Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World’s Most Wanted Hacker

Who the hell is Ken McGuire, and why the hell is he after me?
I hit the “0” button, expecting it would take me to a receptionist.
Instead a lady came on the line and answered, “White Collar Crime,
Squad Three.” A couple of innocent-sounding questions and I had another
piece of the puzzle: Agent Ken McGuire was on the Los Angeles FBI squad
referred to as WCC3. He was probably Eric’s handler.
This had become a fascinating adventure. By the end of my lengthy
traffic analysis, I had put together a list of people at the Bureau who were in
regular close contact with the agents and support people I now figured were
trying to take me down.
Shit!
Who else would’ve had the balls to investigate the FBI at the same time
the FBI was investigating him?
It was all coming together, and it was looking like stormy weather
ahead. I felt I was past the point of no return, but I wasn’t going to give up
without a struggle.

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NINETEEN

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Revelations
Rcvo dn ivhz ja ocz omvinvxodji oj adiy v kzmnji’n njxdvg
nzxpmdot
iphwzm pndib oczdm ivhz viy yvoz ja wdmoc?
W
e’re told that our medical records are confidential, shared only when
we give specific permission. But the truth is that any federal agent, cop, or
prosecutor who can convince a judge he has legitimate reason can walk into
your pharmacy and have them print out all of your prescriptions and the
date of every refill. 
Scary
.
We’re also told that the records kept on us by government agencies—
Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration, the DMV of any
particular state, and so on—are safe from prying eyes. Maybe they’re a
little safer now than they used to be—though I doubt it—but in my day,
getting any information I wanted was a pushover.
I compromised the Social Security Administration, for example, through
an elaborate social-engineering attack. It began with my usual research—
the various departments of the agency, where they were located, who the
supervisors and managers were for each, standard internal lingo, and so on.
Claims were processed by special groups called “Mods,” which I think
stood for “modules,” each one perhaps covering a series of Social Security
numbers. I social-engineered the phone number for a Mod and eventually
reached a staff member who told me her name was Ann. I told her I was
Tom Harmon, in the agency’s Office of the Inspector General.
I said, “We’re going to be needing assistance on a continuing basis,”
explaining that while our office was working on a number of fraud
investigations, we didn’t have access to MCS—short for “Modernized
Claims System,” the amusingly clumsy name for their centralized computer
system.

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From the time of that initial conversation, we became telephone buddies.
I was able to call Ann and have her look up whatever I wanted—Social
Security numbers, dates and places of birth, mother’s maiden names,
disability benefits, wages, and so on. Whenever I phoned, she would drop
whatever she was doing to look up anything I asked for.
Ann seemed to love my calls. She clearly enjoyed playing deputy to a
man from the Inspector General’s Office who was doing these important
investigations of people committing fraud. I suppose it broke the routine of
a mundane, plodding workday. She would even suggest things to search:
“Would knowing the parents’ names help?” And then she’d go through a
series of steps to dig up the information.
On one occasion, I slipped, asking, “What’s the weather like there
today?”
But I supposedly worked in the same city she did. She said, “You don’t
know what the weather is!?”
I covered quickly. “I’m in LA today on a case.” She must have figured,