81urgent FBI teletype message: FBI file 65-HQ-68169, serial 10, May 8, 1963
81remarkably evenhanded: FBI file 65-HQ-68169, serial 9, May 5, 1963
83solved one final mystery: The story of Pyne, Lauck, Ross, and Heckel was told, minus their names, on the front page of the Boston Herald in 1966. Indeed, this was the story that Jake Locke discovered, as discussed in chapter 1. Three of the four went on to be featured in a photograph in Fortune magazine a bit later that same year: “AT&T thought it had an unbeatable system for billing its long-distance phone customers—until a group of college students turned up who cracked it: Charles Pyne, 22, a Harvard engineering senior, Tony Lauck, 22, a ’65 Harvard graduate who now programs computers for the Smithsonian Astrophysical Laboratory, and Paul Heckel, 25, MIT ’63 and now a systems analyst for G.E. With two other friends, they painstakingly worked out ways calling free to any phone in the US—and some in Europe—first by tracking down the codes they reached internal phone company operators, and later with a home built ‘blue box’ that rang numbers electronically. They were interested in displaying their analytical prowess, not in bilking the phone company. ‘Anything that man can devise can be undevised,’ is the way Heckel explains the principle that guided them. ‘The undevising is a challenge.’” See Ron Kessler, “Student Dialers Play Their Way to Global Phone Calls, Non-Pay,” Boston Herald, May 27, 1966, p. 1
Chapter 7: Headache
85more than $1.4 billion: AT&T Long Lines Department, Our Company and How It Operates, 1960, p. 98. The $1.4 billion figure represents the difference between AT&T Long Lines plant investment between 1940 and 1960—a low estimate, since it includes depreciation but does not include any investment by Bell Laboratories, Western Electric, or the Bell operating companies.
86“brilliant but disturbed teenager”: UPI, “Lonely Boy Devises Way of Placing Free Long Distance Calls,” Milwaukee Journal, July 17, 1963, p. 1.
86Hoyt Stearns, John Treichler: For more information on these two see http://explodingthephone.com/extras/stearns and http://explodingthephone.com/extras/treichler.
86Louis MacKenzie: Obituary of Louis G. MacKenzie, Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, vol. 23, no. 4, May 1975, p. 352.
86Los Angeles International Airport: Nagy Khattar (president of MacKenzie Laboratories), author interview, 2007. According to Khattar, the voice used for the Los Angeles International Airport recordings belonged to Addison Taylor, MacKenzie Laboratories’ then head of sales. Taylor and his wife were also the voice talent used in the spoof of the recordings in Airplane!
87Sensing a business opportunity: Robert LaFond Sr. (an employee of MacKenzie Labs who was arrested with Louis MacKenzie in 1965), author interview, 2007. See also “Engineers Pay Toll for Phone ‘Business,’” Los Angeles Times, April 9, 1966, p. SG10
87the mob: Ken Hopper, author interview, 2006. Sometime in the 1960s a security consultant to AT&T named Alan Tritter showed the attaché case blue box to Charlie Pyne, Tony Lauck, and Ed Ross, the telephone hackers from Harvard back in 1963. One of the Harvard trio remarked that it was much larger than it needed to be, in fact, that the blue box they had built with Paul Heckel at MIT was much smaller. True, allowed Tritter. But wasn’t it much more impressive this way? If your goal was to sell expensive stuff to the mob and get them to pay top dollar for it, Tritter asked, wasn’t this clever packaging? Sadly, the truth appears to be more mundane. In a 2008 email interview, one of the people who had a hand in making these boxes said that they were designed and built around 1962 by a group of five telephone enthusiasts who worked at a navy research lab in Pasadena, California. They were made simply for their own edification, he said, and there was no mob involvement.
88“Slash Communication Costs with TELA-TONE”: Memorandum to Mr. Lesher and Mr. Ohlbaum of the Federal Communications Commission from Donald F. Clark, attorney, AT&T, April 27, 1965 (“the Clark memo”). The Clark memo is Exhibit B of a Memorandum for the Commission from Henry Geller, general counsel, and Bernard Strassburg, chief, Common Carrier Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, May 14, 1965 (“the Geller memo”)
88“TOLL Free Distance Dialing”: Classified ad, Popular Electronics, January 1964, p. 115
88“The advertiser has admitted”: Clark memo, p. 6.
89covered mail fraud: Two laws protected the U.S. Post Office against fraud: 18 USC 1720 and 18 USC 1722, both of which were passed by Congress after the mail fraud statute (18 USC 1341) was enacted. If 1341 protected the post office from fraud, why did Congress need to add 1720 and 1722? And if 1341 did not protect the post office from fraud, and since 1343 was almost identical in language to 1341, then 1343 must not protect the phone company. As Nathanial Kossack (the Justice Department lawyer who helped write section 1343) forecast, these arguments would indeed be brought up in blue box cases a few years later. See, e.g., Brief for Appellants, Kenneth Herbert Hanna and Nathan Modell, appellants, v. United States of America, Appellee, Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, June 22, 1967, p. 19
90organized crime: Geller memo, p. 2.
90two-hundred-word run-on sentence: “Proposed Statute Proscribing the Fraudulent Obtaining of Telecommunication Service,” Exhibit A to the Geller memo.
90“A criminal sanction is needed”: Clark memo, p. 5.
90“too broad a sweep”: Geller memo, p. 2.
90“collection agency”: Ibid.
91quarter of a billion to a billion: Bill Caming, author interview, 2007. Testimony of H. W. William Caming in “Surveillance: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Courts, Civil Liberties, and the Administration of Justice of the Committee on the Judiciary of the United States House of Representatives,” February 2, 1975, p. 220
91“no assurance at all”: Ibid.
91“You guys created this mess!”: Hopper, author interview, 2006.
92blank check: Ibid.
92stamped with a star, dress uniform hat: Ibid.
92began in 1962: “ALEX Archive Item Report, Item Number FIL-0115-021922,” AT&T Archives, Warren, New Jersey. This is a summary sheet to the AT&T Archives file on Project Greenstar development. Unfortunately, the file itself could not be located, but the summary sheet indicates the creation date of the file as June 26, 1962.
92“We devised six experimental units”: Caming, “Surveillance,” p. 220.
93connected to a hundred outgoing long-distance trunk lines: More details: each Greenstar unit was made up of five subunits, each capable of monitoring twenty trunk lines. Each subunit had one tape recorder, which is why a total of five lines could be monitored simultaneously. See ibid., p. 225, and Louis J. Rose, “Bell Secretly Monitored Millions of Toll Calls,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, February 21, 1975
93As Caming described it: Caming, “Surveillance,” pp. 220–21.
94“If Greenstar judged”: Black box calls were initially recorded for ninety seconds, but this was reduced to sixty seconds in “late 1966 or early 1967.” Recording of blue box calls eventually was limited to five minutes. See ibid., p. 221.
9433 million, between 1.5 and 1.8 million: Ibid., p. 228.
94“We had to have statistics”: Ibid., p. 220.
94“25,000 cases of known illegality”, “350,000 fraudulent c
alls”: Ibid., p. 222.
95“It was immediately recognized”: Ibid., p. 210.
95“Genghis Khan”: Ibid., p. 218.
95“decline to prosecute”: Rose, “Bell Secretly Monitored Millions of Toll Calls.”
96“Change the name”: During my interviews with Bill Caming I often used the term Greenstar in our discussions. Ever the AT&T attorney, he would periodically correct me: “No, that’s not its name. That was an internal code name that we stopped using.” Sometime later I visited the AT&T Archives in Warren, New Jersey, which maintains a computerized index of old Bell System files. I typed in “Greenstar” and watched the display light up like a Christmas tree as it found relevant documents. When I mentioned this to Caming a few days later, he gave a rueful laugh and responded, “Well, I guess you can’t keep a good name down.”
96two parts to Caming’s reasoning: Before 1968, the federal wiretapping law was Section 605 of Title 18 of the United States Code. It was a strangely written law. As discussed in the next chapter, section 605 did not make wiretapping (“interception”) itself illegal. Rather, to commit a crime under 605 you had to both intercept a communication and then disclose the contents of the communication to someone else. Clearly when Greenstar recorded a call and a human listened to it, there was an interception, but because the trained operator listening to the tapes never discussed the contents of the communication (just the signaling of the call itself), there was no disclosure, and thus, AT&T asserted, no crime. In 1968 the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act became the new law that governed wiretapping—but that law had specific carve outs for random monitoring and interception of communications by telephone company personnel attempting to protect the assets of the telephone company.
96“imprimatur”: Caming, “Surveillance,” pp. 243–44.
96Congressional Research Service: Ibid., p. 234.
97“Lonely Boy”: “Lonely Boy Devises Way of Placing Free Long Distance Calls.”
Chapter 8: Blue Box Bookies
Much of the background material on bookies, organized crime, gambling, and the FBI’s prosecution efforts of same comes from author interviews conducted in 2007 with former FBI special agents Edwin J. Sharp and Warren Welsh and former U.S. attorney Bill Earle, as well as FBI files.
98“Hit the door”: Description of Special Agents Heist and Roussell’s entry into Hanna’s apartment from United States v. Hanna, District Court of the United States for the Southern District of Florida, Transcript of Proceedings on Motion to Suppress, September 12, 1966, pp. 62–85
99the line: The description of “the line” given here is for point-spread betting, common among bookmakers and gamblers for sports betting in the 1960s. Today “the line” may also refer to the money line, which is a different way of expressing odds. See Richard O. Davies and Richard G. Abram, Betting the Line: Sports Wagering in American Life (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2001), pp. 53–57, and Gregory Curtis, “The Wizard of Odds,” Texas Monthly, December 1973, pp. 78–83.
100$20 billion: “The Conglomerate of Crime,” Time, August 22, 1969
100“it ends up feeding something else”: Warren Welsh, author interview, 2007.
100“bankrollers and kingpins”: “Robert Kennedy Urges New Laws to Fight Rackets,” New York Times, April 7, 1961, p. 1; Robert H. Boyle, “The Bookies Close Up Shop,” Sports Illustrated, September 3, 1962
101$250,000 of bets: “Crime: No. 11 Off the Boards,” Time, March 2, 1970
101“Beckley lived”, twenty thousand cards’ worth: FBI file 165-HQ-1999
101cheese boxes: “‘Cheesebox,’ Remote Control Phone Device, Leads to Raid on Bookmaking Headquarters,” New York Times, November 18, 1950, p. 32
102empty apartment with a pair of telephone lines: Gambling and Organized Crime: Hearings Before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Government Operations of the United States Senate, 75th Congress, first session, part 1, August 22, 23, 24, and 25, 1961, pp. 242–99
102bribing telephone company operators and technicians: Some examples: “U.S. Jury Indicts 13 in Betting Ring,” New York Times, June 28, 1961, p. 20
102bogus credit card numbers: “Bookmaking Raids Staged in 9 Cities,” New York Times, January 9, 1966
102legitimate telephone credit cards: FBI file 92-HQ-3051, serials 53 and 54, September 6, 1960, p. 19
102Walter Shaw: “Gambling and Organized Crime,” pp. 242–99.
103 “some type of instrument”, “surprising decrease”: FBI file 92-HQ-3051, serial 54, page C, September 15, 1960
103arrested in Miami: UPI, “Inventor Seized as Telephone Cheater,” New York Times, March 31, 1961, p. 28; see also, “Gambling and Organized Crime.”
104MacKenzie: United States v. McCay, Brandon, Gautreaux, and Danford, No. 66-76 Criminal, United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, Transcript of Proceedings, August 8, 1966, pp. 128–35
104“using devices”: FBI file 165-BS-532, serial 1, August 2, 1965
104targeting bookies and organized crime: 18 USC 1084, introduced in 1961.
104“indicated their desire”: FBI file 165-BS-532.
105The caller told Doyle: Testimony of Gerard J. Doyle in United States v. Hanna, pp. 4–49.
105connect Hanna with TARCASE: FBI file 165-BS-532, serial 8, September 1, 1965
107dash for the bathroom: United States v. Hanna and Modell, 66-69-CR, Opinion on Motion to Suppress Evidence, 260 F. Supp 430, September 26, 1966
107raids in other cities: “Bookmaking Raids Staged in Nine Cities.”
107“used a chauffeur-driven Cadillac”: AP, “FBI Says It Broke Up Bookie Ring in Nine Cities,” Lowell Sunday Sun, January 9, 1966, p. 38.
107“most successful”: FBI file 92-HQ-3625, serial 293, January 8, 1966.
108all of Bubis’s calls: United States v. Bubis, Loman, and Beckley, No. 36270-CD, United States District Court, Southern District of California, Central Division, Complaint for Violation of U.S.C. Title 18 Section 1084, Affidavit of Charles Bitner, May 24, 1966
108“crippling blow”: FBI file 166-HQ-1765, serial 82, May 25, 1966
108mob attorney Ben Cohen: See, for example, Paul Jewett, The Mob and the Flock: Memories of a Twentieth Century Shepherd (Maitland, FL: Xulon Press, 2010), pp. 132–33; Stuart B. McIver, Touched by the Sun: The Florida Chr0nicles, Volume 3 (Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 2001), pp. 80–87; and U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Interim Report on Investigations in Florida and Preliminary General Conclusions, August 18, 1950 (the Kefauver Committee).
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br /> 108$40 million: Charles L. Fontenay, Estes Kefauver: A Biography (Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1980), p. 173; Steven Gaines, Fools Paradise: Players, Poseurs, and the Culture of Excess in South Beach (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009), p. 45.
108balding head, etc.: Cohen description from Fred Othman, “Good Boys Now,” Pittsburgh Press, August 30, 1951, quoted in FBI file 63-HQ-7046, serial 23
109“We submit”: United States v. Hanna, p. 89.
110“Now, there is no omnipotence”: Ibid., pp. 90–92.
110“[W]hat is the telephone company to do with it?”: Ibid., p. 96.
111willfully: United States v. Loman, Bubis, and Beckley, pp. 9–11.
111Hanna and Modell were both convicted: Amusingly, Hanna’s attorneys argued that Hanna did not have a “blue box” because the box he had was “black with red buttons.” The court was not persuaded: “It is evident that the term ‘blue box’ is nominative rather than descriptive, that is, it is the term by which the device is commonly known and, except by accident, has no reference to its actual color. [. . .] Implicit in this is the fact that whether blue, black with red buttons, red with black buttons, umber or indigo, the device is still called a ‘blue box.’” United States v. Hanna and Modell.
112“While we realize”: Alvin Bubis, Appellant, v. United States of America, Appellee, United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit, 384 F.2d 643, October 20, 1967
112“Congress may have thought”: Hanna and Modell, Appellants, v. United States, Appellee, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, 393 F.2d 700, March 5, 1968
113petitioned for a rehearing: Hanna and Modell, Appellants, v. United States, Appellee, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Petition for Rehearing En Banc, March 26, 1968.
113Within the past few years: Hanna and Modell, Appellants, v. United States, Appellee, United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Brief of American Telephone and Telegraph as Amicus Curiae, May 7, 1968
Exploding the Phone : The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell (9780802193759) Page 39