📸

selves, he would appeal to their magnanimity: 'I wonder if you can help me . . . ' If they appeared passive, unsure, he would be demanding: 'Look, I haven't got all day to wait around. I need that number now . . . '

If worst came to worst he could always hang up.

Of course, you had to know a lot about the phone system to convince an Indiana Bell employee you were an engineer. But that was Fry Guy's hobby. He had spent years exploring the telecommunications networks: Fry Guy knew a lot about the phone system.

Now he was going to put his knowledge to some use. From his little home computer he had dialled up CSA, the call going from his computer to the electronic box beside it, snaking through a cable to his phone, and from there carried through the wires by Indiana Bell to the unlisted number in Delaware. The CSA number accessed the credit bureau's central computer.

The electronic box converted Fry Guy's own computer commands to signals that can be transmitted by the phone network; over in Delaware, the CSA's computer converted those pulses back into computer commands. In essence, Fry Guy's little home computer was talking to its big brother across the continent. And soon Fry Guy would be able to make it do whatever he wanted.

What he wanted first was to get inside its system. He typed in the account number Tom had given him earlier and pressed return. The cursor blinked again. He typed in the password. There was a momentary pause. Then the screen filled with the CSA logo, followed by the directory of services — the 'menu'.

Fry Guy was on his own now. But he knew what he was doing. He was going to delve deep into the accounts section of the system, to the sector where CSA stored confidential information on individuals: their names, addresses, credit histories, bank loans, credit card numbers . . .

It was the credit card numbers he wanted. Fry Guy was about to make some money.

When Fry Guy was thirteen, in 1987, his parents had presented him with his first computer — a Commodore 64, one of the new, smaller machines designed for personal use. Fry Guy linked up the keyboard-

📸