unknown intruder use a modem to worm his way into the computer in the Del Mar, Calif., beach house of computer expert Tsutomu Shimomura. The hacker “spoofs” his way past security locks on Shimomura’s networked database and makes off with hundreds of documents and software programs. Shimomura, according to The New York Times, later reconstructs the attack, and finds out that the hacker directed the assault from a remotely commandeered computer in Chicago.
administrators at the WELL, an Internet access provider and electronic community in Sausalito, Calif., notice that the directory of an inactive account has suddenly bloated to take up hundreds of millions of bytes of storage space on the company’s server. The account owner and WELL staff realized someone has broken into the WELL and stashed Shirnomura’s stolen files there.
surveillence team set up shop in the WELL’s tech room to monitor the activity of the intruder, Shimomura begins to recognize a pattem: the activity resembles that of Mitnick, a well-known hacker. The team moves to the San Jose, Calif., offices of Netcom Communications, the access provider the hacker is using to directly connect to the Internet. Puzzlingly, the modem calls seem to originate from three cities: Denver, Minneapolis and Raleigh, N.C.
telephone-company calling records with voluminous logs of the hacker’s Internet activity, govemment investigators and Shimomura zero in on a location: a GTE telephone switching office in Raleigh. Shimomura flies to North Carohna. He and a Sprint technician track Mitnick’s cellular modem activity by driving through the streets of Raleigh with a frequency-detecting antenna linked to a laptop computer, a high-tech search that yields Mitnick’s address at an apartment complex about three miles from the local airport. The government takes over and by 2 a.m. last Wednesday, FBI agents surround Mitnick’s apartment building. Mitnick surrenders.
charged with computer fraud and illegal use of telephone-access devices. He now awaits indictment in a North Carolina jail cell, allowed telephone calls only to his attorney, mother and grandmother. His calls are being monitored.
