Par called her on the telephone and gave her his special present. When he told her the password to her new account, Theorem laughed. She thought it was sweet.
And so did the MOD boys.
Masters of Deception, or Destruction—it depended on who told the story—was a New York-based gang of hackers. They thought it would be cool to hack Altos. It wasn't that easy to get Altos shell access, which Theorem had, and most people had to settle for using one of the `guest' accounts. But it was much easier to hack Altos from a shell account than from a `guest' account. Theorem's account would be the targeted jump-off point.
How did MOD get Theorem's Altos password? Most probably they were watching one of the X.25 gateways she used as she passed through Tymnet on her way to Altos. Maybe the MOD boys sniffed her password en route. Or maybe they were watching the Tymnet security officials who were watching that gateway.
In the end it didn't matter how MOD got Theorem's password on Altos. What mattered was that they changed her password. When Theorem couldn't get into Altos she was beside herself. She felt like a junkie going cold turkey. It was too much. And of course she couldn't reach Par. Because he was on the run, she had to wait for him to call her. In fact she couldn't reach any of her other friends on Altos to ask for help. How was she going to find them? They were all hackers. They chose handles so no-one would know their real names.
What Theorem didn't know was that, not only had she lost access to Altos, but the MOD boys were using her account to hack the Altos system. To the outside world it appeared as though she was doing it.
Theorem finally managed to get a third-hand message to Gandalf, a well-known British hacker. She sought him out for two reasons. First, he was a good friend and was therefore likely to help her out. Second, Gandalf had root access on Altos, which meant he could give her a new password or account.
Gandalf had established quite a reputation for himself in the computer underground through the hacking group 8lgm—The Eight-Legged Groove Machine, named after a British band. He and his friend, fellow British hacker Pad, had the best four legs in the chorus line. They were a world-class act, and certainly some of the best talent to come out of the British hacking scene. But Gandalf and, to a lesser extent, Pad had also developed a reputation for being arrogant. They rubbed some of the American hackers the wrong way. Not that Pad and Gandalf seemed to care. Their attitude was: We're good. We know it. Bugger off.
Gandalf disabled Theorem's account on Altos. He couldn't very well just change the password and then send the new one through the extended grapevine that Theorem had used to get a message through to him. Clearly, someone had targeted her account specifically. No way was he going to broadcast a new password for her account throughout the underground. But the trouble was that neither Par nor Theorem knew what Gandalf had done.
Meanwhile, Par called Theorem and got an earful. An angry Par vowed to find out just who the hell had been messing with her account.