In late November 1991, Par flew up from Virginia Beach to New York. An
acquaintance named Morty Rosenfeld, who hung out with the MOD hackers
a bit, had invited him to come for a visit. Par thought a trip to the
City would do him good.
Morty wasn't exactly Par's best friend, but he was all right. He had
been charged by the Feds a few months earlier for selling a password
to a credit record company which resulted in credit card fraud. Par
didn't go in for selling passwords, but to each his own. Morty wasn't
too bad in the right dose. He had a place on Coney Island, which was
hardly the Village in Manhattan, but close enough, and he had a
fold-out sofa bed. It beat sleeping on the floor somewhere else.
Par hung out with a Morty and a bunch of his friends, drinking and
goofing around on Morty's computer.
One morning, Par woke up with a vicious hangover. His stomach was
growling and there was nothing edible in the fridge, so he rang up and
ordered pork fried rice from a Chinese take-away. Then he threw on
some clothes and sat on the end of the sofa-bed, smoking a cigarette
while he waited. He didn't start smoking until he was nineteen, some
time late into his second year on the run. It calmed his nerves.
There was a knock at the front door. Par's stomach grumbled in
response. As he walked toward the front door, he thought Pork Fried
Rice, here I come. But when Par opened the front door, there was
something else waiting for him.
The Secret Service.
Two men. An older, distinguished gentleman standing on the left and a
young guy on the right. The young guy's eyes opened wide when he saw
Par.
Suddenly, the young guy pushed Par, and kept pushing him. Small, hard,
fast thrusts. Par couldn't get his balance. Each time he almost got
his footing, the agent shoved the hacker backward again until he
landed against the wall. The agent spun Par around so his face pressed
against the wall and pushed a gun into his kidney. Then he slammed
handcuffs on Par and started frisking him for weapons.
Par looked at Morty, now sobbing in the corner, and thought, You
narced on me.
Once Par was safely cuffed, the agents flashed their badges to him.
Then they took him outside, escorted him into a waiting car and drove
into Manhattan. They pulled up in front of the World Trade Center and
when Par got out the young agent swapped the cuffs so Par's hands were
in front of him.
As the agents escorted the handcuffed fugitive up a large escalator,
the corporate world stared at the trio. Business men and women in prim
navy suits, secretaries and office boys all watched wide-eyed from the
opposite escalator. And if the handcuffs weren't bad enough, the
younger Secret Service agent was wearing a nylon jacket with a
noticeable gun-shaped lump in the front pouch.
Why are these guys bringing me in the front entrance? Par kept
thinking. Surely there must be a backdoor, a car park back entrance.
Something not quite so public.
The view from any reasonably high floor of the World Trade Center is
breathtaking, but Par never got a chance to enjoy the vista. He was
hustled into a windowless room and handcuffed to a chair. The agents
moved in and out, sorting out paperwork details. They uncuffed him
briefly while they inked his fingers and rolled them across sheets of
paper. Then they made him give handwriting samples, first his right
hand then his left.
Par didn't mind being cuffed to the chair so much, but he found the
giant metal cage in the middle of the fingerprinting room deeply
disturbing. It reminded him of an animal cage, the kind used in old
zoos.
The two agents who arrested him left the room, but another one came
in. And the third agent was far from friendly. He began playing the
bad cop, railing at Par, shouting at him, trying to unnerve him. But
no amount of yelling from the agent could rile Par as much as the
nature of the questions he asked.
The agent didn't ask a single question about Citibank. Instead, he
demanded to hear everything Par knew about TRW.
All Par's worst nightmares about the killer spy satellite, about
becoming the man who knew too much, rushed through his mind.
Par refused to answer. He just sat silently, staring at the agent.
Eventually, the older agent came back into the room, dragged the
pitbull agent away and took him outside for a whispered chat. After
that, the pitbull agent was all sweetness and light with Par. Not
another word about TRW.
Par wondered why a senior guy from the Secret Service would tell his
minion to clam up about the defence contractor? What was behind the
sudden silence? The abrupt shift alarmed Par almost as much as the
questions had in the first place.
The agent told Par he would be remanded in custody while awaiting
extradition to California. After all the paperwork had been completed,
they released him from the handcuffs and let him stand to stretch. Par
asked for a cigarette and one of the agents gave him one. Then a
couple of other agents--junior guys--came in.
The junior agents were very friendly. One of them even shook Par's
hand and introduced himself. They knew all about the hacker. They knew
his voice from outgoing messages on voicemail boxes he had created for
himself. They knew what he looked like from his California police
file, and maybe even surveillance photos. They knew his personality
from telephone bridge conversations which had been recorded and from
the details of his Secret Service file. Perhaps they had even tracked
him around the country, following a trail of clues left in his
flightpath. Whatever research they had done, one thing was clear.
These agents felt like they knew him intimately--Par the person, not
just Par the hacker.
It was a strange sensation. These guys Par had never met before
chatted with him about the latest Michael Jackson video as if he was a
neighbour or friend just returned from out of town. Then they took him
further uptown, to a police station, for more extradition paperwork.
This place was no World Trade Center deluxe office. Par stared at the
peeling grey paint in the ancient room, and then watched officers
typing out reports using the two-finger hunt-and-peck method on
electric typewriters--not a computer in sight. The officers didn't
cuff Par to the desk. Par was in the heart of a police station and
there was no way he was going anywhere.
While the officer handling Par was away from his desk for ten minutes,
Par felt bored. So he began flipping through the folders with
information on other cases on the officer's desk. They were heavy duty
fraud cases--mafia and drug-money laundering--cases which carried
reference to FBI involvement. These people looked hairy.
That day, Par had a quick appearance in court, just long enough to be
given protective custody in the Manhattan detention complex known as
the Tombs while he waited for the authorities from California to come
and pick him up.
Par spent almost a week in the Tombs. By day three, he was climbing
the walls. It was like being buried alive.
During that week, Par had almost no contact with other human beings--a
terrible punishment for someone with so much need for a continual flow
of new information. He never left his cell. His jailer slid trays of
food into his cell and took them away.
On day six, Par went nuts. He threw a fit, began screaming and banging
on the door. He yelled at the guard. Told him none too nicely that he
wanted to `get the fuck outta here'. The guard said he would see if he
could get Par transferred to Rikers Island, New York's notorious jail.
Par didn't care if he was transferred to the moon, as long as he got
out of solitary confinement.
Except for the serial killer, the north infirmary at Rikers Island was
a considerable improvement on the Tombs. Par was only locked in his
cell at night. During the day he was free to roam inside the infirmary
area with other prisoners. Some of them were there because the
authorities didn't want to put them in with the hardened criminals,
and some of them were there because they were probably criminally
insane.
It was an eclectic bunch. A fireman turned jewellery heister. A
Colombian drug lord. A chop-shop ringleader, who collected more than
300 stolen cars, chopped them up, reassembled them as new and then
sold them off. A man who killed a homosexual for coming onto him.
`Faggot Killer', as he was known inside, hadn't meant to kill anyone:
things had gotten a little out of hand; next thing he knew, he was
facing ten to twelve on a murder rap.
Par wasn't wild about the idea of hanging out with a murderer, but he
was nervous about what could happened to a young man in jail. Forging
a friendship with Faggot Killer would send the right message. Besides,
the guy seemed to be OK. Well, as long as you didn't look at him the
wrong way.
On his first day, Par also met Kentucky, a wild-eyed man who
introduced himself by thrusting a crumpled newspaper article into the
hacker's hand and saying, `That's me'. The article, titled `Voices
Told Him to Kill', described how police had apprehended a serial
killer believed to be responsible for a dozen murders, maybe more.
During his last murder, Kentucky told Par he had killed a woman--and
then written the names of the aliens who had commanded him to do it on
the walls of her apartment in her blood.
The jewellery heister tried to warn Par to stay away from Kentucky,
who continued to liaise with the aliens on a regular basis. But it was
too late. Kentucky decided that he didn't like the young hacker. He
started shouting at Par, picking a fight. Par stood there, stunned and
confused. How should he deal with an aggravated serial killer? And
what the hell was he doing in jail with a serial killer raving at him
anyway? It was all too much.
The jewellery heister rushed over to Kentucky and tried to calm him
down, speaking in soothing tones. Kentucky glowered at Par, but he
stopped yelling.
A few days into his stay at Rikers, Faggot Killer invited Par to join
in a game of Dungeons and Dragons. It beat watching TV talk shows all
day, so Par agreed. He sat down at the metal picnic table where Faggot
Killer had laid out the board.
So it was that Par, the twenty-year-old computer hacker from
California, the X.25 network whiz kid, came to play Dungeons and
Dragons with a jewellery thief, a homophobic murderer and a mad serial
killer in Rikers Island. Par found himself marvelling at the
surrealism of the situation.
Kentucky threw himself into the game. He seemed to get off on killing
hobgoblins.
`I'll take my halberd,' Kentucky began with a smile, `and I stab this
goblin.' The next player began to make his move, but Kentucky
interrupted. `I'm not done,' he said slowly, as a demonic grin spread
across his face. `And I slice it. And cut it. It bleeds everywhere.'
Kentucky's face tensed with pleasure.
The other three players shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Par
looked at Faggot Killer with nervous eyes.
`And I thrust a knife into its heart,' Kentucky continued, the volume
of his voice rising with excitement. `Blood, blood, everywhere blood.
And I take the knife and hack him. And I hack and hack and hack.'
Kentucky jumped up from the table and began shouting, thrusting one
arm downward through the air with an imaginary dagger, `And I hack and
I hack and I hack!'
Then Kentucky went suddenly still. Everyone at the table froze. No-one
dared move for fear of driving him over the edge. Par's stomach had
jumped into his throat. He tried to gauge how many seconds it would
take to extricate himself from the picnic table and make a break for
the far side of the room.
In a daze, Kentucky walked away from the table, leaned his forehead
against the wall and began mumbling quietly. The jewellery heister
slowly followed and spoke to him briefly in hushed tones before
returning to the table.
One of the guards had heard the ruckus and came up to the table.
`Is that guy OK?' he asked the jewellery heister while pointing to
Kentucky.
Not even if you used that term loosely, Par thought.
`Leave him alone,' the heister told the guard. `He's talking to the
aliens.'
`Right.' The guard turned around and left.
Every day, a nurse brought around special medicine for Kentucky. In
fact, Kentucky was zonked out most of the time on a cup of horrible,
smelly liquid. Sometimes, though, Kentucky secreted his medicine away
and traded it with another prisoner who wanted to get zonked out for a
day or so.
Those were bad days, the days when Kentucky had sold his medication.
It was on one of those days that he tried to kill Par.
Par sat on a metal bench, talking to other prisoners, when suddenly he
felt an arm wrap around his neck. He tried to turn around, but
couldn't.
`Here. I'll show you how I killed this one guy,' Kentucky whispered to
Par.
`No--No--' Par started to say, but Kentucky's biceps began pressing
against Par's Adam's apple. It was a vice-like grip.
`Yeah. Like this. I did it like this,' Kentucky said as he tensed his
muscle and pulled backward.
`No! Really, you don't need to. It's OK,' Par gasped. No air. His arms
flailing in front of him.
I'm done for, Par thought. My life is over. Hacker Murdered by Serial
Killer in Rikers Island. `Aliens Told Me to Do It.'
The omnipresent jewellery heister came up to Kentucky and started
cooing in his ear to let Par go. Then, just when Par thought he was
about to pass out, the jewellery heister pulled Kentucky off him.
Par reminded himself to always sit with his back against the wall.
Finally, after almost a month behind bars, Par was informed that an
officer from the Monterey County sheriff's office was coming to take
him back to California. Par had agreed to be extradited to California
after seeing the inside of New York's jails. Dealing with the federal
prosecutor in New York had also helped make up his mind.
The US Attorney's Office in New York gave Richard Rosen, who had taken
the case on again, a real headache. They didn't play ball. They played
`Queen for a Day'.
The way they negotiated reminded Rosen of an old American television
game of that name. The show's host pulled some innocent soul off the
street, seated her on a garish throne, asked her questions and then
gave her prizes. The US Attorney's Office in New York wanted to seat
Par on a throne, of sorts, to ask him lots of questions. At the end of
the unfettered interrogation, they would hand out prizes. Prison
terms. Fines. Convictions. As they saw fit. No guaranteed sentences.
They would decide what leniency, if any, he would get at the end of
the game.
Par knew what they were looking for: evidence against the MOD boys. He
wasn't having a bar of that. The situation stank, so Par decided not to
fight the extradition to California. Anything had to be better than New
York, with its crazy jail inmates and arrogant federal prosecutors.
The officer from the Monterey sheriff's office picked Par up on 17
December 1991.
Par spent the next few weeks in jail in California, but this time he
wasn't in any sort of protective custody. He had to share a cell with
Mexican drug dealers and other mafia, but at least he knew his way
around these people. And unlike the some of the people at Rikers, they
weren't stark raving lunatics.
Richard Rosen took the case back, despite Par's having skipped town
the first time, which Par thought was pretty good of the lawyer. But
Par had no idea how good it would be for him until it came to his
court date.
Par called Rosen from the jail, to talk about the case. Rosen had some
big news for him.
`Plead guilty. You're going to plead guilty to everything,' he told
Par.
Par thought Rosen had lost his marbles.
`No. We can win this case if you plead guilty,' Rosen assured him.
Par sat dumbfounded at the other end of the phone.
`Trust me,' the lawyer said.
The meticulous Richard Rosen had found a devastating weapon.
On 23 December 1991, Par pleaded guilty to two charges in Monterey
County Juvenile Court. He admitted everything. The whole nine yards.
Yes, I am The Parmaster. Yes, I broke into computers. Yes, I took
thousands of credit card details from a Citibank machine. Yes, yes,
yes.
In some way, the experience was cathartic, but only because Par knew
Rosen had a brilliant ace up his sleeve.
Rosen had rushed the case to be sure it would be heard in juvenile
court, where Par would get a more lenient sentence. But just because
Rosen was in a hurry didn't mean he was sloppy. When he went through
Par's file with a fine-toothed comb he discovered the official papers
declared Par's birthday to be 15 January 1971. In fact, Par's birthday
was some days earlier, but the DA's office didn't know that.
Under California law, a juvenile court has jurisdiction over citizens
under the age of 21. You can only be tried and sentenced in a juvenile
court if you committed the crimes in question while under the age of
eighteen and you are still under the age of 21 when you plead and are
sentenced.
Par was due to be sentenced on 13 January but on 8 January Rosen
applied for the case to be thrown out. When Deputy DA David Schott
asked why, Rosen dropped his bomb.
Par had already turned 21 and the juvenile court had no authority to
pass sentence over him. Further, in California, a case cannot be moved
into an adult court if the defendant has already entered a plea in a
juvenile one. Because Par had already done that, his case couldn't be
moved. The matter was considered `dealt with' in the eyes of the law.
The Deputy DA was flabbergasted. He spluttered and spewed. The DA's
office had dropped the original charges from a felony to a
misdemeanour. They had come to the table. How could this happen? Par
was a fugitive. He had been on the run for more than two years from
the frigging Secret Service, for Christ's sake. There was no way--NO
WAY--he was going to walk out of that courtroom scot-free.
The court asked Par to prove his birthday. A quick driver's licence
search at the department of motor vehicles showed Par and his lawyer
were telling the truth. So Par walked free.
When he stepped outside the courthouse, Par turned his face toward the
sun. After almost two months in three different jails on two sides of
the continent, the sun felt magnificent. Walking around felt
wonderful. Just wandering down the street made him happy.
However, Par never really got over being on the run.
From the time he walked free from the County Jail in Salinas,
California, he continued to move around the country, picking up
temporary work here and there. But he found it hard to settle in one
place. Worst of all, strange things began happening to him. Well, they
had always happened to him, but they were getting stranger by the
month. His perception of reality was changing.
There was the incident in the motel room. As Par sat in the Las Vegas
Travelodge on one if his cross-country treks, he perceived someone
moving around in the room below his. Par strained to hear. It seemed
like the man was talking to him. What was the man trying to tell him?
Par couldn't quite catch the words, but the more he listened, the more
Par was sure he had a message for him which he didn't want anyone else
to hear. It was very frustrating. No matter how hard he tried, no
matter how he put his ear down to the floor or against the wall, Par
couldn't make it out.
The surreal experiences continued. As Par described it, on a trip down
to Mexico, he began feeling quite strange, so he went to the US
consulate late one afternoon to get some help. But everyone in the
consulate behaved bizarrely.
They asked him for some identification, and he gave them his wallet.
They took his Social Security card and his California identification
card and told him to wait. Par believed they were going to pull up
information about him on a computer out the back. While waiting, his
legs began to tremble and a continuous shiver rolled up and down his
spine. It wasn't a smooth, fluid shiver, it was jerky. He felt like he
was sitting at the epicentre of an earthquake and it frightened him.
The consulate staff just stared
at him.
Finally Par stopped shaking. The other staff member returned and asked
him to leave.
`No-one can help you here,' he told Par.
Why was the consular official talking to him like that? What did he
mean--Par had to leave? What was he really trying to say? Par couldn't
understand him. Another consular officer came around to Par, carrying
handcuffs. Why was everyone behaving in such a weird way? That
computer. Maybe they had found some special message next to his name
on that computer.
Par tried to explain the situation, but the consulate staff didn't
seem to understand. He told them about how he had been on the run from
the Secret Service for two and a half years, but that just got him
queer looks. Blank faces. No comprehende. The more he explained, the
blanker the faces became.
The consular officials told him that the office was closing for the
day. He would have to leave the building. But Par suspected that was
just an excuse. A few minutes later, a Mexican policeman showed up. He
talked with one of the consular officials, who subsequently handed him
what Par perceived to be a slip of paper wrapped around a wad of peso
notes.
Two more policemen came into the consulate. One of them turned to Par
and said, `Leave!' but Par didn't answer. So the Mexican police
grabbed Par by the arms and legs and carried him out of the consulate.
Par felt agitated and confused and, as they crossed the threshold out
of the consulate, he screamed.
They put him in a police car and took him to a jail, where they kept
him overnight.
The next day, they released Par and he wandered the city aimlessly
before ending up back at the US consulate. The same consular officer
came up to him and asked how he was feeling.
Par said, `OK.'
Then Par asked if the official could help him get back to the border,
and he said he could. A few minutes later a white van picked up Par
and took him to the border crossing. When they arrived, Par asked the
driver if he could have $2 so he could buy a ticket for the train. The
driver gave it to him.
Par boarded the train with no idea of where he was headed.
Theorem visited Par in California twice in 1992 and the relationship
continued to blossom. Par tried to find work so he could pay her back
the $20000 she had lent him during his years on the run and during his
court case, but it was hard going. People didn't seem to want to hire
him.
`You don't have any computer skills,' they told him. He calmly
explained that, yes, he did indeed have computer skills.
`Well, which university did you get your degree from?' they asked.
No, he hadn't got his skills at any university.
`Well, which companies did you get your work experience from?'
No, he hadn't learned his skills while working for a company.
`Well, what did you do from 1989 to 1992?' the temp agency staffer
inevitably asked in an exasperated voice.
`I ... ah ... travelled around the country.' What else was Par going
to say? How could he possibly answer that question?
If he was lucky, the agency might land him a data-entry job at $8 per
hour. If he was less fortunate, he might end up doing clerical work
for less than that.
By 1993, things had become a little rocky with Theorem. After four and
a half years together, they broke up. The distance was too great, in
every sense. Theorem wanted a more stable life--maybe not a
traditional Swiss family with three children and a pretty chalet in
the Alps, but something more than Par's transient life on the road.
The separation was excruciatingly painful for both of them.
Conversation was strained for weeks after the decision. Theorem kept
thinking she had made a mistake. She kept wanting to ask Par to come
back. But she didn't.
Par drowned himself in alcohol. Shots of tequila, one after the other.
Scull it. Slam the glass down. Fill it to the top. Throw back another.
After a while, he passed out. Then he was violently ill for days, but
somehow he didn't mind. It was cleansing to be so ill.
Somewhere along the way, Rosen managed to get Par's things returned
from the Secret Service raids. He passed the outdated computer and
other equipment back to Par, along with disks, print-outs and notes.
Par gathered up every shred of evidence from his case, along with a
bottle of Jack Daniels, and made a bonfire. He shredded print-outs,
doused them in lighter fluid and set them alight. He fed the disks
into the fire and watched them melt in the flames. He flipped through
the pages and pages of notes and official reports and let them pull
out particular memories. Then he crumpled up each one and tossed it in
the fire. He even sprinkled a little Jack Daniels across the top for
good measure.
As he pulled the pages from a Secret Service report, making them into
tight paper balls, something caught his eye and made him wonder. Many
hackers around the world had been busted in a series of raids
following the first Thanksgiving raid at Par's house back in 1988.
Erik Bloodaxe, the MOD boys, the LOD boys, The Atlanta Three, Pad and
Gandalf, the Australians--they had all been either busted or raided
during 1989, 1990 and 1991.
How were the raids connected? Were the law-enforcement agencies on
three different continents really organised enough to coordinate
worldwide attacks on hackers?
The Secret Service report gave him a clue. It said that in December
1988, two informants had called Secret Service special agents in
separate divisions with information about Par. The informants--both
hackers--told the Secret Service that Par was not the `Citibank
hacker' the agency was looking for. They said the real `Citibank
hacker' was named Phoenix.
Phoenix from Australia.