John Higdon <john@zygot.ati.com> (05/29/91)
The best way to describe Thrifty Tel is that it is a struggling
reseller. The best way to describe Rebecca Bigeley is that she is a
woman with a cause and a gigantic ego. Yesterday's experience talking
with her was, at best, confusing.
Her company is an attractive hacker nuisance. It has no ANI delivery
on the 950 access, it has short authorization codes, etc. The emphasis
is on "catching" the phreaks rather than stopping them. I asked her
point blank off the air if she would be happy if all phreaking
activity stopped tomorrow and her answer was in effect, "we want to
send a message to these criminals."
Her excuse for using FGB (with no FGD turnaround) was that it would
cost her (and by extension her customers) money for upgrading. "Why
should my customers pay for what these criminals are doing? The
'hackers' themselves (or their parents) should bear the cost." Just
before a break, I pointed out that FGB was obsolete in any case and
that FGD would provide additional protections against hacking. On the
air, she kept insisting that this would not be the case and even at
one point accused me of not knowing enough about the technical
matters.
During one of the breaks, the producer of the show asked that we keep
the "jargon" to a minimum. Ms. Bigeley responded, "These guys are
technicians -- that's just the way they talk. I, on the other hand,
understand that this is not a technical matter, but a moral and
ethical one." I have to hand it to her -- she is no dummy. She played
her part very well.
Those who heard the show will note that after all of her insistence
that FGD would not help her and that FGB was perfectly reasonable for
her company to use, despite its hacker invitations; she did not
challenge my rather pointed pre-break condemnation of FGB. Maybe I am
giving her more credit than she deserves, but I suspect that she knew
what my next statement would have been if pressed on the issue. The
only reason resellers cling to FGB technology, phreaker holes and all,
is to allow intraLATA bypass in violation of tariff. Thrifty Tel does
this as does a large number of other providers. Everyone in the
business knows this.
When I explained (off mike) that FGD presubscription with no casual
calling (or even with it) would end her phreaker problems, her answer
was the issue of "cost -- to her and her customers". This is the tone
she maintained throughout.
There were some strange callers. One suggested that all information
everywhere should be free for the asking (taking). His (unsupportable)
justification for hacking and phreaking illegally was somewhat off the
wall. Another gentleman, who described himself as a "security systems"
designer referred to my associate and myself as "idiots" because we
were suggesting that Thrifty Tel might pay more attention to locking
the door rather than running after the thieves. "There is nothing that
is completely secure." Maybe not, but at a certain point most phreaks
will give up on something that is not worth the effort. I asked him if
he would put a computer on a phone line open to the world without a
password. "Of course not, but that has nothing to do with it."
One caller even brought up the (now discredited) flap about Prodigy as
a platform to declare that all corporations were evil and that they
should all be ripped off.
Unfortunately, I think those at the station got more out of this in
our post-mortem afterwards than came across on the air. We summed up
at the end of the broadcast with the same words meaning different
things. I suggested that lawmakers and the public needed to become
better informed in the matters of computers and telecommunications
technology so that the mystique that drives irrational prosecutions of
people could be brought under control. Ms. Bigeley also advocated more
education. More education of law enforcement personel so that they
would be fired up to go after these "thugs and criminals" that are
ripping off honest little businesses such as hers, and by extension,
her customers.
Her moral crusade tone created an atmosphere that caused any reason to
be introduced into the discussion to appear as being "soft on criminal
activity". To her it was very simple: if these people don't want their
lives ruined then they should not tamper with her (very vulnerable)
system.
John Higdon | P. O. Box 7648 | +1 408 723 1395
john@zygot.ati.com | San Jose, CA 95150 | M o o !
[Moderator's Note: Remember, the re-broadcast will be <Friday>, 3 AM
due to pre-emption because of Rodney King's latest arrest. PAT]