telecom@eecs.nwu.edu (TELECOM Moderator) (06/14/89)
Persons attempting to call the Probation Office in Delray Beach, FL on Monday were connected to a phone sex hotline operated by a woman named 'Tina' instead. Southern Bell Telephone Company officials have acknowledged that a hackerphreak invaded a central office over the weekend, using a computer and modem, and reprogrammed their computer in such a way that calls intended for the Probation Office were instead routed to a New York-based phone sex line. "People are calling the Department of Corrections and getting some kind of sex palace," said Thomas Slingluff, a spokesman for the Palm Beach County Probation Department. Southern Bell officials said it was the first time their switching equipment had been maliciously reprogrammed by an outside computer intruder. Southern Bell provides the local phone service for Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina. "We are very alarmed," said Southern Bell spokesman Buck Passmore. He said the intrusion "...obviously required someone with considerable computer skills and knowledge of the telephone system." He pointed out the implications of such a computer breach are enormous. In addition to merely intercepting the communications of others, other serious problems include finding out unlisted phone numbers, and tampering with billing records and/or the billing software. Passmore admitted hackerphreaks have invaded Southern Bell 'lots of times in the past', but he denied they had ever before been successful in altering the the software in the switch itself. It is believed that the intrusive calls were made on Sunday, June 11 via AT&T long distance lines to Delray Beach, and security representatives from Southern Bell and AT&T are working jointly to trace the breach. But Passmore admitted, "We really have no idea at this time who it was or how it was done." Personally, I would look for someone who was on (had recently gotten off of) probation for some sort of computer crime, wouldn't you? Patrick Townson
gast@cs.ucla.edu (David Gast) (06/15/89)
> Southern Bell Telephone Company officials have acknowledged that a hacker- > phreak invaded a central office over the weekend, using a computer > and modem, and reprogrammed their computer in such a way that calls > intended for the Probation Office were instead routed to a New > York-based phone sex line. Of course, after Caller ID is here, it will be possible for these people to change the number that they are calling from. I would suggest that detecting this type of hacking would be much more difficult particularly because the person could change it repeatedly. I can just imagine trying to convince a judge that you really did not make that call; that it was due to a hacker. David Gast gast@cs.ucla.edu {uunet,ucbvax,rutgers}!{ucla-cs,cs.ucla.edu}!gast