Just who is Mucho Maas?

[Scott Weintraub]

I discovered something all too interesting late last night.  My buddy and 
I were chatting about what the whole hacking/phreaking/warez scene was 
like a few years back--something I finally outgrew three years ago upon 
arriving at college.

Well one of the topics that came up was wardialing which was one of my 
favorite things to do, and for the unitiated, it basically involves 
setting up your computer to dial every number in a specific exchange.  
I'd let my computer do this all night and when I came home from school, in 
the afternoon, I would have a nice neat list of modem carriers, PBXs, and 
other miscellaneous what-nots to call back and check out and possibly put 
to use.  Good wardialers will detect carriers and anything with a tone, 
that is dial tones or otherwise and record them neatly to a file.  It 
didn't take much effort.

Now I don't know what's out there these days but the day I got my hands 
on a program called Tone-Loc, I was in heaven because it was by far the 
best war-dialer to date.  So, last night I was showing Hugh some logs of 
what I had found in the local exchanges in my area and this was the first 
time I had even thought about, let alone looked at or used, Tone-Loc since 
1993.  The version that I have is from that same year, also.

So, to get to the point, it was written by two guys with the handles 
Minor Threat and Mucho Maas.  Having not read or even heard of "The 
Crying of Lot 49" back then, the later name was just another handle.

So, who is this guy?  In the 60s, he goes from useless husband to LSD 
virgin.  In 1984, he re-surfaces as a guru.  And, what's this?  In 1993, 
he's coding wardialers.  Now I'm wondering where he is right now, what 
kind of crowd he associates with, what he's been up to lately, and whose 
side he's on.  I could've walked right by him today on my way to class 
and, what the hell, I would've never known.  He could be residing in the 
apartment next to you, yes, *YOU*--and what elaborate plots are unfolding 
around him?  I don't want to say the 'P' word but I'm drowning in it 
right now.  Oh yeah, and you didn't hear this from me.



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*     Scott Weintraub  -  scottw at wam.umd.edu  -  College Park, Maryland     *
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*    "The bounties of space, of infinite outwardness, were three:  empty    *
*         heroics, low comedy, and pointless death."  -Kurt Vonnegut        *
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