daemon@ucbvax.UUCP (06/28/84)
From GSB@MIT-MC Thu Jun 21 22:16:11 1984
[Los Angeles Times, Saturday June 9, 1984, Page 1 of Metro section]
HOBBYIST COMPUTES A MAJOR HEADACHE
Telephone Credit Card Number Shared; Police Investigate
By Richard O'Reilly, Times Staff Writer
A Granada Hills computer hobbyist is paying a stiff price because an
anonymous caller posted a telephone credit card number on his computer
bulletin board, and its use led to a wave of fraudulent phone calls.
Tom Tcimpidis, a television engineering and computer software
consultant, has incurred several thousand dollars in legal costs and
lost income because of the incident, and $5,000 worth of his computer
equipment was seized by police and Pacific Bell Co. investigators.
He still faces the threat of a misdemeanor prosecution, although the
detective who served the search warrant has said he doubts that any
charges will be brought.
Tcimpidis is one of about 1,000 people across the nation who have hooked
home computers to telephones and turned them into dial-up bulletin
boards.
When someone with a computer calls the phone number, Tcimpidis' computer
provides access to a variety of messages, tutorials that explain
particular aspects of computing and even software programs that can be
copied and used on the caller's computer. Callers can also type new
messages for the board.
Tcimpidis had been running his board, a free service, for three years,
calling it MOG-UR after a mythical apprentice to Merlin the Magician.
The board averaged about 100 calls a day, and about 40 messages daily
were posted on it, he said. Over the three years about 3,500 people had
called it more than 75,000 times.
His troubles began early in May when Pacific Bell authorities discovered
that a telephone credit card number to which "hundreds of dollars" of
fraudulent phone calls had been billed was posted as a message on
Tcimpidis' computer bulletin board. (The "T" in Tcimpidis' last name is
not pronounced.)
According to Los Angeles Police Detective Damon Loomis of the Devonshire
Division, the message read, "Current ATT telephone credit card is ###
### #### ####. Don't use it from your home phone, though obviously
enjoy." Signed "Anonymous."
The Pacific Bell investigators gave Loomis a search warrant that they
had obtained from San Fernando Superior Court Judge Robert Fratianne.
On the morning of May 16, Loomis, accompanied by the Pacific Bell
investigators, went to Tcimpidis' home to get his equipment.
Tcimpidis said there were a few tense minutes before he was able to
convince them that he is a genuine hobbyist with a legitimate bulletin
board and was not involved in telephone fraud.
"I tried to coooperate with them in every way possible. It seems to me
it would have made everybody's life easier if they said, 'Look, we have
a problem.' Instead they carry a big club (the search warrant) and ask
questions later."
Because the offending message was old, his system already had deleted it
from the file that callers are able to read. But Tcimpidis said he was
able to find it and determine that it had been posted in mid-April by
someone who had joined the bulletin board under the name Darrel
Sullivan. Tcimpidis gave the authorities the telephone number the
person had given when he became a member.
New members must type their names and telephone numbers into the
computer when they join the board, but Tcimpidis said he makes no
attempt to verify the information. In fact, it is common for callers,
especially those who make illegal phone calls, to give fictitious names
and numbers.
Despite Tcimpidis' cooperation, Loomis seized the Heath computer and
hard disk drive that were used to operate the bulletin board, plus three
boxes containing about 150 floppy diskettes of computer programs and
data unrelated to the bulletin board, seizures that were proper under
the authority of the search warrant.
Tcimpidis was not arrested, and Loomis allowed him to keep a second
computer and numerous other diskettes in the same room, which Tcimpidis
uses in his business.
"This man is a hobbyist," Loomis told The Times, "As far as we can tell,
he had no criminal intent on his part. He claims he didn't know they
(the credit card and several other billing code numbers) were in there.
That's certainly possible. As far as we know, it wasn't used by him."
Asked whether prosecutors plan to file charges against Tcimpidis, Loomis
said, "I kind of doubt they will."
Meanwhile, Loomis said, the seized computer is being held as evidence at
the Devonshire station. The disks, which contained the records of the
bulletin board messages and members, were examined by Pacific Bell
investigators and returned to police, Loomis said.
Douglas M. Cambern, Pacific Bell's executive directory of public affairs
in Los Angeles, said: "We're not going to say what we discovered as a
result of reviewing the evidence because that could affect the trial in
the event that charges are filed."
Asked whether being allowed to examine the disks without direct police
supervision had been an invasion of the privacy of the people who had
called the board, Cambern said, "We requested it in order for us to
continue the investigation and identify the perpetrators of the fraud,
not to harass telephone customers. Don't lose sight of the fact that an
illegal act was committed by virtue of which we have suffered monetary
damage."
Deputy Dist. Atty. Dick Seldeen said there is no right of
confidentiality when information about a person is discovered as a
result of a search warrant, regardless of whether the information
pertains to the crime for which the warrant was issued.
As for Tcimpidis' fate, Seldeen said he has determined that no felonies
were committed and has referred the matter to the city attorney for a
decision on whether to file a misdemeanor charge.
The applicable statute provides that any person who publishes the number
or code of a credit card with the intent that it be used or with the
reasonable knowledge that it will be used to avoid lawful telephone or
telegraph charges is guilty of a misdemeanor, Seldeen said.
Tcimpidis said a meeting with the city attorney's staff is to be
scheduled after his attorney returns from a short vacation.
In the meantime, Tcimpidis and his attorney met with a group of about 25
fellow computer bulletin board operators last week to discuss ways to
protect themselves from similar episodes.
"The most obvious thing you can do if you're really concerned is shut
down your system," Tcimpidis said. "These are hobby systems. You can't
devote your whole life to maintaining them." (Maintaining a bulletin
board includes reviewing all the messages callers have left and removing
those that may cause legal trouble or are obscene.)
"The biggest thing on everyone's mind, myself included, is that
something be done to prevent legitimate systems from having this happen
to them again."
-------------------- End of article ----------------------
Please send me your opinion of this incident, especially regarding the
actions of the parties involved, who was at fault, who should be held
responsible, and what should be done to prevent similar future
incidents.
I have one technical suggestion, aside from the legal/ethical issues:
Telephone switching centers should be improved to allow telephones to
identify incoming calls by displaying the caller's phone number.
Computer bulletin board systems could then automatically record the
phone number of anyone posting a message.
This would probably prevent most obscene phone calls, telephone
harassment and unauthorized computer access by telephone, as well as
anonymous computer bulletin board usage. Of course, the determined
caller could still avoid identification, for example, by calling from a
pay phone, but most abuses would probably be prevented.
Send opinions to DBOOTH@USC-ISIF.
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