91 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
91 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
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PHREAKERS CAUGHT
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from the Los Angeles Times of June 11, 1982 (page 1 of the "Metro" section):
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'Phone Phreak' Sentenced to 150-Day Term
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By Ted Rohrlich,
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Times Staff Writer
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Lewis DePayne was sentenced to 150 days in jail Thursday for extremely poor
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relations with Ma Bell.
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DePayne, 22, first came to the attention of Pacific Telephone Co. officials
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in 1979, when they say they discovered that he had gained unauthorized access to
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their communications and computer systems.
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DePayne, a computer science student at the time, used the access to disconnect
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phone service for people he did not like, and to add--for free--special
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features, such as call-forwarding and call-waiting services, to his own phone
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and those of his friends, according to phone company officials.
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Pacific Telephone's retired general security manager, W. F. Bowren, said
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that in late 1979 DePayne admitted involvement in setting nine fires on
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telephone company property, resulting in $250,000 in damage.
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Bowren told Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne that DePayne admitted to phone
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company investigators that he and some friends got access to ground-level
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telephone terminals, cut wiring inside the terminals, and then set the terminals
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on fire.
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Terminals are boxes, usually attached to telephone poles, that house
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connections between underground cables and above-ground branch lines leading to
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homes and businesses. Bowren's comments came in a letter that was made part of
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the court record.
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Bowren's letter said that DePayne also told investigators that he and others
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had rewired one terminal in such a way that it allowed them to make phone calls
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anywhere and to have charges for those calls applied to someone else's bill.
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The resulting loss to the phone company was more than $15,000, Bowren said.
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Bowren went on to say that the telephone company declined to press charges
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against DePayne because DePayne said that he had seen the error of his ways.
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But, his letter continued, DePayne was subsequently interviewed in a weekly
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newspaper and boasted of "infiltrating and compromising our system."
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Bowren was apparently referring to an article that appeared in the L.A.
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Weekly in July, 1981, about a "phone phreak" identified as "Rosco."
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Rosco was touted as "probably the most knowledgeable phone phreak in the
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country" whose pranks included posing as a telephone company supervisor and
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causing all calls normally routed through the phone company's Pasadena office to
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be rerouted elsewhere.
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Witnesses at a court hearing for DePayne testified that he used the nickname
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Rosco.
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That hearing was held to determine whether DePayne should be ordered to stand
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trial on charges that he broke into a Pacific Telephone Co. office in May,
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1981, and stole operating manuals for the company's central computer system.
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A district attorney's investigator on the case has said those manuals could
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have been used to shut down much of Los Angeles' phone system.
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While facing theft, burglary, and conspiracy charges in the case, DePayne
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wrote a letter to the president of Pacific Telephone, Bowren said.
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"He had the unmitigated gall...(to try to) sell his service to us as a
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consultant," Bowren wrote.
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In court, DePayne pleaded no contest to a charge of conspiracy to commit
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computer fraud against Pacific Telephone and to a separate charge against a San
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Francisco-based computer leasing firm. Burglary and grand theft charges were
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dropped.
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A confederate, Mark Ross, 25, pleaded no contest to a charge of grand theft of
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telephone company computer manuals.
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Wayne placed them both on probation for three years and ordered Ross to jail
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for 30 days, to be served on weekends.
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She stayed the 150-day jail term for DePayne for three weeks to give him an
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opportunity to apply for participation in the county's work furlough program.
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Deputy Dist. Atty. Clifton Garrott said DePayne makes his living as a
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systems analyst for computer consulting firms.
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