The American Connection

himself, the prosecution would argue that his generous distribu- tion of them had led to serious financial losses. And that was just the financial institutions.

Much more worrying was what might come out about Par's visits to TRW's computers. The Secret Service had seized at least one disk with TRW material on it.

TRW was a large, diverse company, with assets of $2.1 billion and sales of almost $7 billion in 1989, nearly half of which came from the US government. It employed more than 73 000 people, many of who worked with the company's credit ratings business. TRW's vast databases held private details of millions of people - addresses, phone numbers, financial data.

That, however, was just one of the company's many busi- nesses. TRW also did defence work - very secret defence work. Its Space and Defense division, based in Redondo Beach, California, was widely believed to be a major beneficiary of the Reagan Government's Star Wars budget. More than 10 per cent of the company's employees worked in this division, designing spacecraft systems, communications systems, satel- lites and other, unspecified, space 'instruments'.

The seized disk had some mail from the company's TRWMAIL systems. It wasn't particularly sensitive, mostly just company propaganda sent to employees, but the Secret Service might think that where there was smoke, there was bound to be fire. TRW did the kind of work that makes governments very nervous when it comes to unauthorised access. And Par had visited certain TRW machines; he knew that company had a missiles research section, and even a space weapons section.

With so many people out to get him - Citibank, the Secret Service, the local police, even his own mother had helped the other side - it was only a matter of time before they unearthed the really secret things he had seen while hacking. Par began to wonder if it was such a good idea for him to stay around for the trial.

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