TELECOM@Usc-Eclb (06/12/82)
TELECOM AM Digest Saturday, 12 June 1982 Volume 2 : Issue 76
Today's Topics: Famous LA Phone Phreak Jailed
Long Haul Modems
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Date: 11-Jun-82 16:00:53 PDT (Friday)
From: Newman.es at PARC-MAXC
Subject: Famous LA phone phreak jailed
cc: Merritt at USC-ISIB, Lauren at UCLA-Security, Newman.es
from the Los Angeles Times of June 11, 1982 (page 1 of the "Metro"
section):
'Phone Phreak' Sentenced to 150-Day Term
By Ted Rohrlich,
Times Staff Writer
Lewis DePayne was sentenced to 150 days in jail Thursday for
extremely poor relations with Ma Bell.
DePayne, 22, first came to the attention of Pacific Telephone
Co. officials in 1979, when they say they discovered that he had
gained unauthorized access to their communications and computer
systems.
DePayne, a computer science student at the time, used the access to
disconnect phone service for people he did not like, and to add--for
free--special features, such as call-forwarding and call-waiting
services, to his own phone and those of his friends, according to
phone company officials.
Pacific Telephone's retired general security manager, W. F.
Bowren, said that in late 1979 DePayne admitted involvement in
setting nine fires on telephone company property, resulting in
$250,000 in damage.
Bowren told Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne that DePayne admitted
to phone company investigators that he and some friends got access
to ground-level telephone terminals, cut wiring inside the terminals,
and then set the terminals on fire.
Terminals are boxes, usually attached to telephone poles, that
house connections between underground cables and above-ground branch
lines leading to homes and businesses. Bowren's comments came
in a letter that was made part of the court record.
Bowren's letter said that DePayne also told investigators that
he and others had rewired one terminal in such a way that it allowed
them to make phone calls anywhere and to have charges for those
calls applied to someone else's bill. The resulting loss to the
phone company was more than $15,000, Bowren said.
Bowren went on to say that the telephone company declined to
press charges against DePayne because DePayne said that he had
seen the error of his ways.
But, his letter continued, DePayne was subsequently interviewed
in a weekly newspaper and boasted of "infiltrating and compromising
our system."
Bowren was apparently referring to an article that appeared
in the L.A. Weekly in July, 1981, about a "phone phreak" identified
as "Rosco."
Rosco was touted as "probably the most knowledgeable phone phreak
in the country" whose pranks included posing as a telephone company
supervisor and causing all calls normally routed through the phone
company's Pasadena office to be re-routed elsewhere.
Witnesses at a court hearing for DePayne testified that he used
the nickname Rosco.
That hearing was held to determine whether DePayne should be
ordered to stand trial on charges that he broke into a Pacific
Telephone Co. office in May, 1981, and stole operating manuals
for the company's central computer system.
A district attorney's investigator on the case has said those
manuals could have been used to shut down much of Los Angeles'
phone system.
While facing theft, burglary, and conspiracy charges in the
case, DePayne wrote a letter to the president of Pacific Telephone,
Bowren said.
"He had the unmitigated gall...(to try to) sell his service
to us as a consultant," Bowren wrote.
In court, DePayne pleaded no contest to a charge of conspiracy to
commit computer fraud against Pacific Telephone and to a separate
charge against a San Francisco-based computer leasing firm. Burglary
and grand theft charges were dropped.
A confederate, Mark Ross, 25, pleaded no contest to a charge
of grand theft of telephone company computer manuals.
Wayne placed them both on probation for three years and ordered
Ross to jail for 30 days, to be served on weekends .
She stayed the 150-day jail term for DePayne for three weeks
to give him an opportunity to apply for participation in the county's
work furlough program.
Deputy Dist. Atty. Clifton Garrott said DePayne makes his living
as a systems analyst for computer consulting firms.
--30--
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Date: 10 Jun 82 23:55:35 EDT (Thu)
From: Steve Bellovin <smb.unc@UDel-Relay>
To: FRANK at Utah-20
Subject: short-haul modems
Via: UNC; 10 Jun 82 23:56-EDT
Before ordering any of those short-haul modems, you'd better ensure
that they're full-duplex. Most medium- and high-speed modems require
a 4-wire circuit for that; does the circuit the phone company is
offering you include one pair or two?
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End of TELECOM Digest
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