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several different computer networks, a practice known as 'network weaving', so that each time the authorities traced the calls back they realized they had further to go – from one network to another, across the country, across the Atlantic.

Slowly, the calls were followed into Germany, down to the University of Bremen, across to Hannover, and eventually to Marcus Hess's address. Under pressure from the Americans, the German authorities arrested and questioned Hess in June 1987. The Germans had little to go on – the loss of 75 cents didn't appear to be an extraditable offence – but they decided none the less to tap his phone. Just in case.

While the police were watching Hess, the Illuminati were moving in on Steffen Wernery.

The saga began when Bach and Handel, the two student hackers who broke into the SCICON computer, decided to set up a hacker gang. The six-member team would be known as the VAXbusters.

The team used the back-door technique to get into VAX computers throughout Europe and North America. They travelled on SPAN, NASA's Space Physics Analysis Network, which links computers world-wide involved in physics research. From the ever-obliging Steffen Weihruch they were also able to get a copy of the 'trap' program, giving them legitimate identities on systems they hacked.

For ten months the team wandered through VAX sites with impunity. Unlike Koch and Pengo, the VAXbusters weren't spying; nor were they interested in damaging hacked computers. They were just tourists, browsing through the network, looking for sites of interest.

Despite their benign intent and their precautions, no hack is entirely undetectable. In July 1987 the curtain came down on the VAXbusters. Roy Omond, the particularly diligent manager of a VAX system in Heidelberg, discovered from a routine scrutiny of his security logs that he had been hacked. Even though the hackers had been using legitimate IDs, Omond guessed from the nocturnal timings that many of the entries in his visitors' book had not been posted by the authorized users. Furious, he mounted his own investigation. By sounding out various people he believed might be in contact with the

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