Newspaper stories about the Chaos Computer Club mentioned the name of the group’s leader. I tracked down the guy’s number and called him up. By this time, my own reputation in the hacking community was starting to grow, so he recognized my name. He said I should talk to another member of the group, who, sadly, turned out to be in the end stages of cancer. When I called him at the hospital, I explained that I’d obtained an analysis of the club’s backdoor patches for the VMS Loginout and "Show" programs and thought they were wickedly clever. I asked if he had any other cool tools or patches he’d be willing to share.