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

particular individuals and workgroups were to be forwarded. By examining
that file, I was able to identify which employees were associated with which
departments, and found the name of a company employee in Washington,
David Burton.
Time for a little social engineering. I called Marty Stolz, introduced
myself with David’s name, and said, “I have a major customer demo
tomorrow morning, and I can’t find the compiler for the 68HC11 on the
server that stores product releases. I’ve got an old version, but I need the
latest version.”
He asked me a few questions—what department I was in, my location,
the name of my manager, and so on. Then he said, “Listen, I’m going to tell

---

you something, but you have to keep it a secret.”
What could he be talking about?
“I won’t tell anybody,”
In a half whisper, he said, “The FBI called us and told us there’s a guy
who will probably be targeting us—a superhacker who broke into Motorola
and stole their source code. They think this guy is gonna want a compiler
for the Motorola code, and he’s gonna target us next!”
So the Feds had figured out I’d want the compiler, and they’d called
Intermetrics to head me off? Hey, I had to give them some credit: that was
good thinking.
“He broke into the CIA and got Level Three access,” Marty was telling
me. “Nobody can stop this guy! He’s always one step ahead of the FBI.”
“Unbelievable—you’re putting me on! Sounds like that kid in
WarGames
.”
“Listen, the FBI told us we better take those compilers offline, or he’ll
get to them for sure.”
I blinked. After I got the Motorola code, it had taken me a few days even
to come up with that idea. And the FBI had thought of it before I did? That
really 
was
unbelievable.
“Jeez, I need to test my demo tonight so I’ll be ready for my client in the
morning. What do I do now? Is there any way I could get a copy from
you?”
Marty thought it over. “Well… I’ll tell you what,” he said. “I’ll put the
compiler on my workstation just long enough for you to get it.”
“Great. As soon as it’s up, I’ll transfer it to removable media so it won’t
be on my workstation either. Then I’ll call you back to let you know I’m
done,” I said. “And Marty?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll keep it secret. I promise.”
Marty gave me the hostname of his workstation so I could use FTP to
transfer the file. To my surprise, he had enabled anonymous FTP access so I
didn’t even need an account to get the files.
Like taking candy from a baby.
As far as I know, Marty never knew he was duped and will find out only
if he reads it here.

---

Still high from the success of getting the compiler, I woke up to find that
my phone was dead. I’d done something really stupid that put my freedom
at risk.
Not willing to risk making business calls associated with my new
identity from a cloned cell phone, I got dressed and went to the closest pay
phone and called the phone company, Southern Bell, to find out why my
phone wasn’t working. After keeping me waiting for a long time, a
supervisor came on the line and began asking a lot of questions. Then she
told me, “A Michael Stanfill called us from Portland and said you’re using
his identity.”
“That guy must be mistaken,” I told her. “I’ll fax you a copy of my
driver’s license tomorrow to prove my identity.”
Suddenly I realized what had happened. The Raleigh power company,
Carolina Power & Light, required a large deposit. If you had references
from your former utility company, you could avoid paying it, so I’d called
the power company that Michael Stanfill used in Oregon—Portland General
Electric—and asked for a reference letter to be faxed. I told the lady on the
other end of the line that I still wanted to keep my account in Oregon but
was buying property in Raleigh. When they sent the letter to me, they had
apparently sent a courtesy copy to the 
real
Stanfill, as well. I felt like a total
idiot: by trying to save a $400 deposit, I’d completely blown my cover.
I had to move