review of PhreakNIC
High Class Hooligan
www.mobsters.net
by sodium (edited lazily by tophat)

	The mobsters.net crew this year attended the security convention PhreakNIC 4.0 
in Nashville Tennessee. Now why would a group like mobsters.net even attempt to take a 
road trip to such a redneck
state? Because the con site was pretty top notch looking, they had elite graphics, and 
personally I was
looking for an excuse to get fucked up. The first time I found out that our group was going 
to PhreakNIC,
was in an email sent to me by tophat. At the time I was living in Columbus Ohio, bored 
off my ass, about
ready to start a tight job with a major internet service provider. So I thought, "What the 
hell, might as
well go to a con before I start this job and have a little fun." So I posted a message on the 
tollphree.com
wwwboard looking for a ride there or someone to room with. I found out that another 
mob member
tradeser was also going to the con.  ETA and RijilV (of projectnexus.org fame) were also 
going. RijilV and ETA agreed to pick
tophat and I up in cincy (I was going to drive down the night before), then go to 
PhreakNIC with us. We
might be able to room  with tradeser and his 2 college friends but it was uncertain if we 
would
even have a place to stay.

	So, I drive to Cincinnati Thursday night. I sleep for a few hours at my 
grandparent's place, and head to cincy. There it takes me almost 2 hours to find tophat's 
place. There RijilV and ETA are waiting for me, and we pack the gear in RijilV's neon. Its 
off to Subway (Didnıt we go to subway a few times at rubicon guys?) for food. After we 
went to subway, RijilV starts taking I-71 south. It takes us a few hours to get 1/2 way 
through Kentucky. When we notice, were going to wrong way. We stop at a reststop to 
smoke and consult the map. Turns out we took I-71 instead of I-75. So ETA comes up 
with a plan.
	"Guys, we're going to take this little road west, and then get on I-75. Its only half 
way through the state, and should only take like an hour or so." - ETA

	"uhm, ok.. sounds good." - Everyone.

	So we start out on this redneck looking road with tobacco fields, and cow pastures 
everywhere. This "hour or so" trip, turned out to take about 3 hours. Finally were on the 
right road, everyone is happy to be out of Kentucky. Before we know it, were in 
Nashville. We make our way to the road our hotel is on, to find out its in a Days Inn.
	"Oh my god, what a white trash con." - sodium

	We park the car, and walk into the hotel praying were in the wrong place. Almost 
instantly we find tradeser, and get to the network room. Now at this point, Iım thinking 
"omg, this con is ghetto as all hell get me out of here".  We get to the network room, and 
there is a total of about 1 dozen people standing around, crimping wires. I'm starting to 
get the feeling that this con is going to be bootie as all hell. Tophat and I hook up our 
laptops, and prepare to own all these lame ass boxen the se2600 kiddies have setup. 
Except we realize there's no network. At about this time we here rumors that there isnıt 
going to be an internet connection at all, because the con sponsors have dipped out. At 
this point Iım thinking "damnit, no internet access for 3 days, I donıt have a national 
dialup ISP account, this is going to suck." So, tophat, tradeser, his roommates, and I go up 
to our room. 

	We get 1/2 way up to the room and I think, "Damn if I had a dialup account, I 
could setup my laptop as a proxy, and provide internet access to our hotel room, and a 
few people on our floor." A light bulb goes off. Next thing you know I had the lame ass 
kiddies in the room next to 360 fearing my social eng. skillz. So, now that our room had 
internet access, tophat, tradeser, and I proceeded to rob everyone blind with our slight of 
hand harddrive / network card / equipment snatching skillz. After tophat, tradeser, and I 
stole the se2600 staff's communication means (two way radios). Our group had control of 
there radio waves. Along with project nexus we managed to snatch almost all of there 
communications devices. Now that we owned their radio waves, I guess that tophat was 
getting a little bored with talking shit to jonnyx (*cough* whore *cough*) so we made our 
way down to the network room. Now in the network room there was this table setup 
with a tv, vcr, and some weird mixing table. We knew that it was the vcr that controlled 
PhreakNic's  CCTV that everyone in the hotel could pick up. After I made a diversion 
("Fucking network connection keeps getting broken!!@#!@ GOD DAMNIT!#!@"), 
tophat went to work by figuring out how the CCTV was hooked up. Then after I settled 
down, he grabbed the TV/VCR remote, and jetted. We went up to our room, and sat 
around with the mob/nexus crew. Soon as tophat showed the remote, everyone busted out 
laughing. It kind went something like "Damnit, this CCTV sucks ass!" - Simon  "well, I 
got the remote, lets change it" - tophat. We tried to fine some vhs tapes to put in but 
could you believe that NO ONE at the con had any vhs pr0n? unbelievable. After this 
point, everyone at the con knew that we owned them. We had control of the radio and tv 
waves. Tradeser was cutting network cables left and right. Simon and I were yelling some 
shit over the radios. And tophat was changing channels and fucking with their CCTV with 
mad style. At this time, Iım guessing we got bored of the con, cause the mob crew, along 
with some of project nexus (did I mention RijilV was sleeping the hole time?) went to one 
of the moloch party rooms. These niggaz had class, well, kinda.. all I remember is that I 
was very fucked up, and that they had lots of free booze. Thinking back, we drank most 
of their booze. All of a sudden I feel the urge to break dance. But not only to break dance, 
to battle tophat in a breakdance'n battle. We talk it over. Then tophat busts out some mad 
tight moves, it about blew me away, he was doing all this tight shit, and were all battle'n. I 
look over, and notice this fly honey from moloch watching me bust a move. We get 
finished, and I start to chill with tradeser (who was taking pictures the hole time ;). I think 
I must have passed out at this point, because all I can remember after that, was breaking 
into the hotel PBX physically, and disconnecting jonnyx's phoneline with the rest of the 
crew. After this point we were walking down the hall and saw a hotel storgae room.  There just HAD to be something cool inside of there.  So tophat waits for a member of the cleaning crew to open it and get something.  After the maid leaves tophat grabs the door before it closes and tapes the locl back inside of the door (watergate style) so it will close but won't lock.  We sneak inside of there when no one is around and find boxes upon boxes of old hotel receipts. Credit cards, people's dinners, phone bills, everything.  But being the incredibly legit collabrative that we are we leave it all there (well at least we left the dinner receipts).


 At this point, all of these people are gathering around in the hotel hall worshiping 
our crew like gods. Calling us the room 360 crew.  (room #360 was where RijilV and eta 
were staying)

	I get a dirty look from one of jonnyx's goons. At this point Simon tells me how 
eta, and Jim are disconnecting the power to the main building, and I laugh my ass off. We 
chill in the network room, and hear people talking about how someone blew a main 
breaker in the main building, and that everyone was pissed off. We laugh inside. Next 
thing you know, eta and Jim are walking towards us, and recruiting me to break into the 
other circuit building with them. We set out with radios and try to break into the door by 
pushing it. Its not going anywhere, so we go to Jimıs car and get a crow bar. I try to break 
the door down, and then we hear someone from the crowed that was all the way down the 
hall say "STOP@!#@" I turn around , and this big harry motherfucker starts running 
toward us.

	We freeze. I look the goon dead in the face and say "what?". This guy was like 
"Did you all disconnect the power." I'm like "Are we under arrest?". With a beer in one 
hand he says, "No, not yet anyway. Why donıt you all quit fucking with things, and go 
smoke some weed or drink a beer." We never admit to disconnecting the power. The big 
guy says something like "Quit mumbling motherfucker, I want to fuck you in the ass" to 
me. I reply with, "You would want to fuck me in the ass, you gay motherfucker." And we 
all run back to our separate rooms. Eta goes in a wakes up RijilV at this point. Well, 
thereıs something I forgot to include. Tradeser and his college buddies (who rented the 
room we were staying in) decided that this con sucked so bad that they were going to 
leave. So they get up and checkout in the morning, taking their keycard with them.  Now 
tophat and I have no place to stay but decide to squat in the room for the remaining time 
of the con.  Tophat propped the door open, because it was automatic lock, and we just 
lived like bums. So tophat, Jim, Simon, and I chill in the squatted room. We get a phone 
call on one of our phones( We opened up our jack and was able to access the lines from the 
next doorıs room, attacked a beige to it and then we had 2 lines). Its eta calling 
"Guys, there outside of my door, and there going to fuck me up! One of them has a 
baseball bat!! Iım going to try to swing myself out of the door, and crawl across the side 
of the building, and into your all's room.". Well, we look out in the hall, and there is like 
20 guys standing there waiting for eta to come out. Apparently johnnyx had found who 
was behind the power outages and send his nerd goons to room 360. After they finally 
leave, we all meet out in the hallway. We decide at this point, that we are bad ass 
motherfuckers, and deserve respect. (think about it, tophat and I were piss drunk, the 
crew owned every aspect of the con, and we thought "what the fuck") So tophat and I 
made a bunch of mobsters.net posters in our drunken stupor and taped them up all over 
the hotel (a vaguely remember tophat standing on my shoulders as he taped a poster to the outside on a window on the 2nd floor party room, then him knocking on the window and running away as they awkwardly stared at the poster and threw beer cans at us) and all that elite shit. But then the project nexus crew, who have our back, took 
them all down because they thought someone else put them  to dis us (apparently the 
posters and shit like ³mobsters.net gots leet gameboy skillz² or something) Then I think 
we went back to our squatting room and shouted stuff down the hall. It kinda helped that 
we stole the kids megaphone from down the hall. After jonnyx started walking up the hall 
with a baseball bat, we thought "omg, if we get our ass kicked at this con, its going to 
fucking suck". jonnyx walks up to us and just starts up a conversation about hacking, and 
how the feds are after se2600, or some lame shit like that. At this time, we head down 
stairs. I think this is the point that tophat sticks his hand up his ass, and shakes hands 
with Emmanuel Goldstein. But I could be wrong. Anyway at this point Iım very fucked 
up, and trying to get with this girl from moloch that I think is mad fine.

	Tophat then enters the moloch room, and says to me "sodium, come to the other 
room and check this out" Iım like "man, Iım trying to get in this bitchıs pants". Finally 
after prying me off this girl (she wanted me, I swear), tophat brought me to the room. 
There lay a pumpkin, that had "WAREZ" carved out in it. I laughed my ass off. Tophat 
actually went into the network room during broad daylight, and snatched this shit that 
some dork had brought all the way from out of state. Anyway, that just proves heıs a 
professional. We leave to go back into the moloch room, and drink some more spiked 
punch. At this point, I redeveloped my taste for vodka again. We drank until about 5am, 
and started to walk over to room 360. RijilV and eta at this point, had stolen our 
pumpkin. And were carving PLA into it. As well as using it for an ashtray. I laughed my 
ass off, and sat down to smoke a few cigarettes. After PLA was carved, tophat wrote a 
ransom note that said something like. "We have your (picture of a pumpkin), give us 2 
gigs of ³pee are-oh-n" Well, we gave jonnyx the note. And then after about 20 minutes, 
threw the pumpkin out the 3 story window.

	After this point, tophat and I went back to our bootleg room, and crashed. We 
found that since we left our door open people were just walking into our room, spilling 
beer, pissing, and stealing shit. We found it kinda funny and started to go to sleep. 
Comments were made like "Man, we owned this con.... No shit, cause our group was a 
bunch of thieves!" and shit like that. Finally eta calls our room, and says were leaving. I 
say goodbye to the moloch people, (that were in a big orgy at this point) and head to the 
neon. I fall asleep in the car, and we drive back to cincy.

	Well, that was it, how we owned PhreakNIC. I just want to say, everything I told 
you all in this article is true, totally. I mean, we are crazy motherfuckers, with bboy 
skillz, that can pay the bills. Ohh, and another thing. I come back home, to find my 
girlfriend had gotten a tattoo. I get on moloch.org, and find out that the girl I was hitting 
on is like, mad fat and nasty. Things just look alright, when your drunk. Ohh btw, I just 
want to tell everyone who doesnıt know it yet. Half of the files on mobsters.net in the 
HCH section were written while we were drunk including this one. Well, all except 
tradeser's files.

Sodium





Shouts:
projectnexus.org-         Thanks for the ride guys, you all own.
tollphree.com	-	Because tradeser is a boozer.
rubi-con.org	-	"God, I thought rubi-con was the gayest con ever, until I  went to 
PhreakNIC."
system7.org	-	Jouser's mom is scared of it.
moloch.org	-	New York hackers and DJıs with style.

Fucks:
phreaknic.org	-	For having the gayest con ever.
se2600.org	-	jonnyx is a big gay man.
atlantacon.org	-	se2600 runs it, so I doubt its good.