📸

computer operating systems; he knew how the phone company worked, its codes and its programs. It was essential to be expert in both: his plan involved hacking into CSA and then the phone system.

On 17 June he felt he was ready.

The hack of CSA took longer than he thought it would. The account number and password extracted from Tom got him only through the credit bureau’s front door. But the codes gave him legitimacy; to CSA he looked like any one of thousands of subscribers.

Once inside he gingerly explored the system. He needed to get into the sector that listed individuals and their accounts, but he couldn’t just type in a person’s name: he didn’t have one. He had to go into the sector through the back door, as CSA would do when the company wanted to update the information it held.

Fry Guy had spent countless hours doing just this sort of thing: every time he accessed a new computer, wherever it was, he had to learn his way around, to make the machine yield privileges ordinarily reserved for the company that owned it. He was proficient at following the menus to new sectors, to breaking through the security barriers that were placed in his way. This system would yield, like all the others.

He spent most of the afternoon hacking the CSA system. By 4 p.m. he chanced on a tool that opened into an area restricted to CSA staff, and in there he discovered the route into the account sector. He scrolled through name after name, reading personal credit histories; he was looking for someone with a valid credit card, an Indiana resident preferably.

When he saw a Choice Visa card belonging to a Michael B. from Indianapolis, he took down the name and account as well as the telephone number. Exiting from the account sector, he accessed the main menu again. Now he had a name: he typed in Michael B. for a standard credit check.

Michael B., Fry Guy was pleased to see, was a financially responsible individual with a solid credit line.

Now came the easy part. Disengaging from CSA, Fry Guy directed his attention to the phone company. Hacking into a local switch in Indianapolis he located the LEN code for Michael B. and rerouted his incoming calls to a phone box in Paducah, Kentucky, a town

📸