The true power of the Internet hits you when you're riding down a Kansas Interstate expressway in a Japanese compact car with someone you first sparred egos with in an online confrontation born over 7 years ago in the lobby of a popular downtown St. Louis attraction.
The year was 2004 and I was dipping my toes into the phone phreaking world, mostly from reading lots of obsolete text files courtesy of the PLA. One aspect the PLA undeniably helped me was with cordless phone and baby monitor frequencies and helping me to realize their full potential. I lived near where the author lived in Illinois so this added to the thrill of reading about places I knew from personal experience. I decided to track down this elusive RBCP.
A few Google searches later, I had his address and phone number. Looking back, it was an act of shameless fanboyism but I decided to try and bill some collect calls to his house. I tried a few times, once even paying to call him long distance. After a few fruitless tries, the phone started ringing and a voice I instantly recognized as his started to ask me about the owner of the building (my mom worked for this person, so I instantly knew who he was talking about) and naming off the address of the building I was in. At the time it was both terrifying and a feeling of being, for lack of a better word, starstuck. With him on the line was another voice. It was Murd0c. As my mind raced with the stories of over a decade of RBCP causing them grief in various ways, I begged them to not ruin my life. They scoffed and I left, trying to forget what happened. But I kept reading and delved deeper into the scene.
Almost 7 years later, I'm in a late model sedan moving at 75 mph towards a Kansas City suburb. Murd0c is behind the wheel and I am eating corndogs from QT. The world headquarters of Sprint lies in the distance, beyond a snow covered field. The wind is blowing snow across the beams of light, making the whole image flicker and fade. Murd0c adjusts his telco lineman's hat as he turns off the main road onto a service vehicle path. "We should be alone tonight. They're not scheduled to check this substation until next week." As we around the bend, I see a massive cellphone tower at the base of which is a small white building with dishes sticking out of it. "Let's go" he said as he parked the car and turned it off.
