I started in computers in 1977, when my mom showed me an advertisment in the L.A. Times about a computer fair at USC...She knew about my interest in computers from my spending all my spare time at computer stores (what few there were at that time), and buying up everything I could lay my hands on about the subject...I had searched for many years for something which would utilize the fine mind I was gifted with...
So it was one weekend that summer that I first walked into the Keck Computer Center at USC...The place was packed to the walls with people of all ages (mostly kids) sitting at and standing behind terminals hooked up to the college's main-frame computer...They were deeply involved in playing computer games of every size and shape, limited though they were by the technology of the time...As soon as I got a chance at one of the terminals, I was hooked for life...I vowed that I would come back there after the fair was over and learn everything about their system that I could...
The next day I was back, but this time with knowledge that would enable me to access the computers without having "legal" access to them...The Keck Center was one of those unique places where ANYONE could just walk in and use the computers, as the signon information was handily placed on the blackboard in the room...When I discovered that this information was NOT enough to give me the highest level of access I needed, it was nothing to me to merely steal someone elses password...I was on a "holy quest for knowledge", and would let nothing stand in my way...Stealing passwords is pretty easy if you have little morals about going about it...The easiest way is to simply stand behind someone elses terminal when they are logging in, and watch them type in their password...Even if you don't see the exact keys they hit, you can make a mental note of the general area they strike, and then it is merely a process of elimination...
After I had a signon which would allow me to make print-outs on the main line printer without anyones knowledge, I printed up copies of the manuals for EVERY computer language available at that time...Also, the Keck Center had a full tutorial at my disposal that taught the Basic computer language, one of the first languages that a person starts with...It only took me a few weeks to learn Basic through this method...
Around this time, I discovered that there were several other computer sites at USC which I could access...One was the Salvatori Computer Center, a few blocks down the street from the Keck Center...This system was much more advanced than the Keck's, being a Tops-10 system...If you think I am a kind of scoundrel for what I did, think of this...The first day I walked into the Salvatori Center, there were maybe 5 little kids sitting there playing games on their system, using passwords stolen from students going there...One of them offered me a password, and I was on my way...
I learned everything about the Tops-10 system that could be known over the next few weeks...I learned how to copy files from other users accounts, even the system operators...After a while, there was little that I couldn't do or gain access to...
I had fun, but I was still expanding, reaching for more and more knowledge...It was at this time that I made what would become one of the most important friends in my life...I was sitting around the Santa Monica Computer Store, one of the few computer stores at the time, playing some game which I can't even remember to this day...A guy walked in, and bought a disk drive, and started to walk out...He stopped and looked at the game I was playing..."That's a pretty nice game, isn't it!," he said to me...I was anxious to impress him..."Oh, have you ever seen Adventure?!," I asked him...Adventure was a "brand-new" main-frame game that I played at a special computer set up at the Salvatori Center..."Have you ever seen Zork!!??," he responded..."ZORK!!!," I excitedly answered..."What's ZORK!!??"...He then told me if I would like to come by his office the next day, he would gladly show me...This was like asking the snake if it would like a bite of the Apple...I immediately agreed, and he told me how to get to his office...
When I arrived at Rick Shiffman's office the next day, he happily welcomed me into the world of the Arpanet (Advanced Research Project Network), sponsored by the Department of Defense...This is a huge computer network linking some 300-350 college, research, and defense computers around the nation...Rick sat me down at the terminal in his office, and began to demonstrate just what he was into...It turned out that not only was he partially responsible for creating the language (Muddle) that Zork used, but his signon was one of the most powerful on the Arpanet...He let me play Zork alone in his office for a few hours, than sadly told me that I would have to leave...I thanked him, and asked him if I could come back sometime in the future...He agreed, as long as he had time available...I then walked out of the building, but as I was not one to be turned away by any kind of security, I made a note of the methods that people used to gain access to the building...
That weekend, I walked into the USC-ISI (Informational Sciences Institute) building, signed my name in the book at the guard's desk, and took the elevator to the top floor of the South tower of the Bank of America buildings in Marina Del Rey...I rang the bell of the door, which was locked and had only a peephole through which you were looked at, and the door opened only if you were someone who should be there...A voice asked who I was, and I told the voice that I was a friend of Ricks'...The door swung open, and Larry Fye, one of the operators of the site who would become my greatest ally on the network, invited me in...
Larry took me into the computer room, and told me that he couldn't let me use his signon to play games...Then he had a thought (luckily for me), and got Rick Shiffman on the phone...He told Rick I was there and wanted to play Zork, and would he give me the password to his account...Rick agreed, and I took the phone, and entered the mysterious inner workings of the Arpanet...
I spent the entire day and night there, on one of the terminals in someone's office playing Zork...At about 2am or so, I decided I couldn't look at the screen any longer, and asked Larry if I could come back the next day, sometime in the afternoon...As it was a Sunday, and he was working weekends, he agreed...I walked out the doors, signed out at the guard's station downstairs, and the guard asked me if I was tired working so late, and I just told him no, that I was used to it by now...I laughed all the way to my car...
The next day, I rang the bell at the 12th floor, and Larry opened the door and greeted me as if I was one of his best friends for years...It does get pretty lonely, baby-sitting a computer by yourself for hours on end...This time, Larry started to introduce me to some of the neat tricks of the trade of being an operator...He showed me how to load the tape decks and disk packs, and how to run the whole system...It was just this kind of intimate knowledge that would lead to my downfall...
I spent the next TWO YEARS, DAY AND NIGHT, at the site...I didn't have much of a social life during this time, but I made up for it in knowledge...I learned the inside and out of the Arpanet, and using Ricks signon and authority, I began to gain access to all the other computers on the network...It was really quite easy...I would simply send a "E-mail" note to a site, saying I was a associate of Ricks, and needed the signon for a project I was working on...I usually put down that I was investigating the intellectual aspect of computer game-playing as a social function, just for the laugh...Because of the priority of the signon I was using, the next day a note would come back saying, "All set up!"...In some cases, if the operator had knowledge of Rick, the signon was created while I watched...I never told Rick of this aspect of my "game-playing"...
It wasn't long before I had discovered how to access the Pentagon's computers, and figured out how to decifer the protected files that were on there...It was SO damn easy, it was really unbelievable...It was at this time that I began to have problems with one of the people at the site...The office which I had been using had some top-secret data sitting on the shelves, which I used to go through, but always returned it exactly as I found it...Somehow, the guy whose office it was got wind that his stuff had been tampered with, and I was forced to move to another office...Darn!
Anyways, I was hanging around the Keck Center one day, when I didn't want to go to ISI some weekend, and I noticed this kid sitting at a new special terminal playing a game on the computer at Cal Tech in Pasadena over a modem...I knew this had to be impossible, but I queried him and he told me that it was a secret, and he couldn't give out the info because it was "dangerous"...I stood behind him and tried to see what number he was dialing, but he was as sharp as I was, and covered his hand while dialing...I was able to find out from him after a few more times there that there was a special number called a TIP number (Terminal IMP Processor), which connected to a computer in the basement of the Pentagon, and allowed one to access ANY computer on the Arpanet through any modem...The number was kept a close secret, though, but I am a determined guy, and although it took me almost a year to learn the number, I did it...
I found the number on the wall next to the first Plato terminal I ever saw...I had been told by one of the regular kids at the Salvatori Center that if I wanted to see some REAL games, I should go over to a certain building near USC, and get a signon on the Plato computer system...When I walked into the room containing three Plato terminals hooked up to CERL (Computer Education Research Lab) at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois, there was a large piece of paper on the wall which said USC-TIP and the number underneath...I simply couldn't believe it...Top-Secret phones numbers sitting around for all to see!!! I asked the head guy there and was given a signon to CERL...
For the next two weeks, I spent day and night at the place, playing a true fighter simulation called Airfight...Then the site went down, and the terminals were taken out...I made a note of the TIP number, and started dialing out to the Arpanet from the modems at the Keck Center...I spent a few memorable weeks doing this...
Then, something happened which scared the H**L out of me...Larry Fye was showing off his skills to me one night at ISI, when he suddenly asked me if I would like to see him knock one of the other sites off the face of the earth...I told him I would have to see it to believe it, so he opened the bottom drawer of the operators desk there, and took out a book which had some interesting writing on it...It said that it was a Federal Offense to OPEN the book, and the penalty was a 20-year prison term or $50,000, whichever came first! He flipped the huge book open to some page, then copied down some numbers that were on the page...Then he signed on to SRI (Stanford Research Institute), did a couple of things, typed in the numbers, hit the return key, and said, "THEY'RE GONE!!!"...I looked on in amazement as the message "SRI is not ready..." came over the screen...This meant that SRI was GONE...It had been knocked off the air...I didn't believe it was possible, so I tried logging on through Telnet...Sure enough, the system had gone down...Larry told me that this could be done to ANY computer if you knew the right codes...I thought of what could happen to the real important computers on the Arpanet if that got out somehow...I was truly scared...
A few nights later, something happened...I learned about it the next day from Rick...He came up to me as I was coming in, and rudely demanded to know where I had been the night before...I told him I had not been there, and after a few moments, he confided in me what had happened the previous night...It seems that Rick had been working late and had seen some people he didn't recognize standing in the dark...When he called out to them, they took off, and ran down the stairs and out of the building...Rick then called security and when they searched the offices, it turned out that something of a Top-Secret nature had been taken...Rick said he couldn't tell me what it was, for reasons I well knew...He said I could not come to the site any longer like I had been doing...I said I was sorry something had been taken, and told him goodbye...
Not being one to lose a million-dollar opportunity, I went to the Keck Center and signed on to the Arpanet on one of my signons...Suddenly, the operator did a Talk to me, and asked me who I was...When I beat around the bush, he got ENRAGED and DEMANDED to know who had authorized my signon...I got scared and broke the connection...I practically ran out of the place...
The next day, being too curious for my own good, I came back to the Keck Center and tried to log onto one of my various signons...It was GONE!!! I tried signon after signon, and EVERY one was gone...Suddenly, the connection went dead...When I dialed the TIP number, I heard a strange pulsating tone coming over it that was not normal...I went home...
The next day, I came back, and when I tried the TIP number, IT was GONE!!! I was scared to death, and went home, making sure that nobody saw me leave the place...I knew that something REAL big had happened, if they had disconnected the TIP number itself...It was pretty frightening...I imagined in my mind government officials like the CIA and FBI pouring over ISI with a fine tooth comb to learn exactly what I had been into...And what about those people standing in the dark, who had taken something so important and secret that Rick wouldn't tell me about it...How had they gotten in??? I was the ONLY person outside of the people working there that had access to the place...Did they somehow have knowledge of my access and used that to their advantage??? I just didn't know...I was scared and worried about other computer "crimes" that I had committed...Anyways, that is how this all REALLY started...
Gary
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