failed to get
through.

The September 17 NYC Crash, unlike the previous ones, involved not a
whisper of "hacker" misdeeds. On the contrary, by 1991, AT&T itself
was suffering much of the vilification that had formerly been directed
at hackers. Congressmen were grumbling. So were state and federal
regulators. And so was the press.

For their part, ancient rival MCI took out snide full-page newspaper
ads in New York, offering their own long-distance services for the
"next time that AT&T goes down."

"You wouldn't find a classy company like AT&T using such advertising,"
protested AT&T Chairman Robert Allen, unconvincingly. Once again, out
came the full-page AT&T apologies in newspapers, apologies for "an
inexcusable culmination of both human and mechanical failure." (This
time, however, AT&T offered no discount on later calls. Unkind critics
suggested that AT&T were worried about setting any precedent for
refunding the financial losses caused by telephone crashes.)

Industry journals asked publicly if AT&T was "asleep at the switch."
The telephone network, America's purported marvel of high-tech
reliability, had gone down three times in 18 months. Fortune magazine
listed the Crash of September 17 among the "Biggest Business Goofs of
1991," cruelly parodying AT&T's ad campaign in an article entitled
"AT&T Wants You Back (Safely On the Ground, God Willing)."

Why had those New York switching systems simply run out of power?
Because no human being had attended to the alarm system. Why did the
alarm systems blare automatically, without any human being noticing?
Because the three telco technicians who SHOULD have been listening were
absent from their stations in the power-room, on another floor of the
building--attending a training class. A training class about the alarm
systems for the power room!

"Crashing the System" was no longer "unprecedented" by late 1991. On
the contrary, it no longer even seemed an oddity. By 1991, it was
clear that all the policemen in the world could no longer "protect" the
phone system from crashes. By far the worst crashes the system had
ever had, had been inflicted, by the system, upon ITSELF. And this
time nobody was making cocksure statements that this was an anomaly,
something that would never happen again. By 1991 the System's
defenders had met their nebulous Enemy, and the Enemy was--the System.

PART TWO: THE DIGITAL UNDERGROUND

The date was May 9, 1990. The