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Phreak Encounter
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Barringer had always been bothered by phones. Not just
because people called as he stepped into the shower, or because
he sometimes got trapped on hold and was forced to listen to
Muzak, or because wrong numbers always waited until he was
asleep. It was more than that.
He was bothered by the whole IDEA of telephones, by the way
they made people act, by the elaborate and unwritten rule of
behavior and even language that had evolved to accomodate a
collection of wires and plastic.
He was thrown when he was told someone was "at" a certain
number, as if they actually lived, or at least existed, at some
locus inside a switching center, some point inside a computer
defined by an area code, an exchange prefix, and a four-digit
number.
None of this would have mattered so much if Cliff Barringer
had worked for someone beside the phone company. On the other
hand, if Barringer had worked for someone else, or had even
worked for another department of C&P Telephone, he probably
wouldn't have given so much thought to the Meaning of Phones. He
capitalized it that way in his head, the way some people
capitalized the Meaning of Life.
But even working for the phone company wouldn't have
mattered so much, so long as someone at the bank had had better
handwriting.
A year before, Barringer had gotten a car loan. Since he
had signed for the loan on the fourth of the month, on the fourth
of each month thereafter he was expected to pay up. But some
unknown person had scribbled down the "4" so it looked like a
"1", and a much more common date for a loan payment. That
mistake had taken root somehow, become enshrined in some file,
and now, promptly at 10:00 on the third of each month, a
Mr. Phillip Ramsey called Barringer from the bank to tell him
that his car payment was forty-eight hours overdue.
After a year of Ramsey's calls, Barringer had gotten used to
them. They were part of the scheme of things. Just as the sun
coming up proved it was a new day, or seeing a new episode of
Masterpiece Theater proved it was Sunday night, Ramsey's call was
a sure sign that March, or June, or September, or whatever month
it was, had indeed begun.
The call was just the start of the beginning-of-the-month
ritual. Barringer worked out of a Bethesda office, but his job
took him all over the Washington area and had him on the road
practically every day. He was out of the office almost every
time Ramsey called, and so each month Barringer had to call
Ramsey back in late afternoon and straighten the whole thing out
again. Ramsey would put Barringer on hold and force him to
listen to Muzak while he checked some other file. The Ramsey
would recall going through it all the month before, apologize,
and forget all about it until the next month when it came time to
harass Barringer again. There was something perfect in the
machine-like regularity of it all.
So it went from month to month until the late afternoon of
the third of October, 1986, when Barringer got the message that
Ramsey had called that morning. He returned the call, and got a
perfectly routine recorded announcement saying that the number
had been disconnected.
Barringer had an overactive imagination, he tended to worry
too much, and it was the end of a hard day. And so that
recording gave him chills down his spine. Barringer had always
had the idea that Ramsey WAS his phone number, that the man and
the number were one and the same, a combined thing. Ramsey
answered the phone that way each month when Barringer called
back: "Phillip Ramsey 844-1754." The name didn't sound complete
without the number. Maybe, Barringer thought, it was Ramsey
HIMSELF who had been "disconnected," that had ceased to exist.
Barringer had never actually SEEN Ramsey, anyway. To Barringer,
his loan officer was but a slightly nasal voice that was
compelled to call him each month on a fool's errand, a voice that
did its appointed task with the same demented relentlessness of
any automatic machine left to its own devices.
In earlier times, disembodied voices had come with messages
from God. Today they demanded that $213.15 be remitted promptly.
There were certainly enough people out there who would
delight in the idea that their loan officer had vanished in the
hopes that records had vanished along with the man, but Cliff
Barringer was a good guy. Also to the point, his work for C&P
Telephone left him wide open to the idea that people and phones
could do very strange things to each other. He worried.
Besides, Ramsey had never actually been cruel or unfair, just
incompetent. Barringer bore Ramsey no ill will, had no desire to
see him disconnected. Besides, if it could happen to Ramsey, it
could happen to anyone. Barringer himself might be next. It was
enlightened self-interest to see what was up. The bank wasn't
far away and it never hurt to check.
The long and short of it was that Barringer rushed over to
the bank, arrived just before closing, blundered his way past the
best defense three layers of receptionists could put up, and
found himself in the Loan Department, up against the last of the
receptionists, a friendly-looking woman named Miss McGillicutty.
McGillicutty listened to Barringer ask for Mr. Ramsey and
gave him a long hard look. The Loan Department attracted its
share of kooks, and it was McGillicutty's job to decide who were
the dangerous ones, the types who would threaten to blow the
place u because the bank wanted its money back. This guy looked
pretty much okay. Bushy brown beard, and hair still there but
thinning on top. Clever, capable, strong-looking hands that had
done some manual labor, although not recently. Medium height, a
little pudgy. Dressed in fairly new work clothes, with a shirt
pocket full of pens and a phone company photo ID hung on a chain
around his neck. Round, soft face, and eyes that looked neither
crazed or threatening, or panicked, but concerned. The eyes
decided her. This guy didn't want to hurt anyone. "Mr. Ramsey
is busy, Mr., ah, Barringer, but if you could wait, perhaps he
could talk to you in a few minutes."
"Thanks, but I don't need to talk to him. I just want to
see him, make sure he's all right." Barringer said. Now that he
was here, in a real-looking office, talking to a real person, the
idea that a man could disappear because of a phone number seemed
a little less likely, though still not impossible. On the other
hand, maybe it would be best if he didn't try to explain his
worries. "Is he all right?"
"I see," McGillicutty said, although she didn't, "I can
promise you Mr. Ramsey is fine. There is he, across the office,
third desk from the wall."
"That's him? The thin guy in the gray suit, sort of pale?"
That could be practically anyone around here, McGillicutty
thought. "That's him, fit as a fiddle. Why did you think he
might not be all right?"
"That's really HIM?" Somehow the bland looking man across
the room still didn't look faceless enough, robotic enough, to
match the nasal, monotonous nagging he had endured over the last
year. "You're sure that's Phillip Ramsey 844-1754?"
"That IS Mr. Ramsey," she said carefully, "right over there,
but that's not his phone number anymore. They had to disconnect
it this morning because of all the wrong numbers. Mr. Ramsey's
phone was the worst, so they unplugged him altogether and he
doesn't have a new phone yet. I see from your ID you're with the
phone company. Are you here to work on the problem?"
"What? Oh, no, I'm here for myself, not on business. But
it was just wrong numbers?" he asked, feeling both relieved and
foolish. "That's all?"
"Not exactly all--" she was interrupted by the phone
ringing. "Excuse me." She picked up the handset to talk. "Loan
Depart--oh damn. Here, Mr. Barringer, listen for yourself."
With a certain trepidation, Cliff Barringer took the handset
and put it to his ear. There was a high pitched beeeeeEEEP,
beeeeeEEEP that went on and on. "Ah, I see," he said, breathing
a sigh of relief. This was suddenly familiar turf. This was
what he spent his working days on. He hung up the phone and
spoke. "That's a carrier signal from some computer out there.
Somebody is trying to contact a computer over phone lines, and
hook his own computer up to it. He's programmed his computer to
do its own dialing, and then told it to call a wrong number. So
it gets you."
"But then we get other calls. As soon as anyone answers,
the person calling just says 'sorry' and hangs up, or else
doesn't say anything at all and hangs up."
"That'd be people with less fancy computers who are
misdialing manually. They're expecting to get a tone like the
one you're getting. If they get it, they throw the switch and
the signal goes into the computer. When they hear a person, they
know it must be a wrong number and drop the handset."
"That almost makes sense."
"Mmmph. Listen, let me do a little work on this tonight.
Just on my own. I can probably get to the computer they're all
calling and leave a message on it for people to dial more
carefully."
"I wouldn't want you to--"
"Oh, no, it's no trouble. Fooling with phones and computers
is my hobby."
"What do you do for the phone company?"
"I fool with phones and computers."
"At least you must enjoy your work."
"Yeah, I suppose. Dr. Frankenstein probably enjoyed working
on the Monster at first, too."
"That's a bit extreme, isn't it?"
"Maybe. But my job put me in touch with things that scare
me. I track down computer-and-phone systems that are out of
control, illegal. Computer hackers and phone phreaks. There are
some very weird people out there. I've seen what they can do. I
worry what they're going to do next."
Jean McGillicutty took a long look at Barringer. She was
starting to revise her opinion. Oh, Barringer was kind of weird,
all right. But past that, he seemed pleasant--more than
pleasant, kindly. And he looked harmless. She thought he looked
like he might even be worth talking to. In her world, that
simply meant he didn't look like a banker. But he was probably a
shy type. She would have to do the pushing. "Hold it. It's
quitting time, and McDonald's Raw Bar is just down the block.
They sell draught beer cheap, it's been a rough day, I was
planning on having one, and I hate drinking alone. Let me be
real forward and offer to buy you one."
Barringer blushed and then grinned. "Daddy raised me never
to turn down free beer."
"Oh, it's not free. In return, you have to explain what the
hell you're talking about."
"Sold."
Fifteen minutes later they were perched on a pair of tired
old bar stools in a dark, almost murky tavern that looked like it
had nearly been torn down a dozen times. It was one of the few
surviving single-story buildings in that part of Bethesda,
surrounded on all sides by new construction and new roads. All
good bars have always looked like they belonged to a previous
age, and the Raw Bar was no exception.
A mug of beer in one hand and the bowl of peanuts close by
the other, McGillicutty was ready to listen. A comfortably
ramshackle bar beat a banker's office all hollow for
conversation. "Okay, hackers I've heard of, but what's a freak?"
"It's spelled a little oddly, p-h-r-e-a-k, so it'll star the
same way 'phone' does. People usually draw the 'f' sound out a
little to make the distinction."
"Spell it as you will, but what's a phreak?"
"Ever hear of Captain Crunch?"
"Kid's cereal, right?"
"Well, that's where he got the name. Captain Crunch was one
of the first phone phreaks, from maybe fifteen years ago. And he
was one of the best. He got his name from a toy that came in
boxes of the cereal. A toy whistle that just happened to have
exactly the right tone so that if you held it up to the phone and
blew into it, you could cut in some parts of Ma Bell that
civilians weren't supposed to be able to reach. The whistle let
anyone enter tone commands. That's the sort of thing a phone
phreak does. He likes to play games with the telco--"
"Telco?"
"Telephone company. Phreaks learn access codes, find ways
to bill long distance calls to, say, a number at the Pentagon.
Mostly it's kids fooling around. Supposedly one guy used one
public phone to call the next phone booth over--except he routed
the call through 50 states and something like four communications
satellites. And that was maybe twelve years ago, long before the
first of the personal computers hit the marker. You can imagine
what a phone phreak can do with a computer if he can pull those
kinds of tricks WITHOUT one. They get sneakier all the time. My
job is to keep a step or two ahead of them."
"What happens when you get behind?
Barringer grinned. "Never happens, at least not for long.
I know some stuff, I've got some people. You know the old
saying, set a thief to catch a thief?"
"You mean you're an ex-phreak who's gone straight?"
"Oh, no, no. I'm allergic to cliches. What I meant was,
I'm a part-timer on the phone police phorce. About half the time
I'm a trouble shooter, solving problems when people are having
legit phone and computer systems installed. That's where I
learned enough to be a phone cop. In fact, six months ago I was
sworn in as a Montgomery County deputy sheriff. C&P Telephone
and Atlantic Bell were involved in so many busts against people
doing computer crime that the county decided it was less paper
work if a few of us had some police powers. I figure if the
regular cops can have stool pigeons, so can the phone cops. I've
got files on twenty or thirty basically harmless kids who have
pulled stunts they shouldn't have. If I nab kids like that and
turn them over to the real cops, all I've done is give 'em an
arrest sheet. That makes it tough for them later on, maybe keeps
them out of a job, makes them mad, makes them want to get even
with the big bad phone company. Instead, I give them a good
scare. Then when it looks like they are in deep, I tell them I
won't pull 'em in. I leave 'em alone and tell them to keep
fooling around but not to go overboard. In return they get to
play spy and let me know if any really bad stuff is happening."
"You don't look like a cop."
"None of the good ones do. So give me the facts, ma'am.
Just the facts. Give me the other numbers in your office that
got a lot of these calls. And lemme buy the next round."
When Barringer got to work on tracking down the computer in
question, some of his original paranoia came back to him. Things
were a little strange. But that might have been the our. What
with getting home and making dinner and playing with the cats and
so forth, it was midnight before he even got started. On the
other hand, late night was the traditional time for hackers to
come out and play.
Finding the computer everyone was trying to call was easy.
There are four or five basic kinds of mistakes people made when
dialing phone numbers--transposing certain pairs of digits,
reading a "6" for a "9" or vice versa, a finger slipping from one
touchtone button to another--and with a list of the numbers
people actually got when they made mistakes, it was easy for
Barringer to back into the number they had been trying for. In
five minutes he had a list of the most likely numbers.
Barringer had a few computers around the house, and he
powered up a clunky, ugly, lovable old Kaypro for the job at
hand. He brought up his telecommunications program, made sure
the printer was ready to get down a hard copy of everything that
happened, for later reference, and started trying numbers. Maybe
he had been fighting hackers too long--it didn't even occur to
him that the guy he reached on the first try wouldn't be too wild
over getting a call and being hung up on at that hour. Barringer
simply poked his finger down on the hang-up switch when he heard
a "hello" instead of a beep. But then, Barringer had always felt
that strangers on the phone weren't real people. On the second
try, he raised a carrier tone. He pushed some buttons and piped
the signal to the Kaypro.
He had been expecting to find a business computer system, or
a financial database service, something that would attract a lot
of daytime calls. Instead, a sign-on message that said
FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS
ELECTRONIC BULLETIN BOARD SERVICE
popped up on his screen, and that was decidedly strange. A
Bulletin Board Service, a BBS, was usually pretty quiet during
the day. BBSs were places where computer hobbyists fooled
around, leaving each other messages, praising or insulting a
piece of software, passing around gossip, jokes, and computer
files. It was nighttime stuff: Most hobbyists had daytime jobs
and couldn't make calls to the board during business hours.
Barringer had a personal rule of thumb--for every hundred
correctly dialed numbers, there was one wrongo. For the number
of wrongos that had been bugging Ramsey and his coworkers, there
had to be an enormous number of calls made to this number, way
too many for the average BBS from 9:00 to 5:00. This was one
popular board.
WHAT IS YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME?
the computer on the other end of the phone asked. Barringer
typed in
>WILLIAM HELLER
one of the many real-sounding fake names he used in his work.
ARE YOU A FIRST TIME USER?
>YES
PLEASE ENTER A PASSWORD. YOU WILL NEED TO ENTER THIS PASSWORD TO
GET ACCESS TO FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS, SO PLEASE REMEMBER IT.
Barringer smiled to himself and typed in
>RAMSEY
After all, Ramsey had started this.
YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS BID YOU WELCOME. FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF
SERVICES AND PROGRAMS AVAILABLE ON THIS BOARD. THE RULES OF THIS
BOARD ARE SIMPLE. FOR EVERY USE OF A FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS SERVICE,
YOU MUST FIRST TELL US A NEW AND INTERESTING FACT. ONE SERVICE,
ONE FACT. WE HAVE PLENTY OF PHONE LINES--NO TIME LIMIT ON USE.
ENJOY!!!
THE FRIENDLY SYSOP
It was a "menu-driven" system, where you were presented with
a numbered list of things to do, each only a general description.
You entered the number of your choice, and a sub-menu came up,
with a more detailed list of possibilities. You choose from one
of those, and a sub-sub-menu came up, each item on it a detailed
description of more goodies. Only at the fourth level did you
get down to work. Menus were a good way to run a system with a
lot of things on it, and there sure was a lot here. A hell of a
lot.
Barringer decided the system operator, the sysop, was one
real nice guy. The options offered on the menus made his mouth
water. If ten percent of it was true, this was the happy hunting
ground for every hacker and hobbyist, every wirehead and computer
nerd and phone phreak in the world.
There were working programs and games for every computer he
had ever heard of, some of them legal public domain stuff, but a
lot of obviously bootlegs of copyrighted progs. There were patch
lines into practically every college and university computer
system in the country. There was a service that allowed a user
to call any phone-equipped computer anywhere in the world without
charge by calling up the Friendly Neighbors board and letting it
route the call. There was a search program patched into a
database with a nationwide phone directory, including long
distance and unlisted numbers. You could look up the numbers by
name, or name by number, or either by address. You could get the
zip code or local equivalent for any place in the world. The
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITTANICA and AMERICANA were available, not just
abstracts but the whole shooting works, there on-line to browse
through, along with LAROUSSE and the GREAT SOVIET ENCYCLOPEDIA
and a dozen Barringer had never heard of.
There was a complete legal services library search service,
and a patch into the MEDFAX medical research database. The A.P.,
U.P.I., Reuters, Agence France, Pravda, P.A.P., the Dow-Jones
News service--every wire and news service in the world was there.
The electronic card catalog of the Library of Congress was
online.
And that just scratched the surface. It took a half-hour
for Barringer to get through the various menus. All free. Just
give the Friendly Neighbors Sysop an interesting fact.
CARE TO GIVE US A TRY?
Barringer had to see if it was for real. The temptation was
too great.
>YES
THEN TELL ME AN INTERESTING FACT.
Well, what would a sysop who had instant access to all that
find interesting? Barringer shrugged.
>THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL REALLY TOOK PLACE ON BREED'S HILL.
THAT IS CORRECT. THANK YOU. WHAT'S YOUR PLEASURE?
He did something he could have done in person, something that he
could easily do at work. He got Jean McGillicutty's phone number
and address. WANT MORE? TELL ME ANOTHER INTERESTING FACT.
>TED WILLIAMS WAS THE GREATEST PLAYER IN BASEBALL HISTORY.
AN INTERESTING OPINION, BUT I NEED FACTS.
Could it catch a fib?
>THE POTOMAC IS THE LONGEST RIVER IN THE WORLD.
THAT IS INCORRECT. TELL ME A CORRECT AND INTERESTING FACT.
>2 AND 2 IS 4.
THAT IS NOT INTERESTING. YOU HAVE ONE MORE CHANCE, OR I WILL
HAVE TO SIGN YOU OFF.
>THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER THE USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT IS THE LARGEST
VEHICLE EVER BUILT BY MAN.
THAT IS CORRECT. THANK YOU. WHAT'S YOUR PLEASURE?
He checked the latest betting line for the World Series and
signed off.
Barringer sat there staring at the Kaypro's screen for ten
minutes, motionless. This had to be the biggest, most blatant,
most thorough-going data-theft he had ever seen. The Friendly
Neighbors system operator was good at what he did, obviously,
incredibly good, but three-quarters of the stuff on that board
had to be stolen. There had to be a lot of gossip out there
about Friendly Neighbors, the sort of thing most pholks wouldn't
tell a phone cop for fear he'd spoil all the phun. Barringer
decided he had to do some talking with a certain friend, press
for some information. He used the Kaypro to call another board,
the Baker Street Irregulars BBS. Barringer got in on the first
try, something he had never managed before. The BSI Board was
nearly always tied up. Well, who'd call anything else with the
Friendly Neighbors around? All the regular boards would fall on
hard times in the face of such competition. Too bad, too. The
BSI BBS was a good board, full of fun things to do and try, all
of then legal.
It was run by Sidney Zamoiski, one of Barringer's rephormed
phreaks, one of his sources of information. Barringer signed in,
went to the message section, and left a brief note, garbled in
its historical and literary roots but clear to sender and
receiver.
>DOCTOR WATSON. COME HERE, I NEED YOU. THE GAME'S AFOOT.
He didn't leave his name.
Zamoiski would be in Barringer's office no later than noon
the next day. Barringer shoved the cats to one side of the bed
and tried to get some sleep.
The next day was Saturday, but it wasn't at all unusual to
see Barringer in the office on weekends. It gave him the chance
to catch up on things, to clear his decks for the new eek. It
was easier for him to concentrate without the usual bustle of
people around. For that matter, Barringer spent more time out of
the office, away from the weekday crowds, than was really
expected of him. He was nervous around too many people.
That didn't matter now. It was a bright, clear morning, the
place was deserted, he had a fresh hot thermos of coffee along,
and he could track down Friendly Neighbors.
The first thing to try was the lazy way. He called a
private C&C line.
"Internal Services Operator."
"Yes, this is employee Clifford Barringer."
"Hey, Cliff! Joe Walker here. How are you?"
"Oh, all right." Walker was another person Cliff had never
actually seen, and therefore didn't quite believe in.
"Got some business to do?"
"Sure do."
"Okay, let's go by the book. Punch up your access authority
code."
Cliff used his phone's touch-tone buttons to enter an eight-
digit number.
"Thanks, Cliff. You're you, all right. What do you need?"
"Gimme a customer name and address on this number." He
punched in the Friendly Neighbors number.
"That Maryland? Area code 301?"
"Sure is."
"Cliff, where you been? That exchange isn't even hooked
up!"
"Get serious, I reached that number last night."
"I'll run the CNL, but I'm telling you that ain't a live
exchange."
Barringer waited as Walker ran the query.
"Not in service, Cliff."
"Run it again. I swear I called that number last night."
"Okay." There was another slight pause. "Nothing. Zip.
It's not there. Check your own books, man, that's not a live
exchange."
"I'll do that. Thanks, Joe." Barringer was beginning to get
a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. He checked the
telco's handbooks. It WAS a deader. But that was impossible.
People had very occasionally managed to tap a bandit phone line
into the system, though few even bothered to try. It was just
too tough, too hard to hide, too expensive. But one bandit phone
line would be child's play up against creating a bandit EXCHANGE.
And why do it? To have access to lots of lines? But there were
up to 10,000 phone numbers on an exchange. Who could possibly
need that many?
Walker's computer and the handbook must be dated. Billing.
He'd talk to Billing. They were always up to date. He picked up
the phone.
Ten minutes later he hung it up again, in a cold sweat.
Billing had never charged a dime to that number. It didn't
exist. And Billing confirmed that the whole exchange had never
been hooked up.
In desperation, he tried the Criss-Cross directory, which
listed phone numbers in order against the customers. Nothing, of
course.
He nearly jumped a foot when his own phone rang. He picked
it up as if it were possessed. This morning he was starting to
get confirmation of his most secret fear--that ALL telephones
everywhere were and always HAD BEEN possessed.
But it was only Security downstairs, asking if Sid Zamoiski
could be escorted up. Barringer said yes, and five minutes later
one of the uniforms from downstairs delivered Zamoiski. "Doctor
Watson, I presume," Barringer said as he stood to shake
Zamoiski's hand.
"Hey, Cliff," Zamoiski said. "I've been waiting for your
call for a while now." Zamoiski sat himself down in the visitors
chair and grinned. He didn't look like a hacker. He looked more
like a surfer, or a lumberjack. A big, dark-haired, burly young
man with a handle-bar moustache; it was hard to imagine him
hunched over a computer fooling with disk drives and monitors.
"Thought you might be. Friendly Neighbors?" Barringer said.
"Uh-huh. What name did you get in under?"
"William Heller. Why?"
"Thought so. Try it now, under your own name."
Barringer looked oddly at Zamoiski and turned to the IBM PC
on his desk. Thirty seconds later he was on-line to Friendly
Neighbors.
WHAT IS YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME?
>CLIFF BARRINGER
YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, COPPER! AND NEXT TIME DON'T BOTHER
CALLING FROM A TELCO OFFICE NUMBER.
The PC's screen filled with gibberish as Friendly Neighbors
cut the connection.
"My God," Zamoiski said. "I didn't know it could trace the
line."
"It knows who I AM?" Barringer thought he might faint.
"Doctor Devious--you know, the pet shop owner in Takoma Park
who runs a board--told me that he had told Friendly Neighbors who
all the phone cops were. That was an Interesting Fact. But if
it can trace calls, I'm surprised it allowed a call from your
home phone."
"Listen, with all you wireheads out there ready to do me in,
I've got the most unlisted number on Earth. The telco switching
system thinks my phone is across the county line, in Prince
George's County. I've got three lines cross-connected through
legal cheese-boxes to keep phreaks from finding my home. C&P
okayed it."
"Mmmph."
"And if you breathe a word of that you've had your last
Chinese dinner on me. How long has Friendly Neighbors been in
business?"
"Not long. Somebody left the message on my BBS about a
month ago that there was a great new board to try."
"Has it grown since, or did it start out with all that
stuff?"
"A few goodies around the edges, but mostly the sysop had it
ready to go when he started."
"What the hell is this interesting fact routine?"
"Got me. And don't ask me why it asks for facts and then
tells you 'that is correct.' If it knows, why ask? And here's
another weird thing. It's programmed so it won't let me repeat a
fact I'VE already given, but up to a point it'll let me tell it
something I know it's heard from one of the other guys. But if I
over do it, it tells me I'm being lazy and demands fresh facts."
"I tried to fib to it, and it caught me," Barringer said.
"How could a program be that smart? Think this guy actually
licked the artificial intelligence problem?"
"You know my theory, Holmes. We won't get anywhere on
artificial intelligence unless we perfect artificial stupidity
first. I dunno. Maybe this sysop HAS done it. And get this:
Devious said he tried reading it cards from Trivial Pursuit.
Friendly Neighbors caught him and told him to knock it off."
"Jesus. This is getting me more and more worried.
Especially since I can't find them." Barringer quickly ran
through his attempt to get an address for the board.
"That's creepy." Zamoiski thought for a moment, and suddenly
laughed out loud. "Wait a second. I think I know how we can
find them. But not from here. We'll go to my place."
Zamoiski lived in a blank-faced high rise apartment building
in Silver Spring. The place was strangely neat and spare for a
bachelor's home. It looked almost barren, as if Zamoiski camped
there instead of living there. Only one part of the place looked
truly occupied: a mammoth desk covered with hardware and manuals
and tools and carry-out food containers. Zamoiski used a Sanyo
for most of his hacking. He went straight to it and signed on to
Friendly Neighbors. Because he was an experienced user, the
system skipped the rules and the catalog of services and went
straight to
TELL ME SOMETHING MORE ABOUT THE BATTLE OF MIDWAY.
"Uh-oh," Zamoiski said. "Every once in a while it gets
interested in a topic you've told it something about and does
this. Let's see."
>THE SHIPS OF THE OPPOSING FLEETS NEVER SAW EACH OTHER.
THAT IS CORRECT. WHAT'S YOUR PLEASURE?
Zamoiski called up the criss-crossing section of the
phonebook service. "Let's just see how dumb this genius computer
is." He asked for the home address matching Friendly Neighbor's
phone number.
Friendly Neighbors obediently betrayed its own location.
"Stratford Land, Bethesda," Barringer read. "Zamoiski,
you're a genius."
"Not really. But I'm glad to prove my theory about
artificial stupidity. Never seen a machine that wasn't dumb if
you asked it the right question. Now what?"
"Well," Barringer said, "I could act police and wait until
Monday and get a warrant and go in there with some regular cops
and so on--but dammit, I gotta MEET this guy!"
"We go over now?"
"Yeah. Who could resist?"
Stratford Lane was one block long, a quiet little suburban
road cut into the side of a gentle hill, full of sixty-year-old
brick houses. Children played in the yards and ran back and
forth across the quiet street. All the lawns were neatly kept,
all the houses were well cared for. Except one, toward the
Wilson Lane end of the block.
Barringer checked the address again. It matched, but it
couldn't be right. The house, set back a bit from the road, and
on the uphill side of the street, was barely visible from the
road, hidden behind bramble and high trees and a tangle of
undergrowth that seemed not just to have grown, but EVOLVED from
a lawn left unmowed for a quarter-century. What could be seen of
the house itself did not inspire confidence. It had been painted
brick many years before, but the paint had faded and flaked off
until it required more imagination that honesty to call the
exterior walls white. The shutters were closed, but looked
rotted and about to fall off. The slate roof seemed ready to
slide off in one piece. Worn, broken, half-collapsed stone steps
led up to an overgrown path through the front-yard forest to the
front door. An ancient and decrepit blue and white Anglia two-
door resting on four flat tires blocked the way up the stairs.
The two friends pushed the bramble far enough out of the way
to squeeze around the car, and headed for the front door of the
house. Barringer happened to glance up as they made their way
along the short path. He stopped short and grabbed Zamoiski's
sleeve. "Sid. Look up at the utility pole."
"What the hell--?"
Hanging from the pole and running into the second floor of
the house was a cable as thick as a man's arm. It was dark
green, and it didn't look so much connected to the junction box
on the pole as MELTED to it.
Barringer shook his head and headed for the front door.
Zamoiski was impressed with Barringer for having the nerve to
knock, not at all surprised when nothing happened, taken aback
when Barringer tried the knob and astonished when he was able to
open the door. It hadn't been locked.
Barringer stepped inside the door, turned, and called to
Zamoiski. "You got a flashlight in your car?"
"Yeah, I'll get it." Zamoiski was glad of a reason to get
away from the house, but not at all happy about having to go
back. The door was wide open and Barringer stood in it, waiting
impatiently. Zamoiski stepped inside and handed his friend the
light.
Barringer flicked on the flashlight and looked around.
The entire interior of the house had been removed, down to
the lath. The floor was a slab of pinkish concrete, and
Barringer had the feeling the concrete filled the house's
foundation from the cellar to ground level in one solid block.
That melted green cable came through the wall over the door, and
led to a--thing. Barringer didn't know what to call it. It was
a boxy shape, about four feet square, of the same dark green
color as the cable. It looked half-melted, too, its shape
softened, rounded, droopy.
Another green cable led to a device Barringer and Zamoiski
both recognized instantly.
There are certain machines that must be certain shapes if
they are to work. A square wheel cannot roll, a lever must be
long and thin to do any good, a knife must have a cutting edge.
Zamoiski gasped as Barringer shone the light on a twelve-
foot diameter, bright-green, well-polished, very handsome
parabolic dish antenna. They'd have to do some measurements, and
get some tracking done, but to Zamoiski that would merely be
confirmation. Somewhere in deep space, the system operator of
the Friendly Neighbor Bulletin Board was hard at work. "I always
said hackers and phreaks were weird enough to get along with
anyone," Zamoiski said.
"Try weird enough to talk to aliens without noticing,"
Barringer said. He was surprised because he WASN'T surprised.
Somehow, he had always been expecting this. "I suddenly
understand the interesting fact rule. Our Friendly Neighbors tap
into all the great data sources somehow--but they have no idea
what's what. Which is the junk no one cares about, garbage
that's just accumulated and clogged up the world's databases?
Which is the good stuff the people really care about? We tell
them what we find interesting. And they don't mind two people
telling the same fact because that just tells them it's
interesting to more than one person."
"I shudder to think they're getting their view of mankind
from hackers," Zamoiski said. "I gave the poor guys some really
dumb stuff. Very few civilians would care about how to do
automatic baud-rate shifting for a Sanyo MBC. I dunno. What do
we do now?"
Barringer looked at the half-melted green box. "We talk to
them. Their mainframe here doesn't have a local terminal. I
guess we get to a phone and sign on. Let's go to my place. It's
closer."
TELL ME AN INTERESTING FACT.
Barringer looked at his friend. "Well, what do we say? How
do you politely say we caught you spying on our planet?"
"They aren't spying. Just looking around. And that door
wasn't locked. They must be expecting us. Lemme get their
attention."
>THE SYSOP OF THIS BOARD IS AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL.
he typed.
For the first time, there was a pause before the program
responded. Then, finally, a message came up on the screen.
HELLO NEIGHBOR. YOU ARE NO LONGER LIMITED TO THE SMALLER
BEGINNER'S BOARD. YOU HAVE JUST QUALIFIED FOR PROVISIONAL
MEMBERSHIP IN THE MAIN BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM. DO YOU WISH TO
JOIN?
"Damn straight I do," Zamoiski said.
>YES
he typed.
THE RULES OF THE BOARD ARE SIMPLE. TELL US ABOUT YOU, AND WE'LL
TELL YOU ABOUT US. ANSWER ONE OF OUR QUESTIONS, AND GAIN ACCESS
TO ONE SERVICE.
MAKE SURE YOUR PRINTER IS ENGAGED AND SAVING A HARD COPY. THEN
ENTER "READY." WE WILL DISPLAY AN OVERVIEW LISTING OF SERVICES
AND INFORMATION AVAILABLE.
Zamoiski switched on the printer and typed
>READY
The choices scrolled past the screen. None of them made
sense at first, but a lot of them seemed like fun. What looked
like databases on a hundred planetary systems, instructions on
how to build some extremely entertaining gadgets, telecomputer
courses on any number of subjects, games that he just had to try.
Zamoiski suddenly felt worried about losing it all before he had
a chance to play. If the local authorities or the Feds, or even
worse, the phone company, found out, they might shut it down, for
failure to pay one hell of a long distance bill. Zamoiski had an
oddly parochial world view. "Cliff." he asked, "we don't have to
tell anyone else about this, do we? I mean, Earth people, like
the Air Force?"
"Sid. This isn't something little like the time you busted
into the bank and 'corrected' your balance. This is big, this is
for real. The history of humanity and all that. We GOTTA tell.
The Feds have to get started and find out some stuff. Who are
these guys? Just alien hackers fooling around? An invasion?
And what kind of information are they going to want from us?
Anthropology? Missile secrets? We still don't know if they're
really friendly."
The listing finally ended.
NOW THEN, OUR FIRST REQUEST.
Again, a pause. Barringer held his breath and debated
yanking the keyboard back from his friend. But Zamoiski could
simply go to any computer in the world and call on his own. The
cat was out of the bag, the can of worms was opened. And
Zamoiski was just crazy enough to show the Neighbors how he had
patched into the Lawrence Livermore Lab computer that time, in
exchange for an hour of gaming. What would they want to know?
The screen cleared. Another pause. And then, on the
screen--
TELL US MORE ABOUT TED WILLIAMS.
Barringer sighed in relief. "I think," he said, "it's going
to be all right."
Roger MacBride Allen
Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact
Vol. CVI, No. 5, May 1986.
Pirated without permission by Jolly Roger
(but with hopes of increasing their sales!)