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HACKING FOR PROFIT

She dealt mostly in MasterCard and Visa numbers, though occasionally American Express too.

Her job was to turn round live numbers as rapidly as possible. Using a network of teenage hackers throughout the country, she would receive credit card numbers taken from a variety of sources. She would then check them, either by hacking into any one of a number of credit card validation computers or, more often, by calling a ‘chat line’ telephone number. If the chat line accepted the card as payment, it was live. She then grouped the cards by type (Visa, MCI and so on) and called the numbers through to a ‘code line’, a specific location within a computer used to swap codes.

Because Doucette turned the cards around quickly, checking their validity within hours of receiving their numbers, and then, more importantly, getting the good numbers disseminated on a code line within days, they remained live for a longer period. It was a very efficiently run hacker service industry. To supplement her income she would pass on card numbers to members of her ring in other cities, who would use them to buy Western Union money orders payable to one of Doucette’s aliases. The cards were also used to pay for an unknown number of air tickets and for hotel and motel accommodation when Doucette, or her accomplices, were travelling. Her role as the leader of the group led to one of her various nicknames – the Babysitter.

The key to Doucette’s business was communication – hence the emphasis on PBX and voice mail computer access codes. The PBXs provided the means for communication; the voice mail computers the location for code lines.

A PBX is a customer-operated, computerized telephone system, providing both internal and external communication. One of its features is the Remote Access Unit (RAU), designed to permit legitimate users to call in from out of the office, often on a 1-800 number, and access a long-distance line after punching in a short code on the telephone keypad. The cost of a long-distance call made in this way is charged to the customer company. Less legitimate users – hackers, in other words – force access to the RAU by guessing at the code. This is usually done by calling the system and trying different sequences of

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