E. Coast Phone Menace
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   By Robert Gearty and Dave Goldiner Daily News Staff Writers

   Wednesday, July 14th 2004, 8:54AM

   A  TECH-SAVVY  PHONE  "phreaker" who hacked into Verizon's phone lines
   could have disrupted emergency 911 service up and down the East Coast,
   federal prosecutors charged.

   Drugstore worker William Quinn, 27, earned the Web alias "Decoder" for
   his skill in gaining access to supposedly secure Verizon computers.

   He  posted  the  secret  numbers,  codes  and how-to directions on the
   Internet before investigators stumbled onto his plot a few months ago,
   authorities said in an indictment Monday.

   "They  seem to be on to us," Quinn told fellow phreakers in a Web chat
   room, according to court papers.

   Quinn, who lives in Westchester and works at a CVS drugstore, plans to
   plead  innocent  at an arraignment tomorrow, his lawyer said. He could
   face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

   The  case  offers  a  rare  glimpse  into  the  shadowy  and obsessive
   subculture  of  phreaks,  also known as "phreakers," who are to phones
   what hackers are to computers.

   Prosecutors said Quinn spent years perfecting speed-dialing techniques
   to gain unauthorized access to phone-company computers and systems.

   He  was  especially  adept at getting into systems that workers use to
   disable phone lines so they can repair them, officials charged.

   It's  not  clear what, if any, damage might have been caused by Quinn,
   who  posts pages-long treatises on obscure phone-company minutiae like
   technical details about dial tones and repair lines.

   Some phreakers use the inside info to make free long-distance calls or
   pull elaborate pranks.

   But  authorities  and experts are increasingly troubled that phreakers
   could  knock  out emergency service lines - especially during a terror
   attack or disaster.

   "Malicious phreaks and cyberpunks wreak havoc on [emergency] systems,"
   said John Chirillo, author of "Hack Attacks Denied."

   "This  can  mean the difference of life and death for those whose very
   survival depends on a speedy response," he said.

   Verizon was forced to spend $120,000 on measures to plug security gaps
   exposed by Quinn's alleged phreaking spree.

   Quinn  edits  an  Internet magazine called Default that offers tips to
   phreakers  and  made  hundreds of calls to Verizon access numbers last
   winter.

   He  posted  dozens  of  sensitive  numbers controlling access to phone
   numbers  from  Vermont  to  Virginia,  but  apologized to pals that he
   apparently     had     failed     to    cover    his    tracks    well
   enough.

   rgearty@edit.nydailynews.com