Intellectual Property Law

Less than two months after his celebrating his 18th birthday, a blind, East Boston-based phone hacker has been arrested for paying a Sunday afternoon visit to the Verizon security officer who'd been chasing him.

Matthew Weigman, known on the telephone chat lines as Li'l Hacker, is charged in federal court in Dallas with obstruction of justice and retaliation against a witness, after he was picked up by local police in Amherst, New Hampshire over Memorial Day weekend.

Weigman allegedly persuaded a friend to drive him and his brother 66 miles to the home of William Smith, a Verizon security investigator who'd been monitoring Weigman's hacking and phoning in updates to the FBI. Smith was outside doing yard work when the three men drove up, according to an FBI affidavit. Weigman introduced himself and said he wanted to talk to Smith, who instead went inside and called the police.

While the circumstances are bizarre, Weigman's arrest comes as little surprise. As we reported last February, the FBI has been investigating the hacker since he was 15-years-old, at times courting him as an informant.

Weigman is widely considered one of the best active phone hackers alive. Relying on an ironclad memory and detailed knowledge of the phone system, he uses social engineering to manipulate phone company workers and others into divulging confidential information, and into entering commands into computers and telephone switching equipment on his behalf.

"I've been interested in phones since I've been about 8," Weigman said in an interview last year. "I talked to technicians when they came down here to do things on my phone."

Weigman was a juvenile when the FBI's Dallas office rounded up five party line associates of his who specialized in "swatting" -- a mean hoax in which they used Caller ID spoofing to phone fake hostage crises into police dispatch centers, getting their enemies raided by armed cops.  Four members of the swatting gang have been sentenced to prison terms between 30 months and five years. The girlfriend of one member has pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges, and is awaiting sentencing.

The FBI says the group made hundreds of false emergency calls, resulting in at least one injury, and some victims being evicted or fired from their jobs.

Weigman is suspected of gathering information, like unlisted phone numbers, the swatters used to make some calls. He's also suspected of personally making a 2005 swatting call that sent police to the Colorado home of Richard Gasper, a TSA screener whose daughter refused phone sex with Weigman.

Weigman was 15 at the time. When the FBI eventually caught up with him more than a year later, FBI cyber crime agent Allyn Lynd offered to make him a confidential informant. But Lynd called off the deal when AT&T discovered that Weigman was still manipulating the phone company. The agent later told a police detective that Weigman couldn't stop hacking for more than 72 hours.

Those who know Weigman from the party lines agreed, and predicted that turning 18 would not deter the youth from his hacking, despite the risk that he could be charged as an adult. According to a May 22 affidavit by Lynd, they were right.

In April, the month he reached adulthood, Verizon noticed that Weigman had used the name and identifying information of a Texas woman to turn on phone service at the East Boston apartment he shares with his mother and siblings.

When Smith disconnected the fraudulent account, Weigman turned it back on again.

Then Weigman allegedly began making harassing phone calls to Smith at his house. To trick the security worker into picking up the phone, the hacker allegedly social engineered phone company employees into sharing Smith's billing records in near-real time, then used Caller ID spoofing to make Smith think someone was returning his own calls.

"For example, Smith would call a travel agency to arrange for a flight," Lynd writes. "A few minutes later, he would receive a phone call which appeared to be coming from the travel agency that he had just booked a flight through. When Smith answered the phone, Weigman would begin harassing him again."

Smith began complaining about the harassment to Lynd, the FBI agent who busted the swatting crew, and has been investigating Weigman for nearly two years. Smith told the agent that he was worried that Weigman was preparing to send a SWAT team to his house, and that he was warning the local police so "there would be less chance of accidental injury."

Instead, on May 18, Weigman showed up at his house personally.

According to the FBI, Smith believed he was in danger of having more than his phone disconnected. "Smith told me that he felt threatened with physical violence by Weigman, despite Weigman being blind," Lynd wrote, "because Weigman had arrived at Smith's house without invitation, had arrived with two people, include Weigman's brother, who was very large and intimidating, he knew Weigman was blind and must therefore have gone to great lengths to arrange for someone to drive him to Smith's house, that Weigman was not supposed to know where he lived, and that Weigman had arrived in the middle of a Sunday."

When the cops showed up, Weigman allegedly told them that he was visiting Smith because the Verizon officer had been harassing him as part of a "vendetta" against Weigman.

Jeff Daniels, Weigman's longtime hacking mentor, says he doesn't think Weigman planned to hurt anybody. "What's ... a blind kid really going to do? I don't think that they had any kind of malicious intent overtly," he says.

Sean Paul Benton drove the car, and is also charged in the case. Weigman's brother is not charged. Weigman is being held at the Plymouth County Jail in Massachusetts. A bail hearing is set for Tuesday morning. His attorney did not return a phone call Monday.

Daniels says Weigman -- as expected -- did not quit phone hacking when he turned 18. "Even after his birthday he was still doing little silly stuff," he says. "I had pretty much washed my hands. I still love the kid, but I washed my hands of him."

See Also:

• Teenage Hacker Is Blind, Brash and in the Crosshairs of the FBI
• Judge Throws the Book at Phone 'SWATter': Five Years Prison
• Poll: How Good Is the Blind Hacker? Mitnick Weighs In
• Guilty Plea: Phone Phreaks Use Caller-ID Spoofing to Get Foes Raided