I was reading the Air-Freight current issue of Rolling Stone this morning in Borders when I came across a fantastic article by David Kushner about a blind, overweight Boston kid who used his extraordinary mimicking skills to get access to the phone numbers and credit card information of celebrities, politicians and even FBI agents. Matthew Weigman's power grew to such an extent that he attracted a devoted band of acolytes who would do his bidding and anyone considered to be an enemy would either have their phone cut off or would find a SWAT team at their door come to arrest them for imaginary crimes. You can read the entire article here and you should, it's fascinating. A little snippet:By 14, Weigman was conning his way through AT&T and Verizon, tricking them into divulging insider information — like supervisor identification numbers and passwords — that gave him full run of the system. If he heard a supervisor's voice once, he could imitate it with eerie precision when calling one of the man's underlings. If he heard someone dialing a number, he could memorize the digits purely by tone. Once he called a phone company posing as a girl, saying he needed to verify the identity of a technician who was at "her" door. Convinced, the operator coughed up the technician's company ID number, direct phone line and supervisor — key information that Weigman could later put to nefarious use, like cutting off a rival's phone line.
There seemed to be no limit to what he could do: shut off your phone service, dig up your unlisted cellphone number, even listen in on your home phone — something only a handful of veteran phreaks can pull off. Celebrities were a favorite target. Weigman heard a YouTube video of Mitt Romney's son Matt dialing his dad. Weigman listened closely to the touch tones, deciphered the candidate's cellphone number — and then made a call of his own. "Mitt Romney!" he said. "What's going on, dude? Running for president?" Weigman says Romney told him to shove the phone up his ass, and hung up.
43 comments:
WO WO WEE WO!!! This is creepy. But also very heartbreaking reading about this sad, lonely, and abused kid.
The picture is from Full Metal Jacket, right? Works very well in this context.
The second Weigman called, a new world opened up to him. He heard voices. Some were talking to each other. Others piped in only occasionally, listening in as they watched TV or played video games. Weigman found he could decipher each and every ambient sound, no matter how soft or garbled. Many of the callers were social misfits and outcasts: ex-cons and bawdy chicks and unemployed guys with nothing better to do all day than talk shit to a bunch of complete strangers. People without a life. And that's when it hit Weigman: No one here could see each other. They were all just disembodied voices. "We're all blind right now," he announced to the group.
Hmm--now why does this sound so familiar?
Holden
FMJ indeed, just before Private Pyle goes completely mental.
Its sad about his family background but then again that's how supervillains get started. Its interesting I was also impressed by Hannibal Lecter's phone skills in Manhunter but this kid makes Hannibal Lecter look like Pee Wee Herman.
Seana
Touche.
The joke is of course on myself as much or more than anyone.
Seana
We're all in the same boat though arent we? Fortunately none of us evil.
Well, maybe, Marco.
I kid!
Of course, no one ever really thought Weigman was evil either, until they caught him. I'm not sure I would say evil as much as bright, immature and more than a little power-mad.
But if a SWAT team ever shows up at my door, I'll know where to look.
Well, actually I won't. But I'll know where to start.
Marco
I distance myself from those remarks.
Adrian, I think you are really, really lucky that Marco is not evil. Cause that could be scary.
Seana
Oh I see you were still talking about Weigman, I thought you were jumping on the Marco is evil thread.
No he's not evil. He's a positive boon to mankind and we're lucky to have him.
Can you hear the fear?
Maybe we should forget we ever started this whole conversation.
So, Full Metal Jacket--what do you think?
great film.
Didn't see it.
For God's sake woman you have to pretend.
In my screenplay all that stuff is Act 1 and then in Acts 2 and 3 we break him out of prison to go find Bin Laden.
Ian
Brilliant!
Now Bin Laden of course has stopped using his phone so rather like that bit in Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 Weigman will have to hack his way into the Afghani messenger system.
I imagine a scene where Elijah Wood (playing Weigman) is talking to Ed Norton (his FBI handler) about the Inca method of communication using runners and it suddenly occurs to Elijah that thats how they'll hack Bin Laden.
Maybe we could see a copy of Crying of Lot 49 on a desk or something as a wink to the more literate film critics.
Whew. Ian, I owe you one.
You guys should write the thing together.
Basically, you already have. Now if you could only get Elijah Wood to talk to you...Wait a minute, I think we all know who could get you that number!
First failure is when Weigman uses "Afghani" to refer to a person. Social hack failure, unless the person reading doesn't speak anything but Urdu. Then, game on.
Adrian, not for the sake of being evil, but how old are you?
Anon
Diss Weigman if you must but not my screenwriting skills! In my scenario W was referring to the messenger system in Afghanistan not the people. Hence Afghani. Believe me I know about these things, my little brother is stationed in a charming place called Camp Bastion in Helmand Province right as we speak.
Marco
I did it twice and it came out at 240 both times. High rejection/low praise ratio was what did me in.
Seana
Actually I dont think Elijah's quite right. I'm thinking now Daniel Radcliffe cast against type.
Adrian, are you sure it wasn't really item number five that aged you prematurely?
Oh, and I bet Ratcliffe is dying to play against type at this point. Never mind getting his number, he'll probably be calling you, the poor kid. Well, make that poor little rich kid.
Your friend is tutoring Hermione, therefore it's kind of a no brainer. So you guys better get cracking.
Seana
Pretty sure it was the rejections - the crazy blogging has tailed off in recent years.
Yeah Brian starts his new term this week. I wonder if he will teach Hermione. I'll email him when he isnt so swamped and ask.
Well, I suppose we should put this in perspective. You've gotten what, eight?, nine?, books published by major American publishing houses. It's nothing to scoff at.
I've been thinking a lot about writing recently. It hasn't clarified anything, frankly, but I do think that when your own writing agenda and a publisher's happen to coincide, well, that's pretty fortunate.
Frankly, I have no idea how someone like James Ellroy ever snuck in.
And that's not a slur on Ellroy, by the way.
Yeah, this kid was sharp, but he didn't have the stones to ask the FBI agent to leave him his home phone number.
Adrian, did you ever read those books by Gustav Hasford?
Matt
As a matter of fact I have. I read The Short Timers (?) the one about Nam and a crazy little crime story he did.
I liked him, I remember also reading some kind of nutty story about him that he was a compulsive book thief or something and when he died they found thousands of stolen books in his apartment...
That may be not be true, but he is dead poor chap so he's not going to sue me.
Seana
Yes 9 books. Or at least thats what it says on fantastic fiction.
Even so I still find it a depressing, utterly baffling business on the whole.
Who is the demented actor in that photo, anyway? He's fantastic.
It is depressing. But on the other hand, I think you should take a cold kind of comfort from a recent interview in Poets and Writers with agent Georges Borchardt, who has represented Beckett, Sartre, Weisel and more:
Good authors have always been fairly miserable. They are now. It's always been a somewhat alien existence...But I don't think it has become much more difficult. It has always been difficult.
You do have a gift, you know. I'd encourage you to just keep on plugging along, but I know life sometimes has other requirements.
Seana
Its Vincent D'Onfrio of course (I cant be bothered to spell check that) but anyway he's guy on Law and Order CI. Brilliant actor in everything he does.
BTW Full Metal Jacket is a must see, from Parris Island to Hue City, its a great and frightening ride.
Its hard to believe the whole thing was filmed in London.
Yeah, an Italian sounding name is too difficult. No need to bother, mr. McKyntee.
By the way, you let your country down by refusing to play in yesterday's all-important match against Slovakia. The team missed your finishing touch.
I love Vincent D'onofrio--yeah, I had to look it up, but I did know to put in the comma--so I'm surprised I didn't know that. Not surprised I didn't recognize him from that shot, though of course now it's obvious.
I'm not crazy about that version of Law and Order, though, so I haven't been watching him much of late. I guess I don't feel that the character gives him enough range. I mean at first, yeah, but after awhile it becomes predictable.
My favorite role, and I think I probably said it here before, was his portrayal of Conan creator Robert E. Howard in "The Whole Wide World".
Hasford's cousin, Jason Aaron, is maybe one of the top five writers working in comics right now.
Marco
Christ, I was trying not to think about that. I listened to the game live on the radio. Sounded miserable and of course they kept giving us updates on the England game. Bastards.
Matt
Didnt know that. Who are your other 4?
Gaiman, Miller, Moore would be 3 right?
Seana
I have to say when he's on the screen I love him. He's one of those actors I could watch just reading the newspaper. I'd love to see him in a play doing anything.
I totally understand the willingness to watch him do anything. I think I just have a kind of low threshold for TV series that hold great actors captive in roles that make them sort of a "character". I'm having the same sort of problem with Simon Baker in "The Mentalist" this last year or so. The thing about movies is that they don't really work that way. I suppose the rare ones with multiple sequels do, but even then there is room for an actor to establish themselves as something more than the role somewhere else.
This may be a retread conversation but did you catch D'onofrio as the priest in "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys"? Good movie, and you know he had to have grown up with some priest like that, because he plays him funny, but he doesn't play him as a stereotype.
I have to say that every time I see D'onofrio, I get a kind of flashback to this kid in my class when I went to grade school in Denver. Kind of a D'onofrio body type, and definitely D'onofrio style brains. I should probably look him up on Classmates.com or something.
Gaiman and Moore yes; Frank Miller hasn't impressed me overly much the past decade or so, either his art or his writing, although TDKR and his Daredevil run are classics. Your countryman Garth Ennis has produced much better work. Another guy I rank up there is Howard Chaykin, although some folks would probably argue Grant Morrison, who's written the last few 'event' series for DC comics.
Matt
Yeah good call on Garth Ennis, I too have been impressed by his stuff.
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