Ä &ALT.2600 (1:340/26) ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ &ALT.2600 Ä Msg : 407 of 500 From : Ronald Mark Austin 1:340/13 29 Nov 95 02:30:36 To : All 29 Nov 95 09:44:52 Subj : Justin Petersen aka "Agent Rat" sentenced ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ .RFC-Path: news.spydernet.com!nntp.pinc.com!news.bctel.net!news.cyberstore.ca!math.ohio-sta te.edu!uwm.edu!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.mid.net!news.dra .com!news.id.net!condor.ic.net!news.cic.net!phish.nether.net!austin From: austin@phish.nether.net (Ronald Mark Austin) .RFC-Message-ID: <49hcod$1dh@news.cic.net> .RFC-NNTP-Posting-Host: phish.nether.net .RFC-X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] For those of you who don't know who he is, Justin Petersen aka Agent Steal aka Eric Heinz is the one-legged genius who turned in Kevin Poulsen after being caught in Texas through his fraudulent use of a South Western Bell calling card from his home. Though the preceding article says that Petersen won Porsches etc. from radio stations etc. the only Porsche he ever obtained was by conning a car dealership into letting him buy one with doctored identification under the name of Martin Jason. When that car literally fell apart he simply stole a replacement while test driving it. The radio station allegations arise out of a system actually discovered and hacked by Poulsen but Petersen, always eager to try and convince people that he has some bit of computer knowledge, never bothered to dispute the charges in the press thinking it would give him the attention he so desparately seeks. Petersen is actually a petty credit and check scam artist who has desparately tried to play himself off as a computer expert, security consultant and government agent among other things. His work for the government was limited to wearing a wire to gain evidence on myself and Kevin Mitnick in exchange for a slap on the wrist for his involvement with Pouslen. Mitnick was a little sharper than me at realizing who his friends are and recognized Petersen for the rat he was. After blowing the Mitnick investigation, all Petersen had to do was go staight and testify against his friends as agreed but soon he was back to his specialty (no, not computer hacking - Justin could not hack his way out of a paper bag) credit card fraud. While awaiting sentencing, I merely stopped by his house a few evenings one month and gathered up the stolen mail and post-it notes he'd written to himself like "things to remember" while stealing the mail with his buddy Grant (who is now on probation in Las Vegas for other crimes) out of his trash can. Seems that discarding evidence somewhere other than his own trash bin didn't make his list. After presenting this information to prosecutors in Los Angeles, they called him in for a meeting to discuss why he was comitting more crimes while working for them. He had no excuse (the bullshit about needing money to capture mystery hakcers who were "victimizing" his family formed in his mind only recently) so he left to go to the bathroom and never came back. The U.S. attorney was beside himself trying to figure out how anyone could be so stupid as to blow what even the sentencing judge called "a sweetheart deal". A bench warrant was issued for Petersen and he fled to Texas but soon Petersens taste for Vaseline, Seran Wrap and Bondage got the better of him and he came back to LA. So confident of his ablilties to elude police, he practically made it public that he was again hitting the clubs on Sunset. So one Sunday night I waited outside his IV drug addicted girlfriend's apartment across the street from the FBI headquarters in Los Angeles and after spotting him I called the FBI and they came over and busted him. It was surprising how quickly he can run on one leg but the FBI agent was a little faster and a lot bigger. He tackled Peteren and that was the last I saw of him. Turned out that Petersen had written himself notes again, this time about a wire transfer. While he would like the press to think that he crafted some unique computer heist, the truth is that he simply tapped a Telenet dial-up and gathered the log-ins and passwords for wire transfers and tried to transfer some money to a friend of his. Of course the bank noticed immediately since he had no idea of what he was doing so, needless to say, he never made a penny from that scheme. But his notes did provide the government with all the evidence they needed to make the Heller Financial charge stick. Petersen's stupidity cost him his leg (a left on his motorcycle in front of an oncoming car), his freedom and, if rumors about his having AIDS are true, his life. I used to despise the guy for turning rat on me but now I feel nothing but sympathy for his pathetic existence. I still don't think he get's it. "Special thanks to all of the stupid people for without them some of us might not be so smart and might have to work for a living." -- Agent Steal in a recent Phrack article-- --- ifmail v.2.8.lwz * Origin: Nether.Net -- Public access Linux system (1:340/13@fidonet)