`Yeah,' Erik continued, `And then Markoff said, "Can you get me to talk to them?" And I said I'd see what I could do.'
`Yeah,' Phoenix said. `Go tell him, yes. Yeah, I gotta talk to this idiot. I'll set him straight.'
Page one, the New York Times, 21 March 1990: `Caller Says he Broke
Computers' Barriers to Taunt the Experts', by John Markoff.
True, the article was below the crease—on the bottom half of the page—but at least it was in column 1, the place a reader turns to first.
Phoenix was chuffed. He'd made the front page of the New York Times.
`The man identified himself only as an Australian named Dave,' the article said. Phoenix chuckled softly. Dave Lissek was the pseudonym he'd used. Of course, he wasn't the only one using the name Dave. When Erik first met the Australians on Altos, he marvelled at how they all called themselves Dave. I'm Dave, he's Dave, we're all Dave, they told him. It was just easier that way, they said.
The article revealed that `Dave' had attacked Spaf's and Stoll's machines, and that the Smithsonian Astronomical Observatory at Harvard University—where Stoll now worked—had pulled its computers off the Internet as a result of the break in. Markoff had even included the `egg on his face' story Phoenix had described to him.
Phoenix laughed at how well he had thumbed his nose at Cliffy Stoll. This article would show him up all right. It felt so good, seeing himself in print that way. He did that. That was him there in black in white, for all the world to see. He had outsmarted the world's best known hacker-catcher, and he had smeared the insult across the front page of the most prestigious newspaper in America.
And Markoff reported that he had been in Spaf's system too! Phoenix glowed happily. Better still, Markoff had quoted `Dave' on the subject: `The caller said … "It used to be the security guys chasing the hackers. Now it's the hackers chasing the security people."'
The article went on: `Among the institutions believed to have been penetrated by the intruder are the Los Alamos National Laboratories, Harvard, Digital Equipment Corporation, Boston University and the University of Texas.' Yes, that list sounded about right. Well, for the Australians as a group anyway. Even if Phoenix hadn't masterminded or even penetrated some of those himself, he was happy to take the credit in the Times.