UNDERGROUND

Somewhere in this transition, the Phreakers Five sprung to life. A group of five hackers-turned-phreakers gathered in an exclusive group on PI. Tales of their late-night podding adven- tures leaked into the other areas of the BBS and made would-be phreakers green with jealousy.

First, the phreakers would scout out a telephone pod – the grey steel, rounded box perched nondescriptly on most streets. Ideally, the chosen pod would be by a park or some other public area likely to be deserted at night. Pods directly in front of suburban houses were a bit risky – the house might contain a nosy little old lady with a penchant for calling the local police if anything looked suspicious. And what she would see, if she peered out from behind her lace curtains, was a small tornado of action.

One of the five would leap from the van and open the pod with a key begged, borrowed or stolen from a Telecom tech- nician. The keys seemed easy enough to obtain. The BBSes message boards were rife with gleeful tales of valuable Telecom equipment, such as 500 metres of cable or a pod key, procured off a visiting Telecom repairman either through legitimate means or in exchange for a six-pack of beer.

The designated phreaker would poke inside the pod until he found someone else’s phone line. He’d strip back the cable, whack on a pair of alligator clips and, if he wanted to make a voice call, run it to a linesman’s handset also borrowed, bought or stolen from Telecom. If he wanted to call another computer instead of talking voice, he would need to extend the phone line back to the phreakers' car. This is where the 500 metres of Telecom cable came in handy. A long cable meant the car, containing five anxious, whispering young men and a veritable junkyard of equipment, would not have to sit next to the pod for hours on end. That sort of scene might look a little suspicious to a local resident out walking his or her dog late one night.

The phreaker ran the cable down the street and, if possible, around the corner. He pulled it into the car and attached it to the waiting computer modem. At least one of the five was pro-