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Re: The Best Laid Plans of Pirates/Phreaks
by: RBOC Agent 003
on: November 23rd, 1987
Welcome friends, to the informal little file which may change the way
you view the modem world forever after. Before I explain the previous
statement any further, I must introduce myself. Hello, for this file the
handle above will do, I haven't used a real handle since the days of the
original Sherwood Forest. I expect that you haven't heard of me before in
any sort of file or on any board. Don't worry about that, I'm not involved
with any permutation of the modem world you may consider yourself a part of
(ie: the Hack/phreak world, the pirate community, elites!, or whatever else
the self-deluded have grouped into a world or community). I do however
know some of the 'legends' of the modem and their friends and associates.
As just about every other file released this one will center on Lord
Digital/Patrick. This file is something of an expose` on Lord Digital and
how his various schemes and machinations have altered the modem world over
the years. To get right to the point without any further amiguity, I am
writing this file to put an end once and for all to Lord Digital's charade
of "not caring" and just "being commented on." Lord Digital does in fact
care very much and is either responsible for or in some way connected with
just about every major 'rag' of the more intelligent sort which has been
released since the beginning of the modem community . The previous
statement naturally contradicts everything you've been led to believe by
the authors of said files which is to be expected as the author, or at
least editor of each file is one and the same: Lord Digital. What I am
trying to reveal to you friends, as gently as I can, if such a thing can be
told gently: You think of a young man from New York named Lord Digital as
someone absolutely brillant and made legend against his own will by those
less impressive than he. You think of him as the single largest
contributer in ingenuity, ideas and software to the computer community at
large. This I must tell you is not true. The files and information given
out or 'exposed' regarding Patrick have all been created with the intent to
make Patrick into the "ultimate elite", an entity which would appeal to
everyone across the country as simply the most perfect thing possible in a
computer hacker. I have learned of all of this through over 25 interviews,
and discussions with those involved directly or indirectly in the scheme
and through documented evidence on paper of these plans. Now the chronolgy
of Patrick:
The Early Days:
Patrick began his modem career early on, being wealthy, he got a
computer in the very beginnings of the modem world, when a complete Apple
II system was about the equivalent of a Mac II today. Being of exceptional
intelligence, though not so exceptional as you may have been led to
believe, he learned quickly. What he did when he was younger is not much
different from what most of 'you' modem users did when you first got your
computer. When most people find out about the "modem world", they usually
get excited about it and all the games or phreak info available and go down
the path to eliteness. Patrick saw the modem world as a place where he
could in the form of "Lord Digital" control and manipulate people. He
became fascinated with the ways he could fool people so easily. Anyone
could do it Pat saw, all you had to do was break the 'rules' they had set
up and bullshit a little. This led to a string of not very memorable
boards that Patrick set up for himself and even a group that managed to
become fairly popular considering it did nothing but talk and had exactly
one member cloned to the xth power by the magic of multiple log-ons.
Patrick began to feel the power of his manipulative muscle and realized he
had a talent. Patrick already saw that the modem population was
burgeoning, wargames was released and new hackers were born everyday. He
saw that someday he would be able to apply his unique talent to a much
larger group of people. "The Lord Digital Project" as it came to be called
went into planning stages.
Others involved:
Before I continue, I will note that it was in his early days that Pat
picked up his NYC associates who were to take part in the LD project. They
included first: Joey, Chase, Paul M., Asif, Pete, Dave G., Andy, Milton,
Chris, Carl, Alex, and Yuri and later on the younger: Pete S., Seth, Bruce,
Alex G. and Jack. To clarify, these were not his 'followers' who did
surface on a number of NYC boards and included countless numbers of losers,
but they were actually those involved in the LD project. The name "Lord
Digital" itself was not always Pat's handle, it was simply the one he
picked to launch to become the closest thing modem users have to a God
with.
The Atom's Rag: The plan begins
It was now that the plan began in earnest. Patrick, probably the
greatest propagandist since Goerbels was ready to begin. Patrick created a
reputation for himself on various phreak/pirate boards, Lord Digital's
reputation was centered around an as of yet imaginary set of programs
called "Phantom Access". During 1984 Pat gave Lord Digital a reputation
and blabed a lot about Phantom Access. The boards World of Cryton existed
for Lord Digital to post on, and was promptly turned over to the FBI when
Pat no longer had any use for it. In the beginning of 1985 Pat engineered
the first element of what was to become the "Big Rag" strategy of
propaganda. The "Big Rag" idea is that if something is ragged enough with
someone with a certain amount of credibility it will become accepted.
"Loser's of 1984" by the Atom was the first file of a series which has
grown more and more ingenuious and different with each additional element.
No one had given above the normal ammount of notice to Lord Digital before,
but now all of a sudden he was "the #1 expert on ESS." If you look at
Atom's file, just about everyone in it is attacked as an incompetent fool
EXCEPT Lord Digital and Paul who just have "ego problems", something much
more forgiveable. The "Atom's file" by the way, was not actually written
by the Atom, but by the Elven Wizard. The Atom is a complete moron (get
this: he sold an Amiga to get an Apple ][GS!), but was at least smart
enough to realize when he was getting a free rep and never denied writting
the file. My evidence suggests that the file was brought about by Carl
telling EW all the information involved under the guise that he was somehow
letting EW know something very secret. EW needed a little encouragment
from other parties, who were naturally working with the project to write a
big rag file.
Tap.Interviews: Lord Digital answers the Atom
Losers of 1984 drastically changed the modem scene. In the
post-Atomic era the public was hungrily awaiting a sequel. King Blotto
attempted to capitalize on his mention with his King's Reply file but it
was essentially unnoticed. Lord Digital's response to the Atom's
rag,Tap.Interviews, was a stroke of genius. By answering charges which he
himself had set-up for the sole reason of allowing himself at a later date
to answer, and in the form of a 'candid' interview had a fantastic affect
on Lord Digital's reputation. By putting the file in the form of an
interviews, while of course it was really just Pat himself sitting at the
keyboard, he added an element of candidness to the file. After all it
wasn't like he was actually broadcasting his views and praising himself, he
was simply having an "open chat" in a bookstore. The two interviews with
Tuc and Chesire were conversations that each of them had at one time or
another with 50% of the people at Tap and added further credibility to the
file. After all lots of people asked Tuc about LOD/H, and EVERYONE asked
Chesire Catalyst about stealing from TAP. Neither could deny the
conversations in the file or even identify the interviewer. Tap.Interviews
essentially explained why Lord Digital is mature, cool, handsome,
intelligent, rich, modest and has the perfect outlook on what life is all
about and how to live it. TI also stressed Phantom Access, and described
in detail exactly how wonderful and brillant it was. One of the central
ways in which Pat kept Lord Digital popular was to keep people interested
in Phantom Access, and this concept was continued by Tap.Interviews.
National Enlightener: Lord Digital is 'revealed'
While Pat was in no way connected directly with the authors of
National Enlightener, he did make sure that several people whom he hoped
would write rag files received buffers of his posts. The one's who ended
up turning out the file Pat wanted turned out to be the Nat'l Enlightener.
Pat was not in anyway however directly connected with the NE, this was one
of the rags that he basically remained uninvolved with. Pat influenced NE
just enough however that they included ample coverage of him and Paul but
unlike just about everyone else on the disk shed them in a favorable light.
Again as always Lord Digital came out the good guy.
Tap.Interviews II: Dead Lord's babble
Dead Lord and a few of his friends wrote a standard rag file after the
fashion of what was coming out. They wrote it in order to spread about
some lies about some people in New York and never intended on taking credit
for it. Dead Lord changed his mind later, after phrack had revealed the
truth and inadvertantly made the file seem more intelligent. At that point
he was only trying to get all of the pirate world to hate him and he
appears to have suceeded. Being a secret friend of Lord Digital's he
included some whining about Phantom Access in the file. Most of it was
along the lines of "Shit dudez! Why won't someone give it out!!" There
was no real information in it because Dead Lord didn't want the file to
look too intelligent which might give it away.
Fall of the Modem World: Another dimension to Lord Digital
Lord Digital was basically a stale topic now. People realized that
Phantom Access was forever out of their grasp and Pat wasn't all the rage
anymore. Pat wondered what new element he could introduce to Lord Digital,
what exactly would gain people's respect or at least interest. He had to
look no farther than a tabloid with an article on Occultist. I actually
have, thanks to one of my sources, the exact newspaper that inspired Pat to
'expose' Lord Digital's life. Pat decided that he should paint Lord
Digital as a sort of mad teenage genius who had all sort of brillant
projects hidden under his bed. Pat's friend Alan, posing as "Chris" wrote
a 2-sided rag called Fall of the Modem World and devoted about 1/3 of it to
Pat. And so "Chris" was born, overly-normal kid who was over-reacting to
Pat's imagined eccentricity. Lord Digital was supposed to be a brillant
eccentric, and the best way for Pat to paint himself as such was through
the eyes of someone who was most disturbed by the abnormal. The file
simply furthered Lord Digital along his road to Godhood and added something
new for everyone to wonder over for a while.
Tap.Inteviews III:
This file is just mentioned as a side note as the author never had any
contact with Pat and simply based it on what he had read.
Phantom Access 5.7k:
Pat realized that however many people he unleashed upon the modem
world who "Had seen Phanton Access and itz totally rad!", people needed to
see proof. Anticipating this he and his associates wrote the Phantom
Access code hacker and assorted programs in 1985. They realized that it
was not terribly impressive and just a BASIC code hacker with a few neat
mods. They easily hid this fact however with doc files which made stupid
program seem much more complex than it actually was. Most people around
today have convinced themselves that Phantom Access is a hacker of such
mamoth complexity that only a true demi-god could ever write it. It's
written in BASIC with an ML driver but the self-deluded will not be
disillusioned. For those who have seen Spectre, its really harsh I suppose
to face the facts that its just a rip-off of a term program which access
the cat's registers in a slightly unique way. Turning off the carrier and
controlling the casette port is elementary.
In 1987 Lord Digital felt that Phantom Access was ready to be released
because the controversy over it was cooling. They had built up to what
should have been a disappointing release, by rumors of a "secret 6.6
version that no one can run!11!1!" This brillant bit of deception allowed
Pat to keep the Phantom Access issue alive past it's time with discussions
of where to get 6.6 and how to use it if one does get it. There were two
releases of this by the way: One was Dead Lord's which Lord Digital had
nothing to do with and as far as I can see was for the sole purpose of
distributing a rag page. The other was from Matrix Murderer and The Ripper
and came directly from Pat.
In relation to Phantom Access there were also little files that kept
orginating from Pat's friends in the guise of people who either had PA or
wanted it very badly. All these short files kept the mouths of the
denziens of the modem world watering with elaborate descriptions of all of
Phantom Access's functions.
The PA.MISCDISK: Lord Digital's secret hideout
This was a collection of posts from the old Twilight's Peak. I was on
Twilight's and though most of the disk are accurate buffers, a lot of it
was fooled around with and a lot was added to it. Patrick was not the one
who did most of the work on this piece. Dead of Knight did most of the
work before it was given to the Ripper. Patrick's big role at this time
was to pop up as "Federal Agent" on various systems and circulate himself.
He made up a background as one of "Pat's old friends" and then proceeded to
"secretly contact" several people and give them information "on Patrick
that only you must know." As a result there are at least a dozen people in
circulation that think they have been given the secret story of Lord
Digital, which is more bullshit. These people also think that if they ever
tell this to anyone they will be harmed in some terrible way. This means
that it will be at least a year before about half of them write files
"revealing" everything. Pat as "Federal Agent" also did a little tap dance
on The Ripper's credit card # causing him great anguish. This prompted
Ripper into writing a big complaint as to his treatment which prompted Pat
to answer back which in turn brought equally meaningless files from Dead
Lord, The Plague, and Dead of Knight (using "Your Friend" as a signature)
who were all in on the joke and just laughing along with Patrick.
Phantom Acc : ccA motnahP: Smart-ass goes Live!
This file was written by a fairly intelligent teen in NYC who realized
what every other fairly intelligent person realizes: that the modem world
is meaningless. However most people don't feel compelled to hack out 354
sectors of this concept and then throw in hardware descriptions and
reviews, philosophy of life, insights into Lord Digital's personality (all
of which are followed by something like: "but hey, it's no one's bussiness
so why should I tell you?" and of course denials that the author really has
an influence in the content of a file ("It's not MY file!"). Overall it
was silly, not really meant to clear up any questions about Lord Digital,
but rather to keep interest up by alluding to things that the author just
COULDN'T under any circumstances tell about and WHY DO YOU CARE ANYWAY!?!
It also talked a lot on how to use certain parts of Phantom Access which no
one seems to have and which might not even exist.
If Jack had not written this file no one would have ever heard his
views or known who he was. No one would ever hear about what a good buddy
he is with Pat, how he wrote 40% of Phantom Access.obj or how he is simply
the greatest hacker and programmer ever. As well as contributing to the
Lord Digital Project this is simply an expresssion of some kid's pathetic
need to tell everyone that he exists before he stops calling boards
forever.
Conclusion
I have essentially outlined the major elements in Pat's little game
with the modem world. You can believe me or not as you wish. I've told
the truth, I've no reason to lie. Perhaps you can't understand why someone
would do all this, so let me try and put it in perspective for you. Have
you ever thought about what it would be like if you could live forever and
be at "the right place at the right time" at crucial points in history?
You could change the history of the entire world. Pat saw a new world
beginning to take form in which he could in a matter of years see the
direct effects of his presence. Since a modem generation is only about 6
monthes, in 7 years Pat has witnessed the equivalent of about 450 years of
human development. Of course you can't take the analogy too far as the
modem world doesn't directly relate to the real world, however it is
sufficent to show my point.
Lord Digital is in fact not a millonaire genius and super-hacker. He
is just a bored 19 year-old still dependent on his father. If you think my
version of the facts seems unlikely, well then I also sell subscriptions to
the National Enquirer(not to be confused with the National Enlightener) so
I don't mind too much.
Some People to Mention:
The Plague(Yuri): Yuri is an old friend of Pat's who is also an excellent
programmer. He wrote about 40% of Phantom Access, and did a lot of the
design. Most of his computer involvment now is writing Apple and Amiga
software that he never gives to anyone. The last thing he did was design
and code an advanced multi-tasking environment for the ][GS which was
ProDos compatible. He decided not to market it because a) at only 2.8 mhz
it's a little slow, so until the GS is at least 8mhz it wouldn't worth it
and b) he doesn't want the GS to have an advantage over the Amiga. Before
that he wrote an intelligent terminal for the // series. It's sort of like
and interactive AE which can log on and get mail, messages, do transfers,
etc at set times. He is a genius with a reported IQ of 167. I've never
met him but he's been described at pretty pathetic looking.
Dead Lord(Bruce): I already mentioned Bruce in connection to his files, but
I will also tell you a little about what I know of him from meeting him
personally at Tap meetings(now 2600 meetings). Most people in the pirate
world that know Dead Lord hate him. Bruce logs onto boards and then using
logical arguements (he is debator at school and a genius, some say even
smarter than Pat) criticizes everything on the board. Since most of his
oppenents cling to some nonsense or other of pirate's honor and ideals they
are never to good at arguing back. Some even agree with him as most do in
regard to his Elite File II and the Doc. This "ragging" was always Dead
Lord's form of modem fun as was Jack's crashing, Pat's bullshiting, New
wares kid's games, etc. He no longer enjoys this avenue of pleasure
however because, in his word's: "At a certain point I realized the even if
the pirates are idiots, going around telling them this is just the other
side of the coin. It's doing exactly what they do by pretending not to.
Besides I have more important things to think of now." Over the 2 to 3
years I've known him he's transformed from a pudgy nervous kid who got a
kind of childish glee out of playing devil's advocate, in the real world as
well as the modem, to a normal person who's enjoyable to be around and
doesn't take anything too seriously. His big "Splash" before leaving the
modem world is worth mentioning for the sake of humor. He managed to
convince 100+ NYC Cat-fur/AE users that the modem world nationwide was
ruled by an evil group of tyrants who ran the "Tele-Trial Network." He
explained to them that they had not been noticed by the tyrants yet because
they were local, then proceeded to contact several of them in the guise of
LOD/H members and put them on tele-trial. He went on like this for a while
even getting some of the users to join a "Rebel Alliance" to "make the
Modem World democratic again, as it was in the days of President Hot Rod."
He finally just told them all the truth and stopped calling the 3 or 4
systems he'd been running his little circus on.
Seth: Seth was a friend of Bruce's for the past 2 or so year's who never
had a handle. He had a hand in all of Bruce's modem activities, sometimes
running the show. He is also very smart and has an extremely funny sense
of satire which he ceaselessly applied to the modem world and all it's
nonsense. If he ever wrote any of the stuff he said down it woud be
funnier than any of the rag files so far, but this will never happen as he
just doesn't care.
Chesire Catalyst(Richard Osband): Whatever "legend" has told you, Chesire
is an idiot. He claims to have left NYC for Florida, however this was
found out to be simply an attempt to get a NYC hacker named Fiber Optic to
stop hacking his answering machine. He is a "Microcomputer Consultant"
which means that he helps pathetic IBM users get Lotus running. The last
was heard of him he was involved in some United Nations BBS called Uni-tech
or "Uni-you know what running on Fido-you know what" as in his intelligent
secret code on the answering machine. Ozzie is doing no one any good at
this point and hopefully some bitter Tap subscriber will put him out of his
misery one of these days, that's about all one can hope for for him.
The Doc(Glenn): Another idiot. He compared his own disk to Nat'l
Enlightener because both had buffers of the "elites." The major difference
however was that while Nat'l Enlightener's attitude was "these so-called
elites are a bunch of morons", The Doc's attitude was essentially "aren't
the elite just great?" Dead Lord has already written a lengthly response
to The Doc's disk and it all makes a lot of sense. The Doc has a serious
attitude problem that being "I am better and smarter than most people and
those who I chose to allow on my board are likewise superior." His current
new user message reads like an application to Harvard, talks of great
ideals and meaning for the pirate world, and then proceeds to ask the user
his latest wares. In other words he is running a normal run of the mill
pirate board, but it suits his ego to pretend that it's somehow special.
This attitude has continued for almost seven years. It's one thing for
someone to get caught up in eliteness as a new users and young person, but
to keep it up for seven years!? A normal, well-adjusted person does not
behave in this manner, however The Doc and his friends do. Perhaps shared
social problems are what makes elites special in common?
The Triton(Eddie): Eddie gets mentioned as an idiot not just for buying
wares for the Digital gangs, thus starting the euphemism "thanks to:" which
as we now know means "bought by:" but by writing a particularly idiotic
file. His file about being called on a confrence brought tears to my eyes
it was so stupid. Eddie labors under similar delusions as The Doc that he
maintaining some standard and order to piracy as if it were some sort of
honor. I shouldn't need to explain why this is idiotic, piracy is petty
thievery, nothing more. This isn't to say that the people Eddie was
dealing with were somehow intelligent, The Martyr's file was equally as
dumb.
Touch Tone(Bart): The third member of what Dead Lord and Seth call "The
Three Titan's of Piracy"(Glenn, Eddie and Bart). Just as the titan Atlas
held the earth upon his shoulders, the Three Titan's of Piracy hold the
pirate world from collapse. Bart goes beyond just having the same foolish
attidudes towards the signifigance of the pirate world and his place in it
as Glenn and Eddie. He is in fact stupid in his own unique and creative
way. Bart likes to threaten people on the phone. He calls up users as far
away as Boston(he being in NYC) and threatens physical violence against
them, never forgetting to menton his guns and other assorted weapons. Bart
has never to my knowledge ever carried out a threat, even to those nearby
him. He has however managed to get on the tape of at least one person he
threatened, who turned the tape of the threat over to the police. This
means that if Bart ever did hurt anyone, there's evidence sitting in police
files ready to put him away. This is all irrelevant anyway because if Bart
were as tough as he claimed he wouldn't need a modem reputation for
self-esteem.
THE END
Thanks to:
The Three Titans of Piracy:
_________________________
| _|
| |_
| |
| ____ |
| / \ |
| \____/ |
| __ |
| | | |
| / / \| / |
| /O_/ \O/| ___O |
|___//______|.|___/__//___|
|\ / \ //__
|_\_ _/ \_ __| \_
Bart, Eddie & Glenn
Touch Tone, The Triton & The Doc
and to:
Dead Lord for being a member of:
(>CEO<) - Chief Executive Officers
KBD - Klaus Barbie Dolls *ELITE*
+PRE+ - Pointless Ragging Elite
+TIE+ - Tap.Interviews Elite
NYCCG - New York Copy-A Recracking Guild
TAP/H
GOD/H
TUC/H
US - All those who are not Celtic Phrost
LA - Lord's Anonymous (members: Dead Lord, Lord Digital, Lord Brittish)
[Circle of Dung!]
[Legion of Broom/Shroom]
LORG/HORG
Special thanks (file bought by!): Little Brown Koko
and thanks to:
Lord Digital for fooling everyone
Those who when added up, have completed approximately 240% of Phantom
Access between their various claims
Everyone stupid enough to be a part of the pirate/phreak world
Porsche and other high-performance car makers for giving Jack something to
feel superior about
Sweden for giving Jack an excuse to put down Americans
Incognito for being too stupid to learn the first time
The Boy! for cracking all the ware(note: singular)!