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a 'test', Tom, ever helpful, also supplied his store's confidential CSA password.

Fry Guy keyed in the information on his home computer. 'I don't know what's going on,' he finally told Tom. 'I'll check around and call you back.'

But of course he never would. Fry Guy had all the information he needed: the account number and the password. They were the keys that would unlock the CSA computer for him. And if Tom ever phoned CSA and asked for Joe Boyle, he would find that no one at the credit bureau had ever heard of its erstwhile employee. There was no Joe Boyle; it was a name Fry Guy had made up.

Fry Guy had found that by sounding authoritative, most of the time people believed he was who he said he was. And most of the time people gave him the information he asked for, whether account codes or passwords or unlisted phone numbers. That was how he got the number for CSA, by calling the local telephone company's operations section.

'Hi, this is Bob Johnson, Indiana Bell tech support,' he had said.
'Listen, I need you to pull a file for me. Can you bring it up on your
screen?'

The girl on the other end of the phone sounded uncertain. Fry Guy forged ahead, coaxing her through the routine: 'Right, on your keyboard, write K-P pulse . . . Got that? OK, now do I-2-1 start, no M-A . . . OK?

'Yeah? Can you read me the file? I need the number there . . . '

It was a matter of confidence, and knowing the jargon. The procedure Fry Guy had described accessed unlisted numbers. Because he knew the routine, the girl in operations presumed he was who he claimed to be. He read him the CSA number, a number that is confidential; certainly it's not generally available to fifteen-year-old kids. Mostly, Fry Guy found, people just did what they were told, without querying him.

On the phone he could be anyone he wanted to be: a CSA employee, a telephone engineer . . . It was all a matter of sounding older, authoritative. He considered himself a master of the art. He had also taught himself to exploit the psychology of the person on the other end of the line. If they appeared confident, sure of them-

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