1994 << Back To The X Files nº 16

\ / *------ the \ / / \ files ------* / \ Fall/1994 Issue: 16 The Bust of Mercury (aka merc) + other related busts Written 09Oct94 by Invalid Media This is the unofficial textfile describing how merc got busted. A litte background first - merc was the cosysop of Unphamiliar Territory (and ran the board on many occasions when I wasn't up to it), he was also a member of "the Posse" - a group which does not exist (its a figment of Len Rose's imagination). The source(s) for all of this information will not be disclosed and real handle's will not be used to protect many people. If I were speaking of The Dark Druid (for example) I might say Hacker A. Also please note that the source for this information is NOT merc -- he is refusing to talk to anyone at this point in time. I. How it all started Late August, merc was playing around with his lock-picking set and decided to go to a bar. He was standing outside of The Dirty Drummer when a cop strolled by. He was with non-Hacker A when this occurred. They both got questioned and promptly arrested. His truck was seized at this time. The morning of September 1st, merc's apartment was raided by many different groups which include (but not limited to) Secret Service, Federal Bureau of Investigations, IRS, Gail Thackeray (in person!). Merc was (allegedly) dealing with the following: a) Cellular telephony including engineering phones, making fraudlent calls via tumbling and cloning. b) Hacking and gaining complete control of many computer systems (you know, all those that the Posse are accused of hacking). Why was his apartment raided? Well, Gail Thackeray somehow found out about his B&E bust and decided to take action right away - plus she feared that he would go complete cellular and she would not be able to keep track of his activities. II. The following days Well we all knew about his B&E bust but didn't know anything else had happened. I was on irc a couple days after merc's bust and was /msg'd by Hacker B with something along the lines of: "what the hell is stuck up merc's ass? i called him and say hey and he just hung up on me" Not knowing anything other than the B&E bust, I just said that he was most likely paranoid about it and doesn't want to take any chances until things are completely cool again. Having known merc for years, I decided to give him a call since he obviously wouldn't hang up on one of his best friends. RING, RING, RING... "i can't talk to you anymore..." <CLICK> This is where I started getting really concerned. After repeated attempts at trying to call him and stopping over at his apartment (with little to no luck) I decided to give some other people a call. Turns out, that same day Neurosis was busted, Mind Rape was visited, and Richard Finch (a journalist who set us all up with an interview on KFYI radio and who organized many 2600 meetings in Arizona) was also busted. We called up Hacker C. He told us all he knew (and it was basically information we already knew with the following additions): a) merc was under investigation for at least a year b) a wiretap and/or datatap has been plaguing merc for at least an entire year. c) they took fingerprints at merc's apartment d) they didn't know much about Posse so they questioned him for hours on the subject III. Other related busts It seems that on September 1st a lot of people were busted. On Sept- ember 15th, a "security" user on my board, Keith Jensen of Sprint, posted the following message: --Begin UPT capture-- Subject: September 4th From: sprinter@gail.upt.org (Keith Jensen - SPRINT) Date: Thu, 15 Sep 94 16:42:25 PST Organization: (Newsgroup) alt.neutral September 4th at 4:09p, the Police, Secret Service and F.B.I. stormed into the offices of Sprint in New York, promptly arrested me and seized all the computer equiptment in my office. I was charged with hidering an investigation taking place in New Orleans into the escapades of Renegade, Dr. Demonsus, Wiseguy, and Revelation. I have never heard of these people so please tell anything you know about them. I was allegedly providing them with information they needed to gets into TransUnion and Information America through Sprintnet. According to them, I also helped them break into Government and Military systems to obtain more credit card information. They found a RS tone dialer in my office (which was not modified to make it a red box) and charged me with possession of a toll-fraud device. I have no idea what is going on. My office is still empty and raided and I have taken an involuntary month-long vacation from Sprint until this will clear up. Hopefully it will. They asked me a lot of information about The Posse, my connections with 8BBS, Modem over Miami, The Phoenix Project, and MOD. I used to call some of these boards many years ago but never did anything illegal through them and it was over 10 years since I've heard 8BBS brought up. A much pissed of Sprinter --End UPT Capture-- There were a lot of posts about Sprinter's bust as well as merc's. The following was posted by bobby0 on the general chit-chat forum: --Begin UPT Capture-- Subject: merc/etc From: bobby0@gail.upt.org (Bobby Zero - Normal User) Date: Sat, 17 Sep 94 10:16:15 PST Organization: (Newsgroup) alt.system.news Would merc/mr/etc getting busted have anything to do with what happenee er, happened to Sprinter? The timing seems pretty close. Read this in CU digest today: NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- "Dr. Demonicus," "Renegade" and four other hackers used computerz to steal credit card numbers and used them to buy $210,000 in gold coins and high-tech hardware, federal prosecuters said Wednesday (Sep 8, 1994) The nine-count indictment unsealed wednesday charged 5 men from Lousiana and one from New York with conspiracy, computer fraut, access device fraud, and wire fraud, US Attourney Eddie Jordan Jr. said. Some of their hacker nicknames as Dwayne "Dr. Demonicus" Comerger, 22; Brian Ursin, 21; John Christopher "Renegade" Montegut, 24; Timothy "Revelation" Thompson, 21; James McGee, 25; and Raymone "Wiseguy" Savage, 25, of Richmond Hills, N.Y. .. it doesn't mention phx at all, but I thought the timing was just kinda odd. --End UPT Capture-- At this point everyone is scared. A lot of hackers were busted and the main thing they all had in common was an interest in Cellular telephony. A week after Sprinter's post which set us all off, he posted the following: --Begin UPT Capture-- Subject: my bust From: sprinter@gail.upt.org (Keith Jensen - SPRINT) Date: Wed, 21 Sep 94 16:32:36 PST Organization: (Newsgroup) alt.neutral This morning I was promptly visited at my house with one of the arresting officers (Richard Dapesio) who apologized for the arrest and quickly brought me back all the seized equiptment. They even gave me a check for $75 to replace the tone dialer which they took apart and could never put back together again. I was told that the investigation was regarding only The Posse and many people were visited. They told me that they apprehended all of the people who they were going to already (on September 1st, my bust came on the 4th because it took them a couple more days than it should have to get the proper paperwork done). He said they got everyone they were looking for except a few who they can't find because they are mobile. The reason I was apprehended was because there was some information on my system that was placed there by the New Orleans hackers (who are in the Posse group he said) and they thought that I had given them access to my system and its databases, but that wasn't true. They got in through a backdoor I have yet to find. Its running BSD, so if anyone has BSD backdoors please let me know. Was this Operation Sundevil II? 46 hackers busted in one day. All those busted were involved in credit card fraud or (the biggest fear people have now) cellular phone fraud. People were using tumblers to make free phone calls from their cellular phones and that had to be quickly stopped. If you are involved in any way with the following things, I would recommend stopping them: Cellular phone fraud using tumblers or clones Credit card fraud especially from Novell, Microsoft, and other giant computer conglomerates. 46 hackers, 84 computers, hundreds of thousands of dollars in pirated software, and thousands of dollars in carding computer equiptment, software and cellular phones. --End UPT Capture-- Ouch. IV. Conclusion Between August 31st and September 4th, a lot of hackers were busted. The following is a list and reason (I'm just guessing) Hacker Date Status Reason ------ ---- ------ ------ merc 01Sep94 Bust Cellular, Posse involvement Neurosis 01Sep94 Bust Cellular, Making redboxes Mind Rape 01Sep94 Questioned ?? Richard Finch 0?Sep94 Bust 2600 We don't know the current status of merc but he was always a good hacker and friend and we wish him luck. Invalid Media upt@bud.indirect.com upt@cyberspace.org imedia@tdn.net -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Xenon Foundation (1994) X-Files Submissions to: erikt@arbornet.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------------