http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/12/blind-hacker-sa.html By Kevin Poulsen Wired.com December 03, 2007 The FBI is circling around a blind 17-year-old phone hacker in Boston suspected of being the brains behind a gang of phone phreaks who sent police SWAT teams bursting into the homes of party line foes. But the teen, known on the lines as "Li'l Hacker," says he actually helped the FBI bust the gang's ringleader, 40-year-old Stuart Rosoff, who he describes as an enemy. "I'm actually against those people," the teenager told THREAT LEVEL in a phone interview. "Mr. Rosoff and I are at odds ... He actually came after me and disconnected my phone service, but of course I had it turned back on instantly." Because he is a minor, and hasn't been charged with a crime, THREAT LEVEL is not reporting Li'l Hacker's real name. He's identified in court documents by the initials M.W. Blind from birth, Li'l Hacker admits to a deep and abiding interest in telecommunications from the age of eight. He can identify touch-tones by sound, commit vast amounts of information to memory in an instant, and he once ordered manuals for DMS and #5 ESS switching gear then paid a transcription service to convert them to Braille. But, contrary to the FBI's allegations in court documents, the teenager never helped Rosoff and other SWATters use a Caller ID spoofing service to phone in fake hostage reports to police, he claims, or use social engineering skills to obtain information on the gang's targets. "If I get charged, to be honest with you dude, I'm not going to hold anybody responsible for anything that I've done," he says. "I don't do SWATs, that's the thing." Stuart Rosoff of Cleveland, Ohio (left, in a 2004 mugshot) pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy last month in federal court in the Northern District of Texas. In his plea deal, he stipulated that he worked with Li'l Hacker to obtain "telephone numbers, pass phrases, employee identification numbers, and employee account information used by the conspirators by various means including through 'social engineering' or pretexting of telephone calls to telecommunications company employees, 'war dialing', trafficking in pass phrases and access information with other phone 'phreakers,' etc." Li'l Hacker, though, says he told the FBI all about Rosoff, and confessed co-conspirator Guadalupe Santana Martinez, when two agents interviewed him last year. "Not snitching, merely revenge," he says. The pair had targeted his mother, he says, phoning her up and threatening to call the Secret Service on the family. "She didn't know what was going on because she didn't know what I was involved in." In court documents, the FBI accuses Li'l Hacker of, in effect, hacking with his voice. He allegedly made more than 50 pretext phone calls to the Verizon Provisioning Center in Irving, Texas, "and obtained unauthorized access to the computers located there, and used the access to obtain telecommunications services including Caller I.D. blocking and call forwarding." He says he didn't do it. "I wouldn't do it directly if I was going to ... If I were to do that, hypothetically speaking." The FBI also says the teen has the ability to listen in on phone calls -- he declined to comment on that. He also allegedly gained access to the network operations center of Frontier Telecommunications in Rochester, New York, in October and November 2006. Li'l Hacker says he really just called a mysterious phone number somebody gave him in a chat room. "I made a mistake and dialed into a number, and apparently it was the NOC," he says. "I didn't log into anything ... I heard a tone, and said, 'What the hell is this?' And I just hung up." He says the dialup wasn't even a computer modem. He knows, because he can identify different types of modems by ear. " I know the songs." Li'l Hacker has some light perception, and he attends a local high school with sighted students, using a PAC Mate portable Braille display. He has not been charged with a crime, but he turns 18-years-old in April, and some of his friends are worried. Counting Rosoff, three people have pleaded guilty in the SWATting case: Martinez last April, and co-defendant Angela Roberson in October. All three have named Li'l Hacker as a co-conspirator. Two other defendants, Jason Trowbridge and Chad Ward, are set for trial in Texas this month. __________________________________________________________________ Visit InfoSec News http://www.infosecnews.org/
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