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Taran King
~~~~~~~~~~
(me!)
Taran King (I) was the sysop of Metal Shop Private, a private
exchange for telecommunications enthusiasts (phone phreaks and hackers) as
well as being the home-base of Phrack Inc. which I ran. I also had a hand in
the organization of SummerCon '87 and PartyCon '87.
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Personal
~~~~~~~~
Handle: Taran King
Call him: Randy, Randster, Randall, whatever (real name is Rand)
Past handles: None
Handle origin: The main character in The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd
Alexander
Date of Birth: 7/11/69
Age at current date: 19 years old
Height: 5'10" or so (give or take an inch)
Weight: 135-140 lbs. (I hate fat people)
Eye color: Brown
Hair Color: Brown
Computers: IBM PC, later with a hard drive added.
Sysop/Co-Sysop of: Metal Shop Private, The Brewery, Quick Shop/Metal Shop
AE, Whackoland, The Dark Tower, Digital ITS (proud of
that one) and probably a few more I've forgotten about.
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I started out in the BBS world in September of 1983 when a friend
gave me numbers to different modems which included things to hack on as well
as bulletin boards. I actually got my computer in late June of that year, but
didn't understand the concept of the modem until that point. I got involved
with David Lightman (314)'s board before it went up by beta-testing it for him
at times and when he put it up, I ended up being user 2 and then soon after,
co-sysop of The Dark Tower. It was there that my local notariety became
strong and a few people from the nation started calling in. His board was
very good with what he had and the little advertising that it got, but it
eventually went down. It was at that point when I started getting around
nationally and was able to make connections of my own. I put up Metal Shop:
The Dark Tower Phase II a bit after because St. Louis totally lacked bulletin
boards that dealt with hacking or phreaking. I advertised around the country
and drew in quite a crowd. The board excelled with time to the point of
having around 500 users when it got to be a security risk in my eyes and we
put in the general password system (made by Cheap Shades, of course).
Eventually, that crowd got weeded down to a lot fewer people and some time
after that, I was hospitalized. After my release from the hospital, Cheap
Shades and I (me on the ideas and Shades on the programming) created a
modified version of WWIV BBS program to suit my wants/needs and it resembled
the old Shop set-up. As time went on, it became a name of its own through the
crowd that hung out on it as well as having Phrack Inc. as being based there.
For more detailed explainations of how things came about and about a few
things mentioned above, see the big history file in this issue of Phrack Inc.
I've met a few members of the phreak/hack world including the following:
Knight Lightning, Cheap Shades, Forest Ranger, The W(hack)o Cracko Bros., Dr.
Forbin, Data Line, and Reverend Enge (all local to me), as well as Jester
Sluggo, Blue Buccaneer, Phantom Phreaker, Doom Prophet, Bill from RNOC, Tuc,
Dan The Operator, Lex Luthor, The Leftist, Sir Francis Drake, Loki, Disk
Jockey, Control C, Synthetic Slug, Lucifer 666, Mad Hatter, Cutthroat, The Mad
Hacker (219), Sir William, Dr. Cypher, Hatchet Molly, Bad Subscript, The
Mentor, Cisban Evil Priest, Phrozen Ghost, Surfer Bob, Crimson Death (618), The
Dictator, Doc Holiday (901), and The Ur-Vile. Some of the memorable phreak
boards I was on (besides my own) included The Dark Tower, The Pipeline,
Broadway Show, Zyolog, Stronghold East Elite, Stronghold North, Hell Phrozen
Over, Private Sector, Pirate-80, Stalag 13, Lunatic Labs UnLtd., Quick Shop,
Metal Shop Brewery, NetSys, The Private Connection, ShadowSpawn, RACS III, The
Pearly Gates, Brainstorm Elite, Metalland North, The Alliance, Intergalactic
Dismantling, Inc. (IDI), DUNE, Speed Demon Elite, The Abyss, MetroMedia/Danger
Zone Private, The Matrix, Thieve's World, FreeWorld II, Flying Circus, Twilight
Zone, Septic Tank, The Lost City of Atlantis, Phantasie Realm, CHAMAS, and
probably a few others I forgot that were important. Certain knowledge I've
gained over the years is attributed to various boards forementioned as well as
people like Bill from RNOC, Phantom Phreaker, Doom Prophet, The Videosmith, and
many others not to mention reading (a key part to learning technical things)
and social engineering.
I utterly hate working with computers for anything other than
communicating with friends and occasionally word processing. Programming on
them is the most repugnant thought in the world to me (no offense Shades!).
I've really never been much for hacking at all, although I did gain a
bit of an interest through the legitimate accounts I gained on systems such as
NetSys run by Terminus in Maryland. Hacking was never really much for me
(besides looking at things on dull systems that were totally useless) when I
first got the modem. Now that I'm at college and have access to it, I'm
learning VM/CMS a bit so that I can use Bitnet and work through/with it.
I attended and had a part in organizing both SummerCon '87 and
PartyCon '87 (very much in SummerCon and very little in PartyCon). I also
attended SummerCon '88 for a little while on each of the days except Sunday. I
was supposed to be on the NEW TAP staff, run by the W(hack)o Cracko Bros. as
well as being on the staff of Telecomputist (which sponsored SummerCon '87) and
doing all but writing articles for Phrack Inc. Other than that, I'm not
terribly involved with phreaker/hacker media.
The only group I was ever in was The 2600 Club! which later revised
into The NEW 2600 Club! which was just as ignorant with more interesting names
but about an equal participation in anything. I learned I was able to advance
through the phreak world without the booster of a club besides using my board
as a reference. I didn't need to rely on the work of others.