[[RobertRo PAKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII bert Schifreen]] and Stephen Gold, using conventional [[home computer]]s and [[modem]]s in late 1984 and early 1985, gained unauthorised access to [[BT Group plc|British Telecom]]'s [[Prestel]] interactive [[viewdata]] service. While at a trade show, Schifreen by doing what latterly became known as [[Shoulder surfing (computer security)|shoulder surfing]], had observed the password of a Prestel engineer: the username was 22222222 and the password was 1234. This later gave rise to subsequent accusations that BT had not taken security seriously. Armed with this information, the pair explored the system, even gaining access to the personal message box of [[Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh|Prince Philip]].
Prestel installed monitors on the suspect accounts and passed information thus obtained to the police. The pair were charged under section 1 of the [[Forgery and Counterfeiting Act 1981]] with defrauding BT by manufacturing a "false instrument", namely the internal condition of BT's equipment after it had processed Gold's eavesdropped password. Tried at [[Southwark]] [[Crown Court]], they were convicted on specimen charges (five against Schifreen, four against Gold) and fined, respectively, £750 and £600.
