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

“eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”
in
imitation of the sound, which made me chuckle to myself—I had heard the
tone and didn’t really need to hear his attempt to duplicate it.
He told me the call was originating from Oakland. “Cool,” I said.
“Thank you, that’s a help. Give me the trunking information from your
switch so we can trace it.”
He queried the switch and gave me the info.
My next call was to the Oakland Switching Control Center. “We’re
trying to trace a call from the San Francisco 4E,” I said, and provided the

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trunking and network information. The tech put me on hold, then came
back and gave me a 510 208-3XXX number.
I had now traced the call all the way to its origin. This was the phone
number dialing out to one of the boxes in the Calabasas CO that was
wiretapping Teltec.
I still wanted to know if that thousand-cycle tone would ever change. If it
did, what would happen? Would I hear a data signal? Would I hear a phone
conversation?
I called Omar back. “Hey, has anything changed with that tone?”
He answered that he had listened to it for about fifteen minutes and
never heard any change.
I asked, “Is it possible to put the handset near the speaker so I can hear
the tone? I want to run some tests.” He said he’d put the phone down next
to the speaker and I could just hang up when I was done.
This was awesome—with that tone coming through to my cell phone, it
was almost like the time I’d eavesdropped on the eavesdroppers at the NSA.
I was wiretapping the wiretap—how ironic was that?
By now I was feeling nervous and excited at the same time. But holding
the phone to my ear throughout this hours-long social-engineering session
had given me an earache, and my arm was getting pretty sore as well.
As I was entering the stretch of desert leading into Barstow, the halfway
point to Las Vegas, where the cell coverage was crappy, the call dropped.
Damn!
I called Omar back, and he set up the connection again so I could keep
listening to that thousand-cycle tone over his loudspeakers. I was hoping
the tone would end at some point and I would hear something that would
give me some clue to what was going on, what the tone signified.
Coming into view was a complex that served all the good-buddy
truckers who drove eighteen-wheelers all day and all night. I pulled in to fill
the gas tank of the car and then decided to check up on my dad, who was
still suffering over Adam’s death.
With my cell phone tied up with the intercept, I found a pay phone to
make the call to my dad. I dialed his number and held on while the phone
rang. The high-pitched tone from the cell phone suddenly stopped.
What the hell?!

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I grab the cell phone and hold it to my other ear.
My dad’s voice comes over the pay phone receiver as he answers:
“Hello.”
I hear him over the pay phone 
and at the same time
over the cell phone!
Fuck!
I can’t believe this.
This intercept isn’t on Teltec anymore… it’s on my dad’s phone. The tap
has been moved.
They’re intercepting 
us!
Oh, 
shit
.
I try to sound calm but assertive, insistent. “Dad, I need you to go over
to the pay phone at the Village Market across the street. I have some
important news about Adam,” I tell him.
My wording has to be innocuous, something that won’t tip off the
intercept listener.
“Kevin, what’s going on?” Dad says, angry at me. “I’m tired of these
stupid James Bond games.”
I insist and finally manage to convince him.
I’m sweating. How long have they been intercepting my calls without
my knowing? A thousand questions are running through my mind. Was
Teltec really a target or was it an elaborate scheme concocted by Pacific
Bell Security to trick me—a way of social-engineering the hacker? My
heart is racing as I try to recall everything I said and did on the phone from
my dad’s house. What did they hear? How much do they know?
After five minutes, I call the pay phone at the market. “Dad,” I tell him,
“get the fucking computer out of the house. You need to do it now! Don’t
wait! Those wiretaps, they’re not on Teltec anymore, those guys are
listening to