◆ SpookStack

Internet connection because, alas, the glue that binds his modem has melted from the heat of his laptop. "It's like T've always said, “If everyone had to walk 20 minutes to find an Internet connection, content on the Web would be so much better," Lamo jokes through the static of a fading cell-phone signal. We agree to postpone our chat again, until he's a bit more settled. “Stay out of trouble," he says before signing off. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do.” Adrian Lamo doesn't know if the Pacific Bell Network Operations Center has moved out of a particular building on Second Street, but the last time he checked, the combination for the center's electronic door lock was still 55755. After more than a year, I finally meet Lamo face to face on Presidents Day, He's staying outside Sacramento, and he agrees to hop on the bus and meet me at a coffee shop near the capital, if I'm willing to make the drive out from San Francisco. It's a hazy, chilled afternoon - - Lamo describes himself as "nocturnal," and you can't expect to catch him before 2 or 3 p.m. -- and the dusty, leaf-blown streets surrounding the Greyhound terminal downtown are largely deserted. Lamo shows up a half-hour late; he missed his scheduled bus, he explains, because he forgot his cell phone and had to retrieve it. He's wearing a black buttoned shirt, khaki pants, and sturdy brown boots, and his gaze is both intense and friendly, although he never, ever, asks questions and doesn’t answer all that are posed to him. Within minutes, he's tapping away at a black taptop, signing on (somehow) to a wireless connection. "I couldn't find any immediate reference to Matt Paimquist in the San Francisco Bay Area outside of articles," Lamo says, "so ..." He turns his screen so I can take a peek at some of the, ahem, research he's turned up. "I'm happy to report,” he says cheerfully, “that your account is in good standing." Although he conducted much of the work behind his most famous hacks at different Kinko's copy shops throughout downtown San Francisco, Lamo now prefers a wireless connection, so he can go online outdoors, on the steps of buiidings, whenever the mood strikes him. Some bums in Philadelphia, he says, know him as Hackin' Man. "There's nothing like having the guy who was bellowing about Jesus at the top of his lungs five minutes ago check his Hotmail account from your Palm Top," Lamo says with a grin, sipping from a cup of coffee. "I live for unusual situations, improbable things that wouldn't happen to anyone else." He's lived through plenty of those: His parents, who work in video production and as English-Spanish translators, moved around a lot when Lamo was a kid, He was born in Boston, and he spent much of his early life in Massachusetts and the Washington, D.C., area. “I like to say I was raised by a band of wandering gypsies, but that just wouldn't be factual,” says Lamo. “My upbringing was not transient in that sense. We had a roof over our heads -- I was always cared for FBI(19-cv-1495)-177 http://www.sfweekly.com/issues/2003-04-16/ feature html/t/index.html * Si Weekly | stweekly.com | News : reamure A Luly Wo macs rural ais, iy far yeusrsie x CEN we 7 , 6/20/2003 a