The Phone Masters
Unplugged! The biggest hack in history
Max Vision begins 18-month term
"Lindsly and Cantrell are the major ringleaders in a computer hacker organization, known as the "Phone Masters," whose ultimate goal was to own the telecommunications infrastructure from coast-to-coast."
"An October Wall Street Journal report on the 1995 Dallas "Phone Masters" case included a casual paragraph-eight disclosure that the three hackers involved "had access to portions of the national power grid," but no such charges were filed against the defendants..."
"Most recently, in 1999 federal officials won guilty pleas from three members of a nationwide hacker group they dubbed "The Phone Masters.""
"First,
Coggins won convictions against a group of hackers called the "Phone
Masters." This band of hackers committed the deepest penetration of
infrastructure in U.S. history including the White House telephone
network."
"Phone
Masters is the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s name for what’s
thought to be an 11-member gang responsible for — among other things —
breaking into and stealing customer information from several well known
local and long-distance phone companies leading credit-reporting firms;
and even the FBI’s own National Crime Information Center. It even
succeeded in accessing parts of the nation’s power grid and air-traffic
control systems, according to federal court documents and press accounts
of the case."
"Oh we've had cases, we had one group
called
the
Phone Masters which were investigated by the FBI's Dallas division
which was a group of hackers who stole uh telephone calling card
information and then re-sold those calling card numbers through a chain
of intermediaries internationally. Some of those numbers ended up in the
hands of what we would traditionally consider organized crime in Europe,
in Italy in particular."