else more than it did him. Looking out for number one was all that
counted, and any decision or action that benefited number one was good,
regardless of its effect on others.
With his actions limited only by that extremely accommodating
philosophy, he’d found it relatively easy to erase the dishonorable
discharge from his record. His respect for computers and knowledge of
their capabilities were also invaluable.
In Vietnam, Sharp had been able to steal large quantities of PX and
USO-canteen supplies with astonishing success because one of his
coconspiratorsCorporal L Eugene Dalmet-was a computer operator in the
division quartermaster’s office. With the computer. he and Gene Dalmet
were able to accurately track all supplies within the system and choose
the perfect place and time at which to intercept them. Later, Dalmet
often managed to erase all record of a stolen shipment from the
computer, then, through computer-generated orders, he was able to direct
unwitting supply clerks to destroy the paper files relating to that
shipment-so no one could prove the theft had ever occurred because no
one could prove there had been anything to steal in the first place.
In this brave new world of bureaucrats and high technology, it seemed
that nothing was actually real unless there were paperwork and extensive
computer data to support its existence. The scheme worked wonderfully
until Ben Shadway stasaed nosing around.
Shipped back to the States in disgrace, Sharp was not despairing because
he took with him the uplifting knowledge of the computer’s wondrous
talent for remaking records and rewriting history. He was sure he could
use it to remake his reputation as well.
For six months he took courses in computer programming, worked at it day
and night, to the exclusion of all else, until he was not only a
first-rate operatorprogrammer but a hacker of singular skill and
cleverness.
And those were the days when the word hacker had not yet been invented.
He landed a job with Oxelbine Placement, an executive-employment agency
large enough to require a computer programmer but small and low-profile
enough to be unconcerned about the damage to its image that might result
from hiring a man with a dishonorable discharge. All Oxelbine cared
about was that he had no civilian criminal record and was highly
qualified for his work in a day when the computer craze had not yet hit
the public, leaving businesses hungry for people with advanced
data-processing skills.
Oxelbine had a direct link with the main computer at TRW, the largest
credit-investigating firm. The TRW files were the primary source for
local and national cftdit.rating agencies. Oxelbine paid TRW for
information about executives who applied to it for placement and,
whenever possible, reduced costs by selling to TRW information that TRW
did not process. In addition to his work for Oxelbine, Sharp secretly
probed at TRW’s computer, seeking the scheme of its data-encoding
system.
He used a tedious trial-anderror approach that would be familiar to any
hacker a decade later, though in those days the process was slower
because the computers were slower. In time, however, he learned how to
access any credit files at TRW and, more important, discovered how to
add and delete data. The process was easier then than it would he later
because, in those days, the need for computer security had not yet been
widely recognized.
Accessing his own dossier, he changed his Marine discharge from
dishonorable to honorable, even gave himself a few service
commendations, promoted himself from sergeant to lieutenant, and cleaned
up a number of less important negatives on his credit record.
Then he instructed TRW’s computer to order a destruction of the
company’s existing hard-copy file on him and to replace it with a file
based on the new computer record.
No longer stigmatized by the dishonorabledischarge notation on his
credit record, he was able to obtain a new job with a major defense
contractor, General Dynamics.
The position was clerical and did not require security clearance, so he
avoided coming under the scrutiny of the FBI and the GAO, both of which
had linkages with an array of Defense Department computers that would
have turned up his true military history. Using the Hughes computer’s