`RING' seemed harmless enough. It might ring one of the numbers in the range after another—a process he could stop. He typed the command in. Nothing happened. Then a few full stops began to slowly spread across his screen:
. . . . . . .
RUNG
The system had just rung all 1000 numbers at the same time. One thousand phones ringing all at once.
What if some buttoned-down Telecom engineer had driven to work early that morning to get some work done? What if he had just settled down at his standard-issue metal Telecom desk with a cup of bad instant coffee in a styrofoam cup when suddenly … every telephone in the skyscraper had rung out simultaneously? How suspicious would that look? Mendax thought it was time to high-tail it out of there.
On his way out, he disabled the logs for the modem line he came in on. That way, no-one would be able to see what he had been up to. In fact, he hoped no-one would know that anyone had even used the dial-up line at all.
Prime Suspect didn't think there was anything wrong with exploring the NorTel computer system. Many computer sites posted warnings in the login screen about it being illegal to break into the system, but the eighteen-year-old didn't consider himself an intruder. In Prime Suspect's eyes, `intruder' suggested someone with ill intent—perhaps someone planning to do damage to the system—and he certainly had no ill intent. He was just a visitor.
Mendax logged into the NMELH1 system by using the account Prime Suspect had given him, and immediately looked around to see who else was on-line. Prime Suspect and about nine other people, only three of whom were actually doing something at their terminal.
Prime Suspect and Mendax raced to get root on the system. The IS hackers may not have been the type to brag about their conquests in the underground, but each still had a competitive streak when it came to see who could get control over the system first. There was no ill will, just a little friendly competition between mates.
Mendax poked around and realised the root directory, which contained the password file, was effectively world writable. This was good news, and with some quick manipulation he would be able to insert something into the root directory. On a more secure system, unprivileged users would not be able to do that. Mendax could also copy things from the directory on this site, and change the names of subdirectories within the main root directory. All these permissions were important, for they would enable him to create a Trojan.