It was child's play. Especially for Kevin Lee Poulsen...
KIIS-FM called it "Win a Porsche by Friday": eight Porsches - about $400,000 worth of steel, leather and status - given away, one a week. You could hardly live or work in Los Angeles without being caught up in the frenzy. It seemed that the gleaming, candy-red convertibles were plastered on nearly every billboard and bus in town. Listeners were glued to KIIS, hoping to make the 102nd call after Dees spun the third song in the magical series.
Housewives, businessmen, students and contest freaks jammed the lines with their car phones and auto-dialers. They all had hopes, but one 24-year-old high school dropout had a plan. America's most wanted hacker and his associates sat by their computers and waited. On the morning of June 1, 1990, KIIS played "Escapade", "Love Shack" and then, yes, "Kiss." "We blew out the phone lines," every line was ringing, says Karen Tobin, the station's promotional director. "We picked up the calls and counted."
| The hacker was counting, too. At the precise moment Prince's "Kiss" hit the air, he seized control of the station's 25 phone lines, blocking out all the calls but his own. Then the man, who identified himself as Michael B. Peters, calmly dialed the 102nd call and won a Porsche 944 S2. It was child's play. Especially for Kevin Lee Poulsen... |
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