Sex industry hit by cyber turf war

[InfoSec News <isn () c4i org>]

http://www.vnunet.com/News/1131796

By Nick Farrell [16-05-2002]

Hackers put the screws on Vegas phone lines

Mobsters and super hackers have joined forces to shut out sex industry
rivals, a Nevada public hearing heard this week.

Larry Duke Reubel, 63, told the Public Utilities Commission hearing
how his business had been closed by telephone hackers using lax
security at telecoms company Sprint to redirect calls to rivals.

Reubel publishes a sexual services magazine which is distributed by
hand to thousands of passing tourists up and down Las Vegas Boulevard
every day. If anyone rings one of the services, Reubel gets a
commission.

He told the hearing that the phones suddenly stopped ringing for no
apparent reason. He blamed Sprint for the problem, which told the
hearing that it had run tests on the phone and found nothing wrong.

The telco ran a script at its switching control centre that
periodically checked Reubel's lines for covert call-forwarding, but
did not find any evidence. It also examined his lines and found no
physical taps.

Eddie Munoz, 43, who brought the case, claimed that the Las Vegas
telecoms infrastructure is secretly controlled by super hackers
working for mobsters.

Others at the hearing are expected to tell of similar cases. Munoz
said that he will present evidence of calls diverted or tapped by
competitors.

Reubel's is the most common situation, where calls are blocked and the
caller hears silence or an engaged signal.

Six members of the Gambino crime family were actually caught by an
undercover investigation as they tried to muscle in on the phone
racket in 1998, according to an FBI testimony at the hearing.

Although that criminal case was successful, Sprint denied all
responsibility for the hacks.

But Sprint's security has been compromised before, including more
famously by Kevin Mitnick between 1992 until his February 1995 arrest.  
Mitnick's access gave him the power to monitor or reprogram any phone
line in town.

Munoz also suffered from a similar scam which he claims is still
operating. He said that the 15 to 20 calls a night he received for
each advertisement is now down to just one.

Callers from outside Las Vegas, or from payphones and mobile phones,
are able to get through, he said, but hotel callers frequently get
false busy signals, or silence, driving them to competing services.

His first complaint against Sprint was filed with the Public Utilities
Commission in 1994. It took two more complaints and an abortive
Federal writ before Commission staff launched an investigation.



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