by Arlos » Fri Jan 19, 2007 5:43 pm
I was referring to the one from the 80s.
The singular modification the owner/sysop had made to his hard drive is directly related to why it disappeared so suddenly.
Basically, he had removed the external shell from his hard drive, and mounted above the platters 1 large iron spike, with just enough tensile strength in the supports to keep it from falling down under its own weight. Furthermore, he kept a large mallet by the computer 24x7. The purpose of this was very straightforward: As soon as he got that inevitable "*knock* *knock* Open up, this is the FBI" on his door, he would take the mallet, pound it down on the spike, driving it right through the spinning platters, causing them to completely disintegrate, rendering any data on them unretrievable, especially by the methods available at that time.
Later on, a friend of mine somehow got ahold of an independantly made modem designed for apple 2's, that had a special business-class feature: the ability to sync up directly to a WATS node. Using this feature, he could effectively dial into the WATS node, then redial out anywhere in the world from that node, effectively giving himself free long distance and making it impossible for him to get traced back, as any such queries would dead end at the WATS node. Eventually, all such nodes were upgraded to a new digital protocol, and his modem no longer worked to sync up with them, and he hung up his spurs.
As for me, I never did that much, just was on the periphery of the scene, though I was at one point offered the entirety of the LOD technical journals. Since I was getting old enough to get into REAL trouble if caught doing that, and the feds were gettin gmuch more draconian, I turned 'em down.
-Arlos