Robert Schifreen and Stephen Gold, using conventional home computers and modems in late 1984 and early 1985, gained unauthorised access to British Telecom's Prestel interactive viewdata service. While at a trade show, Schifreen, by doing what latterly became known as shoulder surfing, had observed the password of a Prestel engineer. The engineer's username was 22222222 and the password used was 1234. This later gave rise to accusations that British Telecom (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.