As a new onslaught of admirers appears, between the heads of the ones just processed, Bryan Hughes's gentle arm finds Tim's shoulder. ''The system's ready. Why don't you come try it?''
In the next room, Bryan has set up his VR gear. Tim is escorted past a long line of people patiently waiting for their first exposure to cyberspace, and he's fitted into the gear. Next to him and the computer stands a giant video projection of the image Tim is seeing through his goggles. I can't tell if he's blown away or just selling the product – or simply enjoying the fact that as long as he's plugged in he doesn't have to field any more of the givers and takers. As he navigates through the VR demo, the crowd oohs and ahhs his every decision. Let's get virtual with Tim! Tim nears the torus. People cheer. Tim goes into the torus. People scream. Tim screams. Tim dances and writhes like he's having an orgasm.
''This is sick,'' says Troy, one of my connections to the hacker underworld in the Bay Area, whom I had interviewed that afternoon. "We're going now. ...'' Troy had offered to let me come along with him and his friends on a real-life ''crack'' if I changed the names, burned the phone numbers, etc., to protect their anonymity.
Needles and PINs
Troy had me checked out that afternoon through the various networks, and I guess I came up clean enough, or dirty enough to pass the test. Troy and I hop into his van, where his friends await us. Simon and Jack, a cracker and a videographer respectively, are students at a liberal arts college in the city. (Troy had dropped out of college the second week and spent his education loan on army surplus computer equipment.)
Troy puts the key in the ignition but doesn't crank the engine. ''They want you to smoke a joint first.''
I really don't smoke pot anymore,'' I confess.
It proves you're not a cop,'' says Jack, whose scraggly beard and muscular build suddenly trigger visions of myself being hacked or even cracked to death. I take the roach from Simon, the youngest of the trio, who is clad in an avocado green polyester jumpsuit. With the first buzz of California sensemilla, I try to decide if his garb is an affectation for the occasion or legitimate new edge nerdiness. Then the van takes off out of the alley behind the club, and I switch on my pocket cassette recorder as the sounds of Tim Leary and Big Heart City fade in the night.
I'm stoned by the time we get to the bank. It's on a very nice street in Marin County. ''Bank machines in better neighborhoods don't have cameras in them,'' Jack tells me as we pull up.
Simon has gone over the scheme twice, but he won't let me tape his voice; and I'm too buzzed to remember what he's saying. (Plus, he's speaking about twice the rate of normal human beings – due in part to the speed he injected into his thigh.) What he's got in his hands now is a black plastic box about the size of two decks of cards with a slit going through it. Inside this box is the magnetic head from a tape deck, recalibrated somehow to read the digital information on the back of bank cards. Simon affixes some double-stick black tape to one side of the box, then slides open the panel door of the van and goes to the ATM machine. Troy explains to me how the thing works:
Simon's putting our card reader just over the slot where you normally put your card in. It's got a RAM chip that'll record the ID numbers of the cards as they're inserted. It's thin enough that the person's card will still hit the regular slot and get sucked into the machine.''
Won't people notice the thing?'' I ask.
People don't notice shit, anymore,'' says Jack, who is busy with his video equipment. "They're all hypnotized.''
How do you get their PIN number?'' I inquire.
Watch.'' Jack chuckles as he mounts a 300mm lens to his Ikegami camera. He patches some wires as Simon hops back into the van. "I'll need your seat.''
I switch places with Jack, who mounts his camera on a tiny tripod, then places it on the passenger seat of the van. Troy joins me in the back, and Jack takes the driver seat.
Switch on the set,'' orders Jack, as he plugs something into the cigarette lighter. A Sony monitor bleeps on, and Jack focuses in on the keypad of the ATM machine. Suddenly, it all makes sense.
It's a full forty minutes until the arrival of the first victim at the machine – a young woman in an Alpha Romeo. When she gets to the machine, all we can see in the monitor is her hair.
Shit!'' blurts Simon. "Move the van! Quick!''
We'll get the next one,'' Troy reassures calmly.
After a twenty-minute readjustment of our camera angle, during which at least a dozen potential PIN ''donors'' use the ATM, we're at last in a position to see the keypad, around the operators' hair, shoulders, and elbows. Of course, this means no one will show up for at least half an hour. The pot has worn off and we're all hungry.
A police car cruises by. Instinctively, we all duck. The camera sits conspicuously on the passenger seat. The cop doesn't even slow down.
A stream of ATM patrons finally passes through, and Troy dutifully records the PIN numbers of each. I don't think any of us likes having to actually see the victims. If they were merely magnetic files in a hacked system, it would be less uncomfortable. I mention this to Troy, and Simon tells me to shut up. We remain in silence until the flow of bankers thins to trickle, and finally dies away completely. It is about 1:00 a.m. As Simon retrieves his hardware from the ATM, Troy finally acknowledges my question.
This way we know who to take from and who not to. Like that Mexican couple. We won't do their account. They wouldn't even understand the withdrawal on their statement and they'd probably be scared to say anything about it to the bank. And a couple of hundred bucks makes a real difference to them. The guys in the Porsche? Fuck `em.''
We're back at Simon's by about two o'clock. He downloads his card reader's RAM chip into the PC. Numbers flash on the screen as Simon and Jack cross-reference PIN numbers with each card. Once they have a complete list, Simon pulls out a white plastic machine called a ''securotech'' or "magnelock'' or something like that. A Lake Tahoe hotel that went out of business last year sold it to a surplus electronic supply house, along with several hundred plastic cards with magnetic strips that were used as keys to the hotel's rooms. By punching numbers on the keypad of the machine, Simon can ''write'' the appropriate numbers to the cards.
Troy shows me a printout of information they got off a bulletin board last month; it details which number means what: a certain three numbers refer to the depositor's home bank, branch, account number, etc. Within two hours, we're sitting around a stack of counterfeit bank cards and a list of PIN numbers. Something compels me to break Troy's self-satisfied grin.
Which one belongs to the Mexican couple?''
The fourth one,'' he says with a smirk. "We won't use it.''
I thought it was the fifth one,'' I say in the most ingenuous tone I've got. "Couldn't it be the fifth one?''
Fine,'' Suddenly Troy grabs the fourth and fifth cards from the stack and throws them across the room. "Happy?''
I hold my replies to myself. These guys could be dangerous.
But no more dangerous or daring than exploits of Cyberia's many other denizens, with whom we all, by choice or necessity, are becoming much more intimate. We have just peered through the first window into Cyberia – the computer monitors, digital goggles, and automatic teller screens that provide instant access to the technosphere. But, as we'll soon see, Cyberia is made up of much more than information networks. It can also be accessed personally, socially, artistically, and, perhaps easiest of all, chemically.