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

TWENTY-SEVEN

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Here Comes the Sun
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M
y main duties in the Information Technology Department at the law
firm fell into the “computer operations” category: solving problems with
printers and computer files, converting files from WordPerfect to Word and
several other formats, writing scripts to automate procedures, and doing
system and network administration tasks. I was also given a couple of major
projects: connecting the firm to the Internet (this was just when the Internet
was beginning to be much more widely used) and installing and managing a
product called SecurID, which provides “two-form-factor” authentication.
Authorized users have to provide the six-digit code displayed on the
SecurID device in conjunction with a secret PIN for remote access to the
firm’s computer systems.
One of my collateral duties—and I couldn’t have designed this better if I
had been handing out job assignments myself—was a shared responsibility
for supporting the firm’s telephone billing management system. That meant
studying the telephone accounting application, on company time, no less.
This was how I learned exactly where to add some programming
instructions that would turn the application into an early-warning system for
me.
I wrote a script that would check every outgoing phone call from the law
firm against a hit list of area codes and telephone prefixes. And my list of
numbers included, guess what? Right: the FBI and U.S. Attorney’s offices
in Los Angeles and Denver. If a call was made to any number within those

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agencies, the script I wrote would send a message to my pager with the
code “6565”—easy for me to remember because it was the last four digits
of the main number assigned to the Los Angeles FBI office.
While I was at the firm, I actually got that code twice, and it scared the
crap out of me both times. On each occasion, I waited a few minutes with a
knot in my stomach, then looked up the number that had been called and
dialed it myself.
Both times the call had been placed to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los
Angeles… but to the Civil Division, not the Criminal Division. Whew!
In my spare time, I was still working out at the YMCA every day, of
course, and still keeping busy with my hacking projects, of course. But I
was also finding time to enjoy the variety of activities that Denver had to
offer. The planetarium, besides reawakening a childhood interest in
astronomy, also offered laser light shows accompanied by rock music, often
from favorite bands of mine like Pink Floyd, Journey, and the Doors—a
really enjoyable experience.
I was starting to settle into my new cover identity, becoming more
sociable. Sometimes I’d go to one of the local dance clubs, just to find
people to talk to. I met a girl I dated a few times, but I didn’t think it would
be fair to her for us to get more involved: if I got picked up by the Feds,
anyone I was close to could be put in a very uncomfortable situation, either
being leaned on to give evidence against me or maybe even becoming a
suspect herself. And, too, there was always a chance that I’d say something
to give myself away, or she might spot some documents identifying me by
some other name, or overhear a phone call. Pillow talk can have its dangers.
From comments by fellow prisoners while I was in custody, I had learned
that most had been ratted out by their significant others. I wasn’t going to
make the same mistake.
There was a bookstore in the Cherry Creek area of Denver called the
Tattered Cover, where I’d drink my fill of coffee and read computer books
one after another. I tried a few of the rock clubs, but they drew a heavy-
metal crowd of brawny guys with tats, so I felt more than a little out of
place.
Sometimes I’d just go bike riding and enjoy the scenery, the glorious
Denver scenery with all those mountains, so beautifully snowcapped in
winter. Or visit a casino on one of the nearby Indian reservations to play a
little blackjack.

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I always looked forward to my next conversation with my mom, using
those prearranged signals where she’d call from one of the casinos.
Sometimes Gram would be with her. Those calls were so important to me,
making me feel happy inside and giving me strength, though they were a
great inconvenience to my family and a huge risk for me, should the Feds
decide to step up their surveillance. It was hard not being closer to my mom
and grandmother, who had showered me with so much love, caring, and
support.
Meanwhile, to change my appearance and maybe also as a natural part
of approaching the age of thirty, I let my hair grow long, so it eventually
reached shoulder length.
I liked a lot of things about my new life.
After several months in Denver, I was ready for a trip to see my family,
traveling this time by Amtrak. Mom and Gram came to the train station to
pick me up. Now that my hair was long and my mustache had sprouted, my
own mother almost didn’t recognize me. It was a really cool reunion, and I
entertained them with stories about my job and my coworkers at the law
firm.
I was able to feel more relaxed in Vegas now, thanks to my credentials
as Eric Weiss, but I was still cautious. My mom and I would meet in
unlikely locations. I’d get into her car in a parking garage and lie down in
the backseat until she had driven into her own garage at home and closed
the door. She fussed over me and made foods I liked, pressing seconds on
me even as she told me how pleased she was that I still looked trim and fit.
I could see how much strain this whole thing had put on Gram, but even
more so on my mom. Though she was happy and comforted to see me,
having me there in person seemed to make her that much more aware of
how much she missed me and how worried she was about my safety in
Denver. And I constantly felt her conflict between cherishing my visit and
fearing that my being in her company put me in much graver danger.
In the week I was there, we probably got together a dozen times.
Back in Denver, the atmosphere at work soon slid downhill after my boss,
the easygoing Lori, left the firm to join her husband in running their own
business, Rocky Mountain Snowboards. Her replacement, a thin brunette

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named Elaine Hill, was not as friendly. Though quite smart, she struck me
as calculating and was a schoolteacher type, not a “people person” like
Lori.
My coworkers in IT were so different from one another that they seemed
almost like the characters in a play. Ginger, who had big teeth and was a bit
on the pudgy side, was thirty-one and married. She took something of a
liking to me, and we enjoyed a little playful banter at times. Still, I don’t
think I did anything to suggest I had any sort of sexual interest in her—and
certainly nothing to justify a couple of remarks she made to me around the
office. She commented late one evening when we were both in the
computer room: “I wonder what would happen if you had me laid out on
this table and somebody walked in?” 
Huh?
Or maybe those come-ons of hers were actually intended to disarm me,
so I wouldn’t become suspicious of her.
Back in LA before I went on the run, one of the people in my social circle
with Lewis had been a guy named Joe McGuckin, a doughy guy with a
round face and a sizable belly, bespectacled, close-shaven but still looking
like he had a day’s growth, his brown hair hanging partway down his
forehead in girly bangs. The three of us used to hang out together, so often
eating at Sizzler and then going to a movie afterward that Lewis and I
nicknamed him “Sizzler and a Movie.”
In a conversation we had while I was living in Denver, Lewis told me
that Joe had given him an account on a Sun workstation he had at home.
Lewis passed the credentials along to me, with a request. He was hoping I
could get root on Joe’s workstation and then tell him how I got in, so he
could needle Joe about it. That sounded to me like an interesting
opportunity: since Joe was a contractor for Sun Microsystems, he very
likely had the ability to remotely access the company’s network, which
might be a way for me to hack into Sun.
Whenever we had discussed hacking back in those days in LA, Joe had
always insisted that his workstation was as secure as Fort Knox. I thought,