UNDERGROUND

‘I’ll go make sure it’s still OK. Back in a bit,’ Phoenix typed.

Phoenix jumped out of Altos and headed toward NASA. He telnetted into a NASA computer called CSAB at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. He had been in and out of NASA quite a few times and had recently made himself a root account on CSAB. First, he had to check the account was still alive, then he had to make sure the system adminis- trator wasn't logged in.

Whizzing past the official warning sign about unauthor- ised access in US government computers on the login screen, Phoenix typed in his user name and password.

It worked. He was in. And he had root privileges.

He quickly looked around on the system. The administrator was on-line. Damn.

Phoenix fled the NASA computer and sprinted back into Altos. Gandalf was there, along with the other two, waiting for him.

‘Well?’ Electron asked.

‘OK. All right. The NASA machine will work. It has anon FTP. And I still have root. We’ll use that.’

Gandalf jumped in. ‘Hang on – does it have Crypt?’

‘Argh! Forget to check. I think it must.’

‘Better check it, m8!’

‘Yeah, OK.’

Phoenix felt exasperated, rushing around trying to find sites that worked. He logged out of Altos and coursed his way back into the NASA machine. The admin was still logged on, but Phoenix was running out of time. He had to find out if the computer had Crypt on it. It did.

Phoenix rushed back to Altos. ‘Back again. We’re in business.’

‘Yes!’ Electron said, but he quickly jumped in with a word of warning. ‘Don’t say the exact machine at NASA or the account out loud. Whisper it to Gandalf. I think the ops are listening in on my connection.’