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Xenon Foundation 16
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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
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Xenon Foundation (1994) X-Files Submissions to: erikt@arbornet.org
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