's Houston branch-exchanges had been
systematically ripped off by a gang of phone-phreaks. But the NASA
guys had had their funding cut. They were stripping everything.

Air Force OSI, its Office of Special Investigations, is the ONLY
federal entity dedicated full-time to computer security. They'd been
expected to show up in force, but some of them had cancelled--a
Pentagon budget pinch.

As the empties piled up, the guys began joshing around and telling
war-stories. "These are cops," Thackeray said tolerantly. "If they're
not talking shop they talk about women and beer."

I heard the story about the guy who, asked for "a copy" of a computer
disk, PHOTOCOPIED THE LABEL ON IT. He put the floppy disk onto the
glass plate of a photocopier. The blast of static when the copier
worked completely erased all the real information on the disk.

Some other poor souls threw a whole bag of confiscated diskettes into
the squad-car trunk next to the police radio. The powerful radio
signal blasted them, too.

We heard a bit about Dave Geneson, the first computer prosecutor, a
mainframe-runner in Dade County, turned lawyer. Dave Geneson was one
guy who had hit the ground running, a signal virtue in making the
transition to computer-crime. It was generally agreed that it was
easier to learn the world of computers first, then police or
prosecutorial work. You could take certain computer people and train
'em to successful police work--but of course they had to have the COP
MENTALITY. They had to have street smarts. Patience. Persistence.
And discretion. You've got to make sure they're not hot-shots,
show-offs, "cowboys."

Most of the folks in the bar had backgrounds in military intelligence,
or drugs, or homicide. It was rudely opined that "military
intelligence" was a contradiction in terms, while even the grisly world
of homicide was considered cleaner than drug enforcement. One guy had
been 'way undercover doing dope-work in Europe for four years straight.
"I'm almost recovered now," he said deadpan, with the acid black humor
that is pure cop. "Hey, now I can say FUCKER without putting MOTHER in
front of it."

"In the cop world," another guy said earnestly, "everything is good and
bad, black and white. In the computer world everything is gray."

One guy--a founder of the FCIC, who'd been with the group since it was
just the Colluquy--described his own introduction to the field. He'd
been a Washington DC homi