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

PART THREE

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On the Run

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TWENTY-FIVE

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Harry Houdini
Cngz zuct ngy znk grsg sgzkx lux znk xkgr Kxoi Ckoyy?
S
o I was now on the run, a fugitive. Given what Deputy Marshal Salt had
told my mother—that he had a warrant for my arrest—it seemed like the
only choice I had.
Yet David Schindler, the Assistant U.S. Attorney assigned to my case,
would confide to me years later that he was surprised to learn I had taken
off. What could he have been thinking? Eric had told the FBI that I was
associating with Lewis, thus violating the terms of my supervised release,
and I was sure he must also have reported that I had obtained full access to
SAS and had probably been using it to wiretap people. PacBell Security had
found out I was intercepting the voicemail of at least one of its agents: that
was another new charge that could be filed against me. And Lewis had been
blabbing and bragging to Eric about other hacking the two of us had been
doing.
Gram did the driving on the five-hour haul to Vegas; I hadn’t driven at
all since finding out that the Feds had a warrant out for my arrest. It wasn’t
exactly a joyful trip. How could it be?
Reaching town after dark, she dropped me off at the Budget Harbor
Suites, where a friend of ours had kindly booked me a room in his own
name.
My first task would be to build a new identity for myself and then disappear
—even though it meant leaving behind friends and family and the life I had
been enjoying. My goal was to erase the past and make a fresh start toward
a different kind of future.

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So how did I know how to go about creating a new identity? If you
remember my favorite reading material at the Survival Bookstore, where I
spent so many days hanging out as a kid, you already know the answer.
That book 
The Paper Trip
I had soaked up years before had explained the
exact steps for obtaining a new identity. I used the same principles but
approached the task differently: I needed a workable, temporary new
persona immediately; once I had relocated, I could take my time in creating
a second, permanent identity that I would live under for the rest of my life.
On a pretext call to the Oregon DMV, claiming to be a Postal Inspector,
I asked the clerk to run a search for anyone named Eric Weiss who had been
born between 1958 and 1968—a ten-year period bracketing my real birth
year, 1963. I was looking for someone roughly my same age, but the
younger, the better. I would be applying for a new driver’s license and
Social Security card, and the older my new birth certificate said I was, the
more eyebrows my application would be likely to raise: How could a
person in his thirties, say, never have needed a Social Security number?
The DMV lady found a few matches, but only one fit my criteria. The
Eric Weiss I chose was born in 1968, making him about five years younger
than I was.
Why “Eric Weiss”? That was the real name (though a number of sources
also spell it “Erich Weiss” or “Erik Weisz”) of the man the world knows
better as Harry Houdini. Picking it was a bit of hero worship on my part, a
holdover from my early fascination with magic. As long as I was changing
my name, why not pay homage to my childhood idol?
I called directory assistance and found that “my” Eric Weiss had a listed
number. I called, he answered, and I asked, “Are you the same Eric Weiss
who went to PSU?”
He said, “No, I graduated from Ellensburg.”
The Eric Weiss whose identity I would use had a degree in Business
Administration from Central Washington University, in the town of
Ellensburg. So that was what I would list on my résumé.
My letter to the Oregon Bureau of Vital Statistics was entirely routine. It
purported to come from the real Eric Weiss, listed his real place and date of
birth, father’s name and mother’s maiden name (helpfully provided, as
usual, by Ann at the Social Security Administration), and requested “a copy
of my birth certificate.” I paid extra to have it expedited. For my return
address, I used another of those mailbox rental outlets.

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For the second piece of identification I would need when applying for a
driver’s license, I planned to dummy up a W-2 form, which would require
me to supply the Employer Identification Number (EIN) of the W-2 issuer.
It’s a simple matter to find that number for almost any company you pick at
random. I called Accounts Receivable at Microsoft and asked for its EIN
“so we can submit our payment.” The lady on the other end of the line gave
it to me without even asking what company I was calling from.
Every stationery store carries blank tax forms; you just doctor up a
phony W-2, and you’re all set.
My immediate aim was getting that all-important driver’s license, but I
couldn’t move ahead with that until “my” new birth certificate arrived. It
was tense for me during that time: without a driver’s license or an ID card,
even being stopped for jaywalking might have been disastrous.
One hitch: I would need a car to take my test in. A car I borrowed from
my mother or Gram? Hardly. If you’re setting up a new identity, you sure
don’t want to leave a trail of easy-to-follow clues that will make life simple
for some snoopy cop or Fed later on. Have a friend or family member rent a
car for you to use long enough to take the driving test? No way—too easy
for an investigator to find out what car you used for the test, and start
asking the person who did you that favor some difficult questions.
Here’s the solution I came up with. First you go to the DMV and apply
for a learner’s permit; you don’t actually need one, but for some reason the
DMV people find it less suspicious for an adult to have one before getting
his or her first license. I’ve never been sure why. But useful for me: most
people trying to obtain fraudulent identities don’t go for a learner’s permit
first, so it’s less suspicious.
Then you call up a driving school and say you’re just back from
Australia, or South Africa, or England. You used to have a U.S. driver’s
license, you explain, but now that you’ve been driving on the other side of
the road for a while, you need a refresher to make sure you’re comfortable
back on the right side before you take your driver’s test. After a couple of
“lessons,” the instructor will tell you you’re ready, and the school will