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G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual Document - PHREAK*.DOC
Reconstructed 1990/9/11 <<> westsmith
T H E O F F I C I A L P H R E A K E R S M A N U A L
jack the ripper
Ripper
_______________________________________________________________
Introduction
_______________________________________________________________
What precedes this introduction is what I have termed "The
Official Phreakers Manual", while it may not be. Many times I
have been on a BBS, which has files claiming to have summed up
all the ways to phreak in the U.S. and abroad, well those were
pretty lame and a couple pages long. Now after many relentless
hours of work, I have done it. This is an informative file and
the authors of this and the authors from which I have gathered
information, take absolutely NO responsibility and are not
liable for, under any circumstances for damage, direct,
indirect, incidental, or consequential.
Warning: Use of this material may shorten your life in
the free world!
Ok enough of the bullshit, I readily admit that this is mainly
a compilation of available phreak material and public
resources. What I have done is to gather it all together and
edit, compile, check for errors, put in a readable form, and
finally to write what I know without echoing what others have
said. I have set this up that it is good for all levels of
phreaks, going from novice to advanced, and references and
tables for easy reference in the back.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 1
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
This manual is constantly being updated! If you have any
contributions or corrections or comments, please leave
messages to me (Jack the Ripper) on any BBS's I am on
(probably where you got it). Thanks!
_______________________________________________________________
Table of Contents
_______________________________________________________________
I Chapter 1
I 1 Glossary of Phreaking terms
I 2 Glossary of Phreaking terms cont.
I 3 Boxes and Electronic Toll Fraud
I 4 How to be a Real Phreak
I 5 Basic Telecommunications I, A Phreaks guide
II Chapter 2
II 1 Secrets of the Little Blue Box. Part 1
II 2 Secrets of the Little Blue Box. Part 2
II 3 Secrets of the Little Blue Box. Part 3
II 4 Secrets of the Little Blue Box. Part 4
II 5 The History of ESS
II 6 History of British Phreaking
II 7 Bad as Shit, an adventure story
III Chapter 3
III 1 Phreaking Cosmos
III 2 Cosmos Revamped
III 3 Telenet
III 4 Phreaking AT&T Cards
III 5 AT&T Forgery
III 6 Dealing with Operators
III 7 How to set up a Conference Call
III 8 Fone tapping
III 9 Fone tapping cont.
III 10 Tracing, how dangerous is it
III 11 How to avenge yourself
III 12 Interesting things to do on Step lines
III 13 Busted, An account of the Private Sector bust
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 2
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
IV Chapter 4
IV 1 Basic Telecommunications II, Special #'s, Loops, ANI
IV 2 Basic Telecommunications III, Direct Dialing,
International
IV 3 Basic Telecommunications IV, Telefone Hierarchy
IV 4 Basic Telecommunications V, Subscriber fone
electronics
IV 5 Basic Telecommunications VI, Fortress fones
V Chapter 5
V 1 Basic Telecommunications VII, Blue Boxing
V 2 Better Homes & Blue Boxing, Part 1
V 3 Better Homes & Blue Boxing, Part 2
V 4 Better Homes & Blue Boxing, Part 3
V 5 More on Blue Boxing by Fred Stienbeck
V 6 Verification, Remob, etc., Is it possible?
V 7 Equal Access and the American Dream, Another great
article
V 8 Equal access and Autodialing Modems
V 9 ISDN, it will change telecommunications for ever
V 10 ISDN, an article from Proto
V 11 MCI Services what they are and how they are useful
_______________________________________________________________
Appendixes
_______________________________________________________________
Appendix I 170 Reference tables and access lists
Appendix I 1 171 Country Codes
Appendix I 2 173 Country Codes cont.
Appendix I 3 176 Country Codes cont.
Appendix I 4 181 Max Access ports (Dialups)
Appendix I 5 182 Metro Fone Access ports
Appendix I 6 183 Area Codes
Appendix I 7 185 Tac Dialups around the country
Appendix I 8 193 Test numbers around the country
Appendix I 9 196 What a TSPS operators console looks like
Appendix II 197 Box plans
Appendix II 1 198 How to make an Infinity transmitter
Appendix II 2 203 How to make a silver box
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 3
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
_______________________________________________________________
Chapter 1
_______________________________________________________________
Ok this chapter will cover the basic vocabulary of phreaking,
it is a fairly long list, though not totally complete. After
the vocab, will be some of the general rules for phreaking.
Most of the rules are protection from the police and AT&T, but
others are grammatical rules. These are not as important to
your freedom, but many a phreak will think you are a twelve
year old if you start talking like, "Hey dudz!^$(&, just got
the latest warez! trade u for some soft/docs. Checkul8r". Well
you get the point, here's your vocab list ...
_______________________________________________________________
The Bell Glossary
_______________________________________________________________
By Mad Marvin
ACD
Automatic Call Distributor - A system that automatically
distributes calls to operator pools (providing services such
as intercept and directory assistance), to airline ticket
agents, etc.
Administration
The tasks of record-keeping, monitoring, rearranging,
prediction need for growth, etc.
AIS
Automatic Intercept System - A system employing an audio-
response unit under control of a processor to automatically
provide pertinent info to callers routed to intercept.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 4
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Alert
To indicate the existence of an incoming call, (ringing).
ANI
Automatic Number Identification - Often pronounced "Annie," a
facility for automatically identify the number of the calling
party for charging purposes.
Appearance
A connection upon a network terminal, as in "the line has two
network appearances."
Attend
The operation of monitoring a line or an incoming trunk for
off-hook or seizure, respectively.
Audible
The subdued "image" of ringing transmitted to the calling
party during ringing; not derived from the actual ringing
signal in later systems.
Backbone Route
The route made up of final-group trunks between end offices in
different regional center areas.
BHC
Busy Hour Calls - The number of calls placed in the busy hour.
Blocking
The ratio of unsuccessful to total attempts to use a facility;
expresses as a probability when computed a priority.
Blocking Network
A network that, under certain conditions, may be unable to
form a transmission path from one end of the network to the
other. In general, all networks used within the Bell Systems
are of the blocking type.
Blue Box
Equipment used fraudulently to synthesize signals, gaining
access to the toll network for the placement of calls without
charge.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 5
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
BORSCHT Circuit
A name for the line circuit in the central office. It
functions as a mnemonic for the functions that must be
performed by the circuit: Battery, Overvoltage, Ringing,
Supervision, Coding, Hybrid, and Testing.
Busy Signal
(Called-line-busy) An audible signal which, in the Bell
System, comprises 480Hz and 620Hz interrupted at 60IPM.
Bylink
A special high-speed means used in crossbar equipment for
routing calls incoming from a step-by-step office. Trunks from
such offices are often referred to as "bylink" trunks even
when incoming to noncrossbar offices; they are more properly
referred to as "DC incoming trunks." Such high-speed means are
necessary to assure that the first incoming pulse is not lost.
Cable Vault
The point which phone cable enters the Central Office
building.
CAMA
Centralized Automatic Message Accounting - Pronounced like
Alabama.
CCIS
Common Channel Interoffice Signaling - Signaling information
for trunk connections over a separate, nonspeech data link
rather that over the trunks themselves.
CCITT
International Telegraph and Telephone Consultative Committee -
An International committee that formulates plans and sets
standards for intercountry communication means.
CDO
Community Dial Office - A small usually rural office typically
served by step-by-step equipment.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 6
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
CO
Central Office - Comprises a switching network and its control
and support equipment. Occasionally improperly used to mean
"office code."
Centrex
A service comparable in features to PBX service but
implemented with some (Centrex CU) or all (Centrex CO) of the
control in the central office. In the later case, each
station's loop connects to the central office.
Customer Loop
The wire pair connecting a customer's station to the central
office.
DDD
Direct Distance Dialing - Dialing without operator assistance
over the nationwide intertoll network.
Direct Trunk Group
A trunk group that is a direct connection between a given
originating and a given terminating office.
EOTT
End Office Toll Trunking - Trunking between end offices in
different toll center areas.
ESB
Emergency Service Bureau - A centralized agency to which 911
"universal" emergency calls are routed.
ESS
Electronic Switching System - A generic term used to identify
as a class, stored-program switching systems such as the Bell
System's No.1 No.2, No.3, No.4, or No.5.
ETS
Electronic Translation Systems - An electronic replacement for
the card translator in 4A Crossbar systems. Makes use of the
SPC 1A Processor.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 7
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False Start
An aborted dialing attempt.
Fast Busy (often called reorder)
An audible busy signal interrupted at twice the rate of the
normal busy signal; sent to the originating station to
indicate that the call blocked due to busy equipment.
Final Trunk Group
The trunk group to which calls are routed when available high-
usage trunks overflow; these groups generally "home" on an
office next highest in the hierarchy.
Full Group
A trunk group that does not permit rerouting off-contingent
foreign traffic; there are seven such offices.
Glare
The situation that occurs when a two-way trunk is seized more
or less simultaneously at both ends.
High Usage Trunk Group
The appellation for a trunk group that has alternate routes
via other similar groups, and ultimately via a final trunk
group to a higher ranking office.
Intercept
The agency (usually an operator) to which calls are routed
when made to a line recently removed from a service, or in
some other category requiring explanation. Automated versions
(ASI) with automatic voiceresponse units are growing in use.
Interrupt
The interruption on a phone line to disconnect and connect
with another station, such as an Emergence Interrupt.
Junctor
A wire or circuit connection between networks in the same
office. The functional equivalent to an intraoffice trunk.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 8
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
MF
Multifrequency - The method of signaling over a trunk making
use of the simultaneous application of two out of six possible
frequencies.
NPA
Numbering Plan Area.
ONI
Operator Number Identification - The use of an operator in a
CAMA office to verbally obtain the calling number of a call
originating in an office not equipped with ANI.
PBX
Private Branch Exchange - (PABX: Private Automatic Branch
Exchange) An telephone office serving a private customer,
Typically , access to the outside telephone network is
provided.
Permanent Signal
A sustained off-hook condition without activity (no dialing or
ringing or completed connection); such a condition tends to
tie up equipment, especially in earlier systems. Usually
accidental, but sometimes used intentionally by customers in
high-crime-rate areas to thwart off burglars.
POTS
Plain Old Telephone Service - Basic service with no extra
"frills".
ROTL
Remote Office Test Line - A means for remotely testing trunks.
RTA
Remote Trunk Arrangement - An extension to the TSPS system
permitting its services to be provided up to 200 miles from
the TSPS site.
SF
Single Frequency. A signaling method for trunks: 2600Hz is
impressed upon idle trunks.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 9
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Supervise
To monitor the status of a call.
SxS
(Step-by-Step or Strowger switch) - An electromechanical
office type utilizing a gross-motion stepping switch as a
combination network and distributed control.
Talkoff
The phenomenon of accidental synthesis of a machine-
intelligible signal by human voice causing an unintended
response. "whistling a tone".
Trunk
A path between central offices; in general 2-wire for
interlocal, 4-wire for intertoll.
TSPS
Traffic Service Position System - A system that provides,
under stored-program control, efficient operator assistance
for toll calls. It does not switch the customer, but provides
a bridge connection to the operator.
X-bar
(Crossbar) - An electromechanical office type utilizing a
"fine-motion" coordinate switch and a multiplicity of central
controls (called markers). There are four varieties:
No.1 Crossbar Used in large urban office application;
(1938)
No 3 Crossbar A small system started in (1974).
No.4A/4M Crossbar A 4-wire toll machine; (1943).
No.5 Crossbar A machine originally intended for
relatively small suburban applications;
(1948)
Crossbar Tandem A machine used for interlocal office
switching.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 10
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_______________________________________________________________
The MCI Telecommunications Glossary
Part I Volume I (A - D)
_______________________________________________________________
Metal Shop: (314) 432-0756
Typed by Knight Lightning
A&B Leads
Designation of leads derived from the midpoints of the two 2-
wire pairs comprising a 4-wire circuit.
Abbreviated Dialing
The ability of a telephone user to reach frequently called
numbers by using less than seven digits. Synonym: Speed
Dialing
Access Charge
A fee paid for the use of local lines.
Access Code
A digit or number of digits required to be connected to a
private line arranged for dial access.
Access Line
A telephone circuit which connects a customer location to a
network switching center.
Airline Mileage
Calculated point-to-point mileage between terminal facilities.
All Trunks Busy (ATB)
A single tone interrupted at a 120 ipm (impulses per minute)
rate to indicate all lines or trunks in a routing group are
busy.
Alternate Route
A secondary communications path used to reach a destination if
the primary path is unavailable.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 11
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Alternate Use
The ability to switch communications facilities from one type
of service to another, i.e., voice to data, etc.
Alterante Voice Data (AVD)
A single transmission facility which can be used for either
voice or data.
American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII)
An 8 level code developed for the interchange of information
between data processing and communications systems.
Analog Signal
A signal in the form of a continuous varying physical
quantity, e.g., voltage which reflects variations in some
quantity, e.g., loudness in the human voice.
Annunciator
An audible intercept device that states the condition or
restrictions associated with circuits or procedures.
Answer Back
An electrical and/or visual indication to the calling or
sending end that the called or received station is on the
line.
Answer Supervision
An off-hook signal transmitted toward the calling end of a
switched connection when the called party answers.
Area Code
Synonym: Numbering Plan Area (NPA). A three digit number
identifying more than 150 geographic areas of the United
States and Canada which permits direct distance dialing on the
telephone system. A similar global numbering plan has been
established for international subscriber dialing.
Attendant Position
A telephone switchboard operator's position. It provides
either automatic (cordless) or manual (plug and jack) operator
controls for incoming and/or outgoing telephone calls.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 12
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Attenuation
A general term used to denote the decrease in power between
that transmitted and that received due to loss through
equipment, lines, or other transmission devices. It is usually
expressed as a ration in db (decibel).
Audible Ringing Tone
An audible signal heard by the calling party during the
ringing-interval.
Authorization Code
An identification number that the caller enters when placing a
call which is used for billing purposes.
Authorized User
A person, firm, organization, corporation or any other entity
authorized by the customer to send or receive communications
over a specific communications network.
Auto Answer
A machine feature that allows a transmission control unit or
station to automatically respond to a call that it receives.
Automatic Call Distributor
A switching system designed to queue and/or distribute a large
volume of incoming calls to a group of attendants to the next
available "answering" position.
Automatic Dialing Unit
A device which automatically generates a predetermined set of
dialing digits.
Automatic Identification of Outward Dialing (AIOD)
A computer generated report showing all long distance calls
placed over AT&T's toll network.
Automatic Number Identification (ANI)
Automatic equipment at a local dial office used on customer
dialed calls to identify the calling-station.
Automatic Route Selection (ARS)
Least cost routing via AT&T CENTREX system.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 13
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Band
(1) The range of frequencies between two defined limits. (2)
In reference to WATS, one of the five specific geographic
areas as defined by AT&T. Synonym: BANDWIDTH.
Bandwidth
See BAND.
Baseband
The total frequency band occupied by the aggregate of all the
voice and data signals used to modulate a radio carrier.
Baud
A unit of signaling speed. The speed in baud is the number of
discrete conditions conditions or signal elements per second.
If each signal event represents only one bit condition, then
Baud is the same as bits per second. When each signal event
represents other than one bit, Baud does not equal bits per
second.
Bell Operating Company (BOC)
Bell Systems Operating Company (BSOC)
Any of the 24 AT&T affiliated companies providing local
service.
Bell System
The aggregate of AT&T's 24 associated telephone companies,
Long Lines, Western Electric, and Bell Labs.
Billing Number
The MCI term for the number which identifies a customer on a
billing location level, assigned to Network Service Customer
(by COMS). Assigned for each unique customer name and billing
location. For internal use only.
Binary
A number system that uses only two characters ("0" and "1").
Bit
A binary digit. The smallest unit of coded information.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 14
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Bits per Second (BPS)
The rate at which data transmission is measured.
Blocked Calls
Attempted calls that are not connected because (1) all lines
to the central offices are in use; or (2) all connecting
connecting paths through the PBX/switch are in use.
Blocked ANI
ANI prohibited from completing a call over the MCI network.
Break
A means of interrupting transmission, a momentary interruption
of a circuit.
Broadband
A transmission facility having a bandwidth of greater then 20
kHz.
Bus
A heavy conductor, or group of conductors, to which several
units of the same type of equipment may be connected.
Busy
The condition in which facilities over which a call is to be
connected are already in use.
Busy Hour
The time of day when phone lines are most in demand.
Busy Tone
A single that is interrupted at 60 ipm (impulses per minute)
rate to indicate that the terminal point of a call is already
in use.
Byte
A group of binary digits that are processed by a computer as a
unit.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 15
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Carrier
High frequency current that can be modulated with voice or
digital signals for bulk transmission via cable or radio
circuits.
Carrier System
A system for providing several communications channels over a
single path.
Cathode Ray Tube (CRT)
The "television-like" screen used to display the output from a
computer.
Cellular Mobile Radio
A system providing exchange telephone service to a station
located in an auto or other mobile vehicle, using radio
circuits to a base radio station which covers a specific
geographical area and as the vehicle moves from one area to
another, different base radio stations handle the call.
Central Office
A telephone switching center that provides local access to the
public network. Sometimes referred to as: Class 5 office, end
office, or Local Dial Office.
Centrex, CO
PBX Service provided by a switch located at the telephone
company central office.
Centrex, CU
A variation on Centrex CO provided by a telephone company
maintained "Central Office" type switch located at the
customer's premises.
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
The control unit within a computer which handles all the
intelligent functions of the systems. In a telephone switch,
directs all potions of the system to carry out their
appropriate functions. Synonym: Common Control.
Channel
A communication path via a carrier or microwave radio.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 16
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Character
Any letter, digit, or special symbol. In data transmission
would be represented by a specific code made up of a group of
binary digits.
Circuit
A path for the transmission of electromagnetic signals to
include all conditioning and signaling equipment. Synonym:
Facility
Circuit Switching
A switching system that completes a dedicated transmission
path from sender to receiver at the time of transmission.
Class of Service / Class Mark (COS)
A subgrouping of telephone customers or users for the sake of
rate distinction or limitation of service.
Coaxial Cable
A cable having several coaxial lines under a single protective
sheath. Usually used as a high capacity carrier in urban areas
between interexchange and toll offices.
CODEC
Coder-Decoder. Used to convert analog signals to digital form
for transmission over a digital median and back again to the
original analog form.
Common Carrier
A government regulated private company that provides the
general public with telecommunications services and
facilities.
Common Channel Interoffice Signalling (CCIS)
A digital technology used by AT&T to enhance their Integrated
Services Digital Network. It uses a separate data line to
route interoffice signals to provide faster call set-up and
more efficient use of trunks.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 17
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Common Control Switching Arrangement (CCSA)
An arrangement for telecommunicationsnetworks in which common
controlled switching machines are used to route traffic over
network routes and access lines. The switching machine may be
shared with other users and is maintained by the telephone
company.
Computer Port / TKI Port
The interface through which the computer connects to the
communications circuit.
Conditioning Equipment
Equipment modifications or adjustments necessary to match
transmission levels and impedances and which equalizes
transmission and delay to bring circuit losses, levels, and
distortion within established standards.
Configuration
The combination of long-distance services and/or equipment
that make up a communications system.
Control Unit (CU)
The central processor of a telephone switching device.
Corporate ID Number
The MCI term for the number which identifies a customer on a
corporate level. (Not all MCI customers have this).
Cost Component
The price of each type of long distance service and/or
equipment that constitutes a configuration.
Cost per Hour (CPH)
Total cost of different services divided by total holding time
(in minutes).
Cross Connection
The wire connections running between terminals on the two
sides of a distribution frame, or between binding posts in a
terminal.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 18
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Cross Talk
The unwanted energy (speech or tone) transferred from one
circuit to another circuit.
Customer Owned and Maintained (COAM)
Customer provided communications apparatus, and their
associated wiring.
Customer Premise Equipment (CPE)
Telephone equipment, usually including wiring located within
the customer's part of a building.
Cut
To transfer a service from one facility to another.
Cut Through
The establishment of a complete path for signaling and/or
audio communications.
Data
Any representation, such as characters to which a meaning is
assigned.
Data Communications
The movement of coded information by means of electronic
transmission systems.
Data Set
A device which converts data into signals suitable for
transmission over communications lines.
Data Terminal
A station in a system capable of sending and/or receiving data
signals.
Decibel (db)
A unit of measurement represented as a ratio of two voltages,
currents or powers and is used to measure transmission loss or
gain.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 19
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Delay Dial
A dialing configuration whereby local dial equipment will wait
until it receives the entire telephone number before seizing a
circuit to transmit the call.
Delta Modulation (DM)
A variant of pulse code modulation whereby a code representing
the difference between the amplitude of a sample and the
amplitude of a previous one is sent. Operates well in the
presence of noise, but requires a wide frequency band.
Demodulation
The process of retrieving data from a modulated signal.
Dial Level
The selection of stations or services associated with a PBX
using a one to four digit code (e.g., dialing 9 for access to
outside dial tone).
Dial Pulsing
The transmitting of telephone address signals by momentarily
opening a DC circuit a number of times corresponding to the
decimal digit which is dialed.
Dial Repeating Tie Line
Dial Repeating Tie Trunk
A tie line which permits direct station to station calling
without use of the attendant.
Dial Selective Signaling
A multipoint network in which the called party is selected by
a prearranged dialing code.
Dial Tone
A tone indicating that automatic switching equipment is ready
to receive dial signals.
Dialing Plan
A description of the dialing arrangements for customer use on
a networks.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 20
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Digital
Referring to the use of digits to formulate and solve
problems, or to encode information.
Dimension Custom Telephone Service (DCTS)
AT&T's electronically programmable telephone station sets
which use special buttons to access PBX features.
Direct Distance Dialing (DDD)
A toll service that permits customers to dial their own long
distance call without the aid of an operator.
Direct Inward Dialing (DID)
A PBX or CENTREX feature that allows a customer outside the
system to directly dial a station within the system.
Direct Outward Dialing
A PBX or CENTREX feature that allows a station user to gain
direct access to an exchange network.
Drop
That direction of a circuit which looks towards the local
operator.
Dry Circuit
A circuit which transmits voice signals and carries no direct
current.
Dual Tone Multi Frequency (DTMF)
Also know as Touch Tone. A type of signaling which emits two
distinct frequencies for each indicated digit.
Duplex
Simultaneous two-way independent transmission.
DX Signaling
A long-range bidirectional signaling method using paths
derived from transmission cable pairs. It is based on a
balanced and symmetrical circuit that is identical at both
ends. This circuit presents an E&M lead interface to
connecting circuits.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 21
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
This concludes Part 1 Volume I of the MCI Telecommunications
Glossary. Look for more G-philes from The MCI School of
Telecommunications Management Reference Guide coming soon.
This has been a 2600 Club production
Thanx to Taran King
_______________________________________________________________
Electronic Toll Fraud Devices
_______________________________________________________________
Typed and Uploaded by
Lex Luthor
This phile is designed to identify various kinds of ETF
(electronic toll fraud) devices and to describe their
operation, according to a booklet put out by Bell entitled:
the investigation and prosecution of electronic toll fraud
devices. (For official use only).
There are several different types of electronic equipment
which may be generally classified as ETF devices. The most
significant is the "blue box". The characteristics of each
type of device are discussed below.
Blue Box
The "blue box" was so named because of the color of the first
one found. The design and hardware used in the blue box is
fairly sophisticated, and its size varies from a large piece
of apparatus to a miniaturized unit that is approximately the
size of a "king size" package of cigarettes. The blue box
contains 12 or 13 buttons or switches that emit multi-
frequency tones characteristic of the tones used in the normal
operation of the telephone toll (long distance) switching
network. The blue box enables its user to originate fraudulent
("free") toll calls by circumventing toll billing equipment.
The blue box may be directly connected to a phone line, or it
may be acoustically coupled to a telephone handset by placing
the blue box's speaker next to the transmitter or the
telephone handset. The operation of a blue box will be
discussed in more detail below.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 22
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To understand the nature of a fraudulent blue box call, it is
necessary to understand the basic operation of the direct
distance dialing (ddd) telephone network. When a ddd call is
properly originated, the calling number is identified as an
integral part of establishing the connection. This may be done
either automatically or, in some cases, by an operator asking
the calling party for his telephone number.
This information is entered on a tape in the automatic message
accounting (ama) office. This tape also contains the number
assigned to the trunk line over which the call is to be sent.
The information relating to the call contained on the tape
includes: called number, calling number, time of call. The
time of disconnect at the end of the call is also recorded.
Although the tape contains info with respect to many different
calls, the various data entries with respect to a single call
are eventually correlated to provide billing info for use by
your bell's accounting department.
The typical blue box user usually dials a number that will
route the call into the telephone network without charge. For
example, the user will very often call a well-known inwats
(toll-free) customer's number. The blue box user, after
gaining this access to the network and, in effect, "seizing"
control and complete dominion over the line, operates a key on
the blue box which emits a 2600 hertz (cycles per second)
tone. This tone causes the switching equipment to release the
connection to the inwats customer's line. The 2600Hz tone is a
signal that the calling party has hung up. The blue box
simulates this condition. However, in fact the local trunk on
the calling party's end is still connected to the toll
network. The blue box user now operates the "KP" (key pulse)
key on the blue box to notify the toll switching equipment
that switching signals are about to be emitted. The user then
pushes the "number" buttons on the blue box corresponding to
the telephone # being called. After doing so he/she operates
the "ST" (start) key to indicate to the switching equipment
that signalling is complete. If the call is completed, only
the portion of the original call prior to the emission of
2600Hz tone is recorded on the ama tape. The tones emitted by
the blue box are not recorded on the ama tape. Therefore,
because the original call to the inwats # is toll-free, no
billing is rendered in connection with the call.
Although the above is a description of a typical blue box
operation using a common method of entry into the network, the
operation of a blue box may vary in any one or all of the
following respects:
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 23
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(a) The blue box may include a rotary dial to apply the
2600Hz tone and the switching signals. This type of blue
box is called a "dial pulser" or "rotary sf" blue box.
(b) entrance into the ddd toll network may be effected by a
pretext call to any other toll-free # such as universal
directory assistance (555-1212) or any # in the inwats
network, either inter-state or intra-state, working or
non-working.
(c) entrance into the ddd toll network may also be in the
form of "short haul" calling. A "short haul" call is a
call to any # which will result in a lesser amount of
toll charges than the charges for the call to be
completed by the blue box. For example, a call to
birmingham from atlanta may cost $.80 for the first 3
minutes while a call from atlanta to los angeles is $1.85
for 3 minutes. Thus, a short haul, 3-minute call to
birmingham from atlanta, switched by use of a blue box to
los angeles, would result in a net fraud of $2.65 for a 3
minute call.
(d) a blue box may be wired into the telephone line or
acoustically connected to the handset. The blue box may
even be built inside a regular touch-tone phone, using
the phone's push buttons for the blue box's signalling
tones.
(e) a magnetic tape recording may be used to record the blue
box tones representative of specific phone #'s. Such a
tape recording could be used in lieu of a blue box to
fraudulently place calls to the phone #'s recorded on the
magnetic tape.
All blue boxes, except "dial pulse" or "rotary sf" blue boxes,
must have the following 4 common operating capabilities:
(a) it must have signalling capability in the form of a
2600Hz tone. The tone is used by the toll network to
indicate, either by its presence or its absence, an "on
hook" (idle) or "off hook" (busy) condition of the trunk.
(b) the blue box must have a "KP" tones that unlocks or
readies the multi-frequency receiver at the called end to
receive the tones corresponding to the called phone #.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 24
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(c) the typical blue box must be able to emit mf tones which
are used to transmit phone #'s over the toll network.
Each digit of a phone # is represented by a combination
of 2 tones. For example, the digit 2 is x-mitted by a
combination of 700Hz and 1100Hz.
(d) the blue box must have an "ST" key which consists of a
combination of 2 tones that tell the equipment at the
called end that all digits have been sent and that the
equipment should start switching the call to the called
number.
the "dial pulser" or "rotary sf" blue box requires only a dial
with a signalling capability to produce a 2600Hz tone.
Black Box
This ETF device is so-named because of the color of the first
one found. It varies in size and usually has one or two
switches or buttons. Attached to the telephone line of a
called party, the black box provides toll-free calling to that
party's line. A black box user informs other persons
beforehand that they will not be charged for any call placed
to him. The user then operates the device causing a "non-
charge" condition ("no answer" or "disconnect") to be recorded
on the telephone company's billing equipment. A black box is
relatively simple to construct and is much less sophisticated
than a blue box.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 25
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Cheese Box
Its design may be crude or very sophisticated. Its size
varies; one was found the size of a half-dollar. A cheese box
is used most often by bookmakers or betters to place wagers
without detection from a remote location. The device inter-
connects 2 phone lines, each having different #'s but each
terminating at the same location. In effect, there are 2
phones at the same location which are linked together through
a cheese box. It is usually found in an unoccupied apartment
connected to a phone jack or connecting block. The bookmaker,
at some remote location, dials one of the numbers and stays on
the line. Various bettors dial the other number but are
automatically connected with the bookmaker by means of the
cheese box inter-connection. If, in addition to a cheese box,
a black box is included in the arrangement, the combined
equipment would permit toll-free calling on either line to the
other line. If a police raid were conducted at the terminating
point of the conversations - the location of the cheese box -
there would be no evidence of gambling activity. This device
is sometimes difficult to identify. Law enforcement officials
have been advised that when unusual devices are found
associated with telephone connections the phone company
security representatives should be contacted to assist in
identification. (This probably would be good for a BBS,
especially with the black box set up. And if you ever decided
to take the board down, you wouldn't have to change your phone
#. It also makes it so you yourself cannot be traced. I am not
sure about calling out from one though)
Red Box
This device it coupled acoustically to the handset transmitter
of a single-slot coin telephone. The device emits signals
identical to those tones emitted when coins are deposited.
Thus, local or toll calls may be placed without the actual
deposit of coins.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 26
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_______________________________________________________________
Phreaker's PhunHouse
The Traveler
_______________________________________________________________
Brainstorm BBS
612/345-2815 (300/1200)
Little America
507/289-8211 (300)
Tell 'em Traveler sent ya
The long awaited prequil to Phreaker's Guide has finally
arrived. Conceived from the boredom and loneliness that could
only be derived from: The Traveler! But now, he has returned
in full strength (after a small vacation) and is here to
'World Premiere' the new files everywhere.
Stay cool. This is the prequil to the first one, so just
relax. This is not made to be an exclusive ultra elite file,
so kinda calm down and watch in the background if you are too
cool for it ...
Phreak Dictionary
Here you will find some of the basic but necessary terms that
should be known by any phreak who wants to be respected at all
...
Phreak [fr'eek]
1. The action of using mischevious and mostly illegal ways in
order to not pay for some sort of telecommunications bill,
order, transfer, or other service. It often involves usage of
highly illegal boxes and machines in order to defeat the
security that is set up to avoid this sort of happening.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 27
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[fr'eaking]
v. 2. A person who uses the above methods of destruction and
chaos in order to make a better life for all. A true phreaker
will not not go against his fellows or narc on people who have
ragged on him or do anything termed to be dishonorable to
phreaks.
[fr'eek]
n. 3. A certain code or dialup useful in the action of being a
phreak. (Example: "I hacked a new metro phreak last night.")
Switching System
[Swich'ing sis'tem]
1. There are 3 main switching systems currently employed in
the US, and a few other systems will be mentioned as
background.
a) SxS: This system was invented in 1918 and was employed in
over half of the country until 1978. It is a very basic
system that is a general waste of energy and hard work on
the linesman. A good way to identify this is that it
requires a coin in the phone booth before it will give
you a dial tone, or that no call waiting, call
forwarding, or any other such service is available.
Stands for: Step by Step
b) XB: This switching system was first employed in 1978 in
order to take care of most of the faults of SxS
switching. Not only is it more efficient, but it also can
support different services in various forms. XB1 is
Crossbar Version 1. That is very limited and is hard to
distinguish from SxS except by direct view of the wiring
involved. Next up was XB4, Crossbar Version 4. With this
system, some of the basic things like DTMF that were not
available with SxS can be accomplished. For the final
stroke of XB, XB5 was created. This is a service that can
allow DTMF plus most 800 type services (which were not
always available ... ) Stands for: Crossbar.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 28
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c) ESS: A nightmare in telecom. In vivid color, ESS is a
pretty bad thing to have to stand up to. It is quite
simple to identify. Dialing 911 for emergencies, and ANI
[see ANI below] are the most common facets of the dread
system. ESS has the capability to list in a person's
caller log what number was called, how long the call
took, and even the status of the conversation (modem or
otherwise.) Since ESS has been employed, which has been
very recently, it has gone through many kinds of
revisions. The latest system to date is ESS 11a, that is
employed in Washington D.C. for security reasons. ESS is
truly trouble for any phreak, because it is 'smarter'
than the other systems. For instance, if on your caller
log they saw 50 calls to 1-800-421-9438, they would be
able to do a CN/A [see Loopholes below] on your number
and determine whether you are subscribed to that service
or not. This makes most calls a hazard, because although
800 numbers appear to be free, they are recorded on your
caller log and then right before you receive your bill it
deletes the billings for them. But before that they are
open to inspection, which is one reason why extended use
of any code is dangerous under ESS. Some of the boxes
[see Boxing below] are unable to function in ESS. It is
generally a menace to the true phreak. Stands For:
Electronic Switching System. because they could appear on
a filter somewhere or maybe it is just nice to know them
any ways.
a) SSS: Strowger Switching System. First non-operator
system available.
b) WES: Western Electronics Switching. Used about 40
years ago with some minor places out west.
Boxing [Boks'-ing]
1. The use of personally designed boxes that emit or cancel
electronical impulses that allow simpler acting while
phreaking. Through the use of separate boxes, you can
accomplish most feats possible with or without the control of
an operator.
2. Some boxes and their functions are listed below. Ones
marked with '*' indicate that they are not operatable in ESS.
*Black Box Makes it seem to the phone company that the
phone was never picked up.
Blue Box Emits a 2600Hz tone that allows you to do such
things as stack a trunk line, kick the operator
off line, and others.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 29
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Red Box Simulates the noise of a quarter, nickel, or
dime being dropped into a payphone.
Cheese Box Turns your home phone into a pay phone to throw
off traces (a red box is usually needed in
order to call out.)
*Clear Box Gives you a dial tone on some of the old SxS
payphones without putting in a coin.
Beige Box A simpler produced linesman's handset that
allows you to tap into phone lines and extract
by eavesdropping, or crossing wires, etc.
Purple Box Makes all calls made out from your house seem
to be local calls.
ANI [ANI]
1. Automatic Number Identification. A service available on ESS
that allows a phone service [see Dialups below] to record the
number that any certain code was dialed from along with the
number that was called and print both of these on the customer
bill. 950 dialups [see Dialups below] are all designed just to
use ANI. Some of the services do not have the proper equipment
to read the ANI impulses yet, but it is impossible to see
which is which without being busted or not busted first.
Dialups [dy'l'ups]
1. Any local or 800 extended outlet that allows instant access
to any service such as MCI, Sprint, or AT&T that from there
can be used by handpicking or using a program to reveal other
peoples codes which can then be used moderately until they
find out about it and you must switch to another code
(preferably before they find out about it.)
2. Dialups are extremely common on both senses. Some dialups
reveal the company that operates them as soon as you hear the
tone. Others are much harder and some you may never be able to
identify. A small list of dialups:
1-800-421-9438 (5 digit codes)
1-800-547-6754 (6 digit codes)
1-800-345-0008 (6 digit codes)
1-800-734-3478 (6 digit codes)
1-800-222-2255 (5 digit codes)
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3. Codes: Codes are very easily accessed procedures when you
call a dialup. They will give you some sort of tone. If the
tone does not end in 3 seconds, then punch in the code and
immediately following the code, the number you are dialing but
strike the '1' in the beginning out first. If the tone does
end, then punch in the code when the tone ends. Then, it will
give you another tone. Punch in the number you are dialing, or
a '9'. If you punch in a '9' and the tone stops, then you
messed up a little. If you punch in a tone and the tone
continues, then simply dial then number you are calling
without the '1'.
4. All codes are not universal. The only type that I know of
that is truly universal is Metrophone. Almost every major city
has a local Metro dialup (for Philadelphia, (215)351-
0100/0126) and since the codes are universal, almost every
phreak has used them once or twice. They do not employ ANI in
any outlets that I know of, so feel free to check through your
books and call 555-1212 or, as a more devious manor, subscribe
yourself. Then, never use your own code. That way, if they
check up on you due to your caller log, they can usually find
out that you are subscribed. Not only that but you could set a
phreak hacker around that area and just let it hack away,
since they usually group them, and, as a bonus, you will have
their local dialup.
5. 950's. They seem like a perfectly cool phreakers dream.
They are free from your house, from payphones, from
everywhere, and they host all of the major long distance
companies (950-1044 <MCI>, 950-1077 <Sprint>, 950-1088
<Skylines>, 950-1033 <Us Telecom>.) Well, they aren't. They
were designed for ANI. That is the point, end of discussion.
A phreak dictionary. If you remember all of the things
contained on that file up there, you may have a better chance
of doing whatever it is you do. This next section is maybe a
little more interesting ...
Blue Box Plans
These are some blue box plans, but first, be warned, there
have been 2600Hz tone detectors out on operator trunk lines
since XB4. The idea behind it is to use a 2600Hz tone for a
few very naughty functions that can really make your day
lighten up. But first, here are the plans, or the heart of the
file:
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 31
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
==============================================
700 : 1 : 2 : 4 : 7 : 11 :
900 : + : 3 : 5 : 8 : 12 :
1100 : + : + : 6 : 9 : KP :
1300 : + : + : + : 10 : KP2 :
1500 : + : + : + : + : ST :
: 700 : 900 :1100 :1300 :1500 :
==============================================
Stop! Before you diehard users start piecing those little tone
tidbits together, there is a simpler method. If you have an
Apple-Cat with a program like Cat's Meow IV, then you can
generate the necessary tones, the 2600Hz tone, the KP tone,
the KP2 tone, and the ST tone through the dial section. So if
you have that I will assume you can boot it up and it works,
and I'll do you the favor of telling you and the other users
what to do with the blue box now that you have somehow
constructed it.
The connection to an operator is one of the most well known
and used ways of having fun with your blue box. You simply
dial a TSPS (Traffic Service Positioning Station, or the
operator you get when you dial '0') and blow a 2600Hz tone
through the line. Watch out! Do not dial this direct! After
you have done that, it is quite simple to have fun with it.
Blow a KP tone to start a call, a ST tone to stop it, and a
2600Hz tone to hang up. Once you have connected to it, here
are some fun numbers to call with it:
0-700-456-1000 Teleconference
(free, because you are the operator!)
(Area code)-101 Toll Switching
(Area code)-121 Local Operator (hehe)
(Area code)-131 Information
(Area code)-141 Rate & Route
(Area code)-181 Coin Refund Operator
(Area code)-11511 Conference operator (when you dial 800-
544-6363)
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 32
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Well, those were the tone matrix controllers for the blue box
and some other helpful stuff to help you to start out with.
But those are only the functions with the operator. There are
other k-fun things you can do with it ...
More Advanced Blue Box Stuff
Oops. Small mistake up there. I forgot tone lengths. Um, you
blow a tone pair out for up to 1/10 of a second with another
1/10 second for silence between the digits. KP tones should be
sent for 2/10 of a second. One way to confuse the 2600Hz traps
is to send pink noise over the channel (for all of you that
have decent BSR equalizers, there is major pink noise in
there ... ) Using the operator functions is the use of the
'inward' trunk line. That is working it from the inside. From
the 'outward' trunk, you can do such things as make emergency
breakthrough calls, tap into lines, busy all of the lines in
any trunk (called 'stacking'), enable or disable the TSPS's,
and for some 4a systems you can even re-route calls to
anywhere.
All right. The one thing that every complete phreak guide
should not be without is blue box plans, since they were once
a vital part of phreaking. Another thing that every complete
file needs is a complete listing of all of the 800 numbers
around so you can have some more fun.
800 Dialup Listings
1-800-345-0008 (6) 1-800-547-6754 (6)
1-800-245-4890 (4) 1-800-327-9136 (4)
1-800-526-5305 (8) 1-800-858-9000 (3)
1-800-437-9895 (7) 1-800-245-7508 (5)
1-800-343-1844 (4) 1-800-322-1415 (6)
1-800-437-3478 (6) 1-800-325-7222 (6)
All right, set Cat Hacker 1.0 on those numbers and have a fuck
of a day. That is enough with 800 codes, by the time this gets
around to you I dunno what state those codes will be in, but
try them all out anyways and see what you get. On some 800
services now, they have an operator who will answer and ask
you for your code, and then your name. Some will switch back
and forth between voice and tone verification, you can never
be quite sure which you will be up against.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 33
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Armed with this knowledge you should be having a pretty good
time phreaking now. But class isn't over yet, there are still
a couple important rules that you should know. If you hear
continual clicking on the line, then you should assume that an
operator is messing with something, maybe even listening in on
you. It is a good idea to call someone back when the phone
starts doing that. If you were using a code, use a different
code and/or service to call him back.
A good way to detect if a code has gone bad or not is to
listen when the number has been dialed. If the code is bad you
will probably hear the phone ringing more clearly and more
quickly than if you were using a different code. If someone
answers voice to it then you can immediately assume that it is
an operative for whatever company you are using. The famed
'311311' code for Metro is one of those. You would have to be
quite stupid to actually respond, because whoever you ask for
the operator will always say 'He's not in right now, can I
have him call you back?' and then they will ask for your name
and phone number. Some of the more sophisticated companies
will actually give you a carrier on a line that is supposed to
give you a carrier and then just have garbage flow across the
screen like it would with a bad connection. That is a feeble
effort to make you think that the code is still working and
maybe get you to dial someone's voice ... a good test for the
carrier trick is to dial a number that will give you a carrier
that you have never dialed with that code before, that will
allow you to determine whether the code is good or not.
For our next section, a lighter look at some of the things
that a phreak should not be without. A vocabulary. A few
months ago, it was a quite strange world for the modem people
out there. But now, a phreaker's vocabulary is essential if
you wanna make a good impression on people when you post what
you know about certain subjects.
Vocabulary
o Do not misspell except certain exceptions:
phone -> fone
freak -> phreak
o Never substitute 'z's for 's's. (i.e. codez -> codes)
o Never leave many characters after a post (i.e. Hey
Dudes!#!@#@!#!@)
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 34
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
o NEVER use the 'k' prefix (k-kool, k-rad, k-whatever)
o Do not abbreviate. (I got lotsa wares w/ docs)
o Never substitute '0' for 'o' (r0dent, l0zer).
o Forget about ye old upper case, it looks ruggyish.
All right, that was to relieve the tension of what is being
drilled into your minds at the moment ... now, however, back
to the teaching course. Here are some things you should know
about phones and billings for phones, etc.
LATA
Local Access Transference Area. Some people who live in large
cities or areas may be plagued by this problem. For instance,
let's say you live in the 215 area code under the 542 prefix
(Ambler, Fort Washington). If you went to dial in a basic
Metro code from that area, for instance, 351-0100, that might
not be counted under unlimited local calling because it is out
of your LATA. For some LATA's, you have to dial a '1' without
the area code before you can dial the phone number. That could
prove a hassle for us all if you didn't realize you would be
billed for that sort of call. In that way, sometimes, it is
better to be safe than sorry and phreak.
The Caller Log
In ESS regions, for every household around, the phone company
has something on you called a Caller Log. This shows every
single number that you dialed, and things can be arranged so
it showed every number that was calling to you. That's one
main disadvantage of ESS, it is mostly computerized so a
number scan could be done like that quite easily. Using a
dialup is an easy way to screw that, and is something worth
remembering. Anyways, with the caller log, they check up and
see what you dialed. Hmm ... you dialed 15 different 800
numbers that month. Soon they find that you are subscribed to
none of those companies. But that is not the only thing. Most
people would imagine "But wait! 800 numbers don't show up on
my phone bill!". To those people, it is a nice thought, but
800 numbers are picked up on the caller log until right before
they are sent off to you. So they can check right up on you
before they send it away and can note the fact that you fucked
up slightly and called one too many 800 lines.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 35
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Right now, after all of that, you should have a pretty good
idea of how to grow up as a good phreak. Follow these
guidelines, don't show off, and don't take unnecessary risks
when phreaking or hacking.
File Level:5
Credits
To The Videosmith for setting me straight on some shit.
To The Linesman for telling me to upload it to his AE
line.
To Modern Mutant for making me into a phreaking freak.
To Jack the Nibbler for the basis of the blue box plans.
By using your new k-koool (hehe) phreaking knowledge, call a
couple of these BBS's around the country:
Bulletin Board List
215/844-8836 7 Cities of Gold (3/12) 10megs
307/382-4006 Brainstorm BBS (3/12)
612/345-2815 Metal Shop (3/12)
314/432-0756
Stay free! And watch out soon for Deep Thought, somewhere in
215, that will be a nice BBS that Ace of Spades and I will
run. You will be the first to find out about it, trust me ...
Later,
The Traveler
Zer0-g
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 36
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_______________________________________________________________
Basic Telecommunications
Part I
_______________________________________________________________
BIOC Agent 003
How to be a Real Phreak
In the phone phreak society there are certain values that
exist in order to be a true phreak, these are best summed up
by the magician:
"Many people think of phone phreaks as slime, out to
rip off Bell for all she is worth. Nothing could be
further from the truth! Granted, there are some who
get their kicks by making free calls; however, they
are not true phone phreaks. Real phone phreaks are
'telecommunications hobbyists' who experiment, play
with and learn from the phone system. Occasionally
this experimenting, and a need to communicate with
other phreaks ( with-out going broke), leads to free
calls. The free calls are but a small subset of a
true phone phreaks activities."
The Phone Phreak's Ten Commandments
Reprinted from tap issue #86. (Tap, room 603, 147 w 42 street,
New York, NY 10036) send a SASE for their info sheet and tell
them that Bioc Agent 003 told you about it.)
i. box thou not over thine home telephone wires, for
those who doest must surely bring the wrath of the
chief special agent down upon thy heads.
ii. speakest thou not of important matters over thine home
telephone wires, for to do so is to risk thine right of
freedom.
iii. use not thine own name when speaking to other phreaks,
for that every third phreak is an FBI agent is well
known.
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iv. let not overly many people know that thy be a phreak,
as to do so is to use thine own self as a sacrificial
lamb.
v. if thou be in school, strive to get thin self good
grades, for the authorities well know that scholars
never break the law.
vi. if thou workest, try to be a employee, and impressest
thine boss with thine enthusiasm, for important
employees are often saved by their own bosses.
vii. storest thou not thine stolen goods in thine own home,
for those who do are surely non-believers in the Bell
system security forces, and are not long for this
world.
viii. attractest thou not the attention of the authorities,
as the less noticeable thou art, the better.
ix. makest sure thine friends are instant amnesiacs and
will not remember that thou have called illegally, for
their cooperation with the authorities will surely
lessen thine time for freedom on this earth.
x. supportest thou tap, as it is thine newsletter, and
without it, thy work will be far more limited.
CN/A Numbers
Customer name & address bureaus exist so that authorized Bell
employees may obtain the name & address of any customer in the
Bell system by giving the CN/A operator the customer's tel-#.
All customers are maintained on file including unlisted #'s.
These bureaus have many uses for phreaks.
Here is how an employee might go about calling CN/A:
"hi, this is john doe from the miami residential
service center, can I have the customers name at
(123) 555-1212."
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The employees usually use these for checking who belongs to a
# that someone claimed they didn't call.if you sound cheery
and natural the operator will never ask any questions. If you
don't sound like a mature adult, don't use it! Always practice
first & so you don't screw up and make the operator
suspicious. Use name that sounds real, not your pirate name
either! Also say that you are fro a city that is far away from
the one that you are calling.
The CN/A number for the ny area & vicinity (212, 315, 516,
518, 607, 716, & 914), is 518/471-8111, and is open during
business hours. Don't abuse it!
AT&T Newslines
AT&T newslines are numbers at area phone offices that telco
employees call to find out the latest info on new technology,
stocks, etc. The recorded reports range from very boring to
very interesting.
Here are a few of the numbers:
*(201) 483-3800 nj (518) 471-2272 ny
(203) 771-4920 cn (717) 255-5555 pa
(212) 393-2151 ny (717) 787-1031 pa
(516) 234-9941 ny *(914) 948-8100 ny
* These numbers are not always up!
Some of these numbers are toll-free, but you can't always
count on it.
Numbers from other areas are available by request from Bioc
Agent 003.
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ANI Numbers
ANI numbers identify the phone number that you are calling
from. It is useful when playing in cans (those big silver
boxes on telephone poles) to find out the # of the line. It is
also good to find out the # of a phone that doesn't have it
printed on it. In the 914 area code the ANI # is 990. If you
just have to dial the last 4 digits for a local #, ie congers
(268), dial 1-990-1111, where 1111 are dummy digits there is
also a less useful type of ANI# which will identify the area
code & exchange. It is nxx-9901, where 'nxx' is the exchange.
In the 212 & 516 area codes the ANI # is 958.
Phreak Newsletter
Tap is the "official" phone phreak newsletter, and has existed
since 1971. Each 4 page issue is crammed full of information
on phone phreaking, computer phreaking, free gas, free
electricity, free postage, breaking & entering info, etc. It
is largely phone phreak oriented, however.
A 10 issue subscription costs $8.00, if you get a bulk rate
sealed envelope subscription. I would recommend the first
class subscription, which is $10.
As of this writing (7-16-83), the current issue is #86, and
issue #50 is 8 pages instead of the usual 4. Back issues are
$0.75 each, and issue #50 is $1.50. A brief index to the first
80 issues is available for a sase, or free with a subscription
order. Tap is non-profit, and in desperate need of material
(articles), money, and volunteers.
Tap
Room 603
147 west 42nd Street
New York, NY 10036
Believe me: it will be the best $10 you will ever spend ...
Black Box
The black box is a device that attached to a called parties
phone that allows him/her to receive free long distance calls
from friends who call.
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You only need 2 parts: a spst toggle switch and a 10,000 ohm
(10 k), 1/2 watt, 10% resistor. Any electronics place should
have these.
Now, cut two pieces of wire, about 6 inches, and attach these
to the two screws on the switch. Turn your normal ddside down
and unscrew the 2 screws. Locate the "f" and "rr" screws on
the network box. Wrap the resistor between these 2 screws and
make sure that the wires touch only the proper terminals! Now
connect one wire from the switch to the rr terminal. Finally,
attach the remaining wire to the green wire (disconnect it
from its terminal). Now bring the switch out the rear of the
phone and close it up. Put the switch in a position where you
get a dial tone, mark this normal. Mark the other side free.
When your friends call (at a prearranged time), quickly lift &
drop the receiver as fast as possible. This will stop the
ringing, if not try again. It is very important that you do it
fast! Now put the switch in the free position and pick up the
phone. Keep all calls short & under 15 minutes.
When someone calls you long-distance, they are billed from the
moment you answer. The telco knows when you answer due to a
certain amount of voltage that flows when you pick up the
phone. However, the resistor cuts down on the voltage so it is
below the billing range but sufficient enough to operate the
mouthpiece. Answering the phone for a fraction of a second
stops the ring but it is not enough for billing to start. If
the phone is answered for even one full second, billing will
start and you will be cut off when you hang up and switch to
free.
Warning: Bell can randomly look for black boxes so be careful!
_____________________________________
| |
---Blue Wire-->>F< |
| | | |
--White Wire---/ | |
| | |
| Resistor |
| | |
| | |
| >RR<-------Switch--\ |
| | |
----Green Wire--------------------/ |
| |
|_____________________________________|
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Dial Locks
Have you ever been in an office or somewhere and wanted to
make a free fone call but some asshole put a lock on the fone
to prevent out-going calls? Fret no more phellow phreaks, for
every system can be beaten with a little knowledge!
There are two ways to beat this obstacle, first pick the lock,
I don't have the time to teach locksmithing so we go to the
second method which takes advantage of telephone electronics.
To be as simple as possible, when you pick up the fone you
complete a circuit know as a local loop. When you hang-up you
break the circuit. When you dial (pulse) it also breaks the
circuit but not long enough to hang up! So you can "push-
dial." to do this you >>> rapidly <<< depress the switchhook.
For example, to dial an operator (and then give her the number
you want called) >>> rapidly <<< & >>> evenly <<< depress the
switchhook 10 times. To dial 634-1268, depress 6 x's pause,
then 3 x's, pause, then 4x's, etc. It takes a little practice
but you'll get the hang of it. Try practicing with your own #
so you'll get a busy tone when right. It'll also work on
touch-tone(tm) since a dtmf line will also accept pulse. Also,
never depress the switchhook for more than a second or it'll
hang-up!
Finally, remember that you have just as much right to that
fone as the asshole who put the lock on it!
Exchange Scanning
Almost every exchange in the Bell system has test #'s and
other "goodies" such as loops with dial-ups. These "goodies"
are usually found between 9900 and 9999 in your local
exchange. If you have the time and initiative, scan your
exchange and you may become lucky!
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here are my findings in the 914-268 exchange:
9900 ANI (see separate bulletin)
9901 ANI (see separate bulletin)
9927 osc. Tone (possible tone side of a loop)
9936 voice # to the telco central office
9937 voice # to the telco central office
9941 computer (digital voice transmission?)
9960 osc. Tone (tone side loop)
may also be a computer in some exchanges
9961 no response (other end of loop?)
9962 no response (other end of loop?)
9963 no response (other end of loop?)
9966 computer (see 9941)
9968 tone that disappears - responds to certain
touch-tone keys
Most of the numbers between 9900 & 9999 will ring or go to a
"What #, please?" operator.
Have phun and remember it's only a local call!
Touch-tone & Free Calls
There are several ways to make free calls (sprint, MCI, etc.)
using a rotary phone. They are:
1. Use a number that accepts voice as well as dtmf. Such a #
is (800) 521-8400. As of writing this, a code was
00717865.
If using voice, wait for the computer to say,
"authorization #, please." then say each digit slowly, it
will beep after each digit is said. After every group of
digits, it will repeat what you have said, then say yes
if it is correct, otherwise say no. If the access code is
correct, it will thank you and ask for the destination #,
then say the area code + number as above. Another such #
is (800) 245-8173, which has a 6 digit access code.
(Note: if using touch-tone on this #, enter the code
immediately after the tone stops.)
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2. Hook up a touch-tone fone into your rotary fone. Attach
the red wire from the touch-tone fone to the "r" terminal
inside the fone on the network box. Then hook the green
wire to the "b" terminal. To use this dial the # using
rotary & then use the touch-tone for the codes. (Don't
hang up the rotary fone while doing this though!) if this
doesn't work then reverse the 2 wires.
note if your line can accept touch-tone but you have a
rotary fone then you can hook up a tone fone
directly for all calls but this usually isn't the
case (such as radio shack's 43-138).
Other Alternatives
4. Use a charge-a-call fone. (These also make great
extensions if you remove it using a hex wrench with a
hole in the middle on the center screw!) - (these fones,
for the benefit of those who don't know, are blue with no
coin slots).
5. Use a pay fone that wants your money before the dial
tone. Put in your dime, dial the #; if it's an 800 # then
your dime will come back, immediately put a dime back in
(it'll come back when you hang up!) if it is a tone first
fone and it disconnects the keypad (some don't) then find
another fone.
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_______________________________________________________________
Chapter 2
_______________________________________________________________
Well now we know a little vocabulary, and now its into
history, Phreak history. Back at MIT in 1964 arrived a student
by the name of Stewart Nelson, who was extremely interested in
the telephone. Before entering MIT, he had built autodialers,
cheese boxes, and many more gadgets. But when he came to MIT
he became even more interested in "fone-hacking" as they
called it. After a little while he naturally started using the
PDP-1, the schools computer at that time, and from there he
decided that it would be interesting to see whether the
computer could generate the frequencies required for blue
boxing. The hackers at MIT were not interested in ripping off
Ma Bell, but just exploring the telephone network. Stew (as he
was called) wrote a program to generate all the tones and set
off into the vast network.
Now there were more people phreaking than the ones at MIT.
Most people have heard of Captain Crunch (No not the cereal),
he also discovered how to take rides through the fone system,
with the aid of a small whistle found in a cereal box (can we
guess which one?). By blowing this whistle, he generated the
magical 2600Hz and into the mouthpiece it sailed, giving him
complete control over the system. I have heard rumors that at
one time he made about 1/4 of the calls coming out of San
Francisco. He got famous fast. He made the cover of people
magazine and was interviewed several times (as you'll soon
see). Well he finally got caught after a long adventurous
career. After he was caught he was put in jail and was beaten
up quite badly because he would not teach other inmates how to
box calls. After getting out, he joined Apple computer and is
still out there somewhere.
Then there was Joe the Whistler, blind form the day he was
born. He could whistle a perfect 2600Hz tone. It was rumored
phreaks used to call him to tune their boxes.
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Well that was up to about 1970, then from 1970 to 1979,
phreaking was mainly done by college students, businessmen and
anyone who knew enough about electronics and the fone company
to make a 555 Ic to generate those magic tones. Businessmen
and a few college students mainly just blue box to get free
calls. The others were still there, exploring 800#'s and the
new ESS systems. ESS posed a big problem for phreaks then and
even a bigger one now. ESS was not widespread, but where it
was, blue boxing was next to impossible except for the most
experienced phreak. Today ESS is installed in almost all major
cities and blue boxing is getting harder and harder.
1978 marked a change in phreaking, the Apple ][, now a
computer that was affordable, could be programmed, and could
save all that precious work on a cassette. Then just a short
while later came the Apple Cat modem. With this modem,
generating all blue box tones was easy as writing a program to
count form one to ten (a little exaggerated). Pretty soon
programs that could imitate an operator just as good as the
real thing were hitting the community, TSPS and Cat's Meow,
are the standard now and are the best.
1982-1986: LD services were starting to appear in mass
numbers. People now had programs to hack LD services,
telephone exchanges, and even passwords. By now many phreaks
were getting extremely good and BBS's started to spring up
everywhere, each having many documentations on phreaking for
the novice. Then it happened, the movie War Games was released
and mass numbers of sixth grade to all ages flocked to see it.
The problem wasn't that the movie was bad, it was that now
EVERYONE wanted to be a hacker/phreak. Novices came out in
such mass numbers, that bulletin boards started to be busy 24
hours a day. To this day, they still have not recovered. Other
problems started to occur, novices guessed easy passwords on
large government computers and started to play around ... Well
it wasn't long before they were caught, I think that many
people remember the 414-hackers. They were so stupid as to say
"yes" when the computer asked them whether they'd like to play
games. Well at least it takes the heat off the real
phreaks/hacker/krackers.
After a little history, how about a little thrill? I don't
know if this story is true but it sure is as bad as shit!
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_______________________________________________________________
Secrets of the Little Blue Box
by Ron Rosenbaum
_______________________________________________________________
Typed by One Farad Cap/AAG
(First of four files)
A story so incredible it may even make you feel sorry for the
phone company.
Printed in the October 1971 issue of Esquire Magazine. If you
happen to be in a library and come across a collection of
Esquire magazines, the October 1971 issue is the first issue
printed in the smaller format. The story begins on page 116
with a picture of a blue box.
One Farad Cap, Atlantic Anarchist Guild
The Blue Box Is Introduced
Its Qualities Are Remarked (Part 1)
I am in the expensively furnished living room of Al Gilbertson
(His real name has been changed.), the creator of the "blue
box." Gilbertson is holding one of his shiny black-and-silver
"blue boxes" comfortably in the palm of his hand, pointing out
the thirteen little red push buttons sticking up from the
console. He is dancing his fingers over the buttons, tapping
out discordant beeping electronic jingles. He is trying to
explain to me how his little blue box does nothing less than
place the entire telephone system of the world, satellites,
cables and all, at the service of the blue-box operator, free
of charge.
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"That's what it does. Essentially it gives you the power of a
super operator. You seize a tandem with this top button," he
presses the top button with his index finger and the blue box
emits a high-pitched cheep, "and like that" -- cheep goes the
blue box again -- "you control the phone company's long-
distance switching systems from your cute little Princes phone
or any old pay phone. And you've got anonymity. An operator
has to operate from a definite location: the phone company
knows where she is and what she's doing. But with your beeper
box, once you hop onto a trunk, say from a Holiday Inn 800
(toll-free) number, they don't know where you are, or where
you're coming from, they don't know how you slipped into their
lines and popped up in that 800 number. They don't even know
anything illegal is going on. And you can obscure your origins
through as many levels as you like. You can call next door by
way of White Plains, then over to Liverpool by cable, and then
back here by satellite. You can call yourself from one pay
phone all the way around the world to a pay phone next to you.
And you get your dime back too."
"And they can't trace the calls? They can't charge you?"
"Not if you do it the right way. But you'll find that the
free-call thing isn't really as exciting at first as the
feeling of power you get from having one of these babies in
your hand. I've watched people when they first get hold of one
of these things and start using it, and discover they can make
connections, set up crisscross and zigzag switching patterns
back and forth across the world. They hardly talk to the
people they finally reach. They say hello and start thinking
of what kind of call to make next. They go a little crazy." He
looks down at the neat little package in his palm. His fingers
are still dancing, tapping out beeper patterns.
"I think it's something to do with how small my models are.
There are lots of blue boxes around, but mine are the smallest
and most sophisticated electronically. I wish I could show you
the prototype we made for our big syndicate order."
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He sighs. "We had this order for a thousand beeper boxes from
a syndicate front man in Las Vegas. They use them to place
bets coast to coast, keep lines open for hours, all of which
can get expensive if you have to pay. The deal was a thousand
blue boxes for $300 apiece. Before then we retailed them for
$1500 apiece, but $300,000 in one lump was hard to turn down.
We had a manufacturing deal worked out in the Philippines.
Everything ready to go. Anyway, the model I had ready for
limited mass production was small enough to fit inside a flip-
top Marlboro box. It had flush touch panels for a keyboard,
rather than these unsightly buttons, sticking out. Looked just
like a tiny portable radio. In fact, I had designed it with a
tiny transistor receiver to get one AM channel, so in case the
law became suspicious the owner could switch on the radio
part, start snapping his fingers, and no one could tell
anything illegal was going on. I thought of everything for
this model -- I had it lined with a band of thermite which
could be ignited by radio signal from a tiny button
transmitter on your belt, so it could be burned to ashes
instantly in case of a bust. It was beautiful. A beautiful
little machine. You should have seen the faces on these
syndicate guys when they came back after trying it out. They'd
hold it in their palm like they never wanted to let it go, and
they'd say, 'I can't believe it. I can't believe it.' You
probably won't believe it until you try it."
The Blue Box Is Tested
Certain Connections Are Made
About eleven o'clock two nights later Fraser Lucey has a blue
box in the palm of his left hand and a phone in the palm of
his right. He is standing inside a phone booth next to an
isolated shut-down motel off Highway 1. I am standing outside
the phone booth.
Fraser likes to show off his blue box for people. Until a few
weeks ago when Pacific Telephone made a few arrests in his
city, Fraser Lucey liked to bring his blue box (This
particular blue box, like most blue boxes, is not blue. Blue
boxes have come to be called "blue boxes" either because 1)
The first blue box ever confiscated by phone-company security
men happened to be blue, or 2) To distinguish them from "black
boxes." Black boxes are devices, usually a resistor in series,
which, when attached to home phones, allow all incoming calls
to be made without charge to one's caller.) to parties. It
never failed: a few cheeps from his device and Fraser became
the center of attention at the very hippest of gatherings,
playing phone tricks and doing request numbers for hours. He
began to take orders for his manufacturer in Mexico. He became
a dealer.
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Fraser is cautious now about where he shows off his blue box.
But he never gets tired of playing with it. "It's like the
first time every time," he tells me.
Fraser puts a dime in the slot. He listens for a tone and
holds the receiver up to my ear. I hear the tone. Fraser
begins describing, with a certain practiced air, what he does
while he does it. "I'm dialing an 800 number now. Any 800
number will do. It's toll free. Tonight I think I'll use the -
- (he names a well-know rent-a-car company) 800 number.
Listen, It's ringing. Here, you hear it? Now watch." He places
the blue box over the mouthpiece of the phone so that the one
silver and twelve black push buttons are facing up toward me.
He presses the silver button -- the one at the top -- and I
hear that high-pitched beep. "That's 2600 cycles per second to
be exact," says Lucey. "Now, quick. listen." He shoves the
earpiece at me. The ringing has vanished. The line gives a
slight hiccough, there is a sharp buzz, and then nothing but
soft white noise.
"We're home free now," Lucey tells me, taking back the phone
and applying the blue box to its mouthpiece once again. "We're
up on a tandem, into a long-lines trunk. Once you're up on a
tandem, you can send yourself anywhere you want to go." He
decides to check out London first. He chooses a certain pay
phone located in Waterloo Station. This particular pay phone
is popular with the phone-phreaks network because there are
usually people walking by at all hours who will pick it up and
talk for a while.
He presses the lower left-hand corner button which is marked
"KP" on the face of the box. "That's Key Pulse. It tells the
tandem we're ready to give it instructions. First I'll punch
out KP 182 START, which will slide us into the overseas sender
in White Plains." I hear a neat clunk-cheep. "I think we'll
head over to England by satellite. Cable is actually faster
and the connection is somewhat better, but I like going by
satellite. So I just punch out KP Zero 44. The Zero is
supposed to guarantee a satellite connection and 44 is the
country code for England. Okay ... we're there. In Liverpool
actually. Now all I have to do is punch out the London area
code which is 1, and dial up the pay phone. Here, listen, I've
got a ring now."
I hear the soft quick purr-purr of a London ring. Then someone
picks up the phone.
"Hello," says the London voice.
"Hello. Who's this?" Fraser asks.
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"Hello. There's actually nobody here. I just picked this up
while I was passing by. This is a public phone. There's no one
here to answer actually."
"Hello. Don't hang up. I'm calling from the United States."
"Oh. What is the purpose of the call? This is a public phone
you know."
"Oh. You know. To check out, uh, to find out what's going on
in London. How is it there?"
"Its five o'clock in the morning. It's raining now."
"Oh. Who are you?"
The London passerby turns out to be an R.A.F. enlistee on his
way back to the base in Lincolnshire, with a terrible hangover
after a thirty-six-hour pass.
He and Fraser talk about the rain. They agree that it's nicer
when it's not raining. They say good-bye and Fraser hangs up.
His dime returns with a nice clink.
"Isn't that far out," he says grinning at me. "London, like
that."
Fraser squeezes the little blue box affectionately in his
palm. "I told ya this thing is for real. Listen, if you don't
mind I'm gonna try this girl I know in Paris. I usually give
her a call around this time. It freaks her out. This time I'll
use the -- (a different rent-a-car company) 800 number and
we'll go by overseas cable, 133; 33 is the country code for
France, the 1 sends you by cable. Okay, here we go ... Oh
damn. Busy. Who could she be talking to at this time?"
A state police car cruises slowly by the motel. The car does
not stop, but Fraser gets nervous. We hop back into his car
and drive ten miles in the opposite direction until we reach a
Texaco station locked up for the night. We pull up to a phone
booth by the tire pump. Fraser dashes inside and tries the
Paris number. It is busy again.
"I don't understand who she could be talking to. The circuits
may be busy. It's too bad I haven't learned how to tap into
lines overseas with this thing yet."
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Fraser begins to phreak around, as the phone phreaks say. He
dials a leading nationwide charge card's 800 number and
punches out the tones that bring him the time recording in
Sydney, Australia. He beeps up the weather recording in Rome,
in Italian of course. He calls a friend in Boston and talks
about a certain over-the-counter stock they are into heavily.
He finds the Paris number busy again. He calls up "Dial a
Disc" in London, and we listen to Double Barrel by David and
Ansil Collins, the number-one hit of the week in London. He
calls up a dealer of another sort and talks in code. He calls
up Joe Engressia, the original blind phone-phreak genius, and
pays his respects. There are other calls. Finally Fraser gets
through to his young lady in Paris.
They both agree the circuits must have been busy, and
criticize the Paris telephone system. At two-thirty in the
morning Fraser hangs up, pockets his dime, and drives off,
steering with one hand, holding what he calls his "lovely
little blue box" in the other.
You Can Call Long Distance For Less Than You Think
"You see, a few years ago the phone company made one big
mistake," Gilbertson explains two days later in his apartment.
"They were careless enough to let some technical journal
publish the actual frequencies used to create all their multi-
frequency tones. Just a theoretical article some Bell
Telephone Laboratories engineer was doing about switching
theory, and he listed the tones in passing. At -- (a well-
known technical school) I had been fooling around with phones
for several years before I came across a copy of the journal
in the engineering library. I ran back to the lab and it took
maybe twelve hours from the time I saw that article to put
together the first working blue box. It was bigger and
clumsier than this little baby, but it worked."
It's all there on public record in that technical journal
written mainly by Bell Lab people for other telephone
engineers. Or at least it was public. "Just try and get a copy
of that issue at some engineering-school library now. Bell has
had them all red-tagged and withdrawn from circulation,"
Gilbertson tells me.
"But it's too late. It's all public now. And once they became
public the technology needed to create your own beeper device
is within the range of any twelve-year-old kid, any twelve-
year-old blind kid as a matter of fact. And he can do it in
less than the twelve hours it took us. Blind kids do it all
the time. They can't build anything as precise and compact as
my beeper box, but theirs can do anything mine can do."
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"How?"
"Okay. About twenty years ago A.T.&T. made a multi-billion-
dollar decision to operate its entire long-distance switching
system on twelve electronically generated combinations of
twelve master tones. Those are the tones you sometimes hear in
the background after you've dialed a long-distance number.
They decided to use some very simple tones -- the tone for
each number is just two fixed single-frequency tones played
simultaneously to create a certain beat frequency. Like 1300
cycles per second and 900 cycles per second played together
give you the tone for digit 5. Now, what some of these phone
phreaks have done is get themselves access to an electric
organ. Any cheap family home-entertainment organ. Since the
frequencies are public knowledge now -- one blind phone phreak
has even had them recorded in one of the talking books for the
blind -- they just have to find the musical notes on the organ
which correspond to the phone tones. Then they tape them. For
instance, to get Ma Bell's tone for the number 1, you press
down organ keys F~5 and A~5 (900 and 700 cycles per second) at
the same time. To produce the tone for 2 it's F~5 and C~6
(1100 and 700 c.p.s). The phone phreaks circulate the whole
list of notes so there's no trial and error anymore."
He shows me a list of the rest of the phone numbers and the
two electric organ keys that produce them.
"Actually, you have to record these notes at 3 3/4 inches-per-
second tape speed and double it to 7 1/2 inches-per-second
when you play them back, to get the proper tones," he adds.
"So once you have all the tones recorded, how do you plug them
into the phone system?"
"Well, they take their organ and their cassette recorder, and
start banging out entire phone numbers in tones on the organ,
including country codes, routing instructions, 'KP' and
'Start' tones. Or, if they don't have an organ, someone in the
phone-phreak network sends them a cassette with all the tones
recorded, with a voice saying 'Number one,' then you have the
tone, 'Number two,' then the tone and so on. So with two
cassette recorders they can put together a series of phone
numbers by switching back and forth from number to number. Any
idiot in the country with a cheap cassette recorder can make
all the free calls he wants."
"You mean you just hold the cassette recorder up the
mouthpiece and switch in a series of beeps you've recorded?
The phone thinks that anything that makes these tones must be
its own equipment?"
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"Right. As long as you get the frequency within thirty cycles
per second of the phone company's tones, the phone equipment
thinks it hears its own voice talking to it. The original
granddaddy phone phreak was this blind kid with perfect pitch,
Joe Engressia, who used to whistle into the phone. An operator
could tell the difference between his whistle and the phone
company's electronic tone generator, but the phone company's
switching circuit can't tell them apart. The bigger the phone
company gets and the further away from human operators it
gets, the more vulnerable it becomes to all sorts of phone
phreaking."
A Guide for the Perplexed
"But wait a minute," I stop Gilbertson. "If everything you do
sounds like phone-company equipment, why doesn't the phone
company charge you for the call the way it charges its own
equipment?"
"Okay. That's where the 2600-cycle tone comes in. I better
start from the beginning."
The beginning he describes for me is a vision of the phone
system of the continent as thousands of webs, of long-line
trunks radiating from each of the hundreds of toll switching
offices to the other toll switching offices. Each toll
switching office is a hive compacted of thousands of long-
distance tandems constantly whistling and beeping to tandems
in far-off toll switching offices.
The tandem is the key to the whole system. Each tandem is a
line with some relays with the capability of signalling any
other tandem in any other toll switching office on the
continent, either directly one-to-one or by programming a
roundabout route through several other tandems if all the
direct routes are busy. For instance, if you want to call from
New York to Los Angeles and traffic is heavy on all direct
trunks between the two cities, your tandem in New York is
programmed to try the next best route, which may send you down
to a tandem in New Orleans, then up to San Francisco, or down
to a New Orleans tandem, back to an Atlanta tandem, over to an
Albuquerque tandem and finally up to Los Angeles.
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When a tandem is not being used, when it's sitting there
waiting for someone to make a long-distance call, it whistles.
One side of the tandem, the side "facing" your home phone,
whistles at 2600 cycles per second toward all the home phones
serviced by the exchange, telling them it is at their service,
should they be interested in making a long-distance call. The
other side of the tandem is whistling 2600 c.p.s. into one or
more long-distance trunk lines, telling the rest of the phone
system that it is neither sending nor receiving a call through
that trunk at the moment, that it has no use for that trunk at
the moment.
"When you dial a long-distance number the first thing that
happens is that you are hooked into a tandem. A register comes
up to the side of the tandem facing away from you and presents
that side with the number you dialed. This sending side of the
tandem stops whistling 2600 into its trunk line. When a tandem
stops the 2600 tone it has been sending through a trunk, the
trunk is said to be "seized," and is now ready to carry the
number you have dialed -- converted into multi-frequency beep
tones -- to a tandem in the area code and central office you
want.
Now when a blue-box operator wants to make a call from New
Orleans to New York he starts by dialing the 800 number of a
company which might happen to have its headquarters in Los
Angeles. The sending side of the New Orleans tandem stops
sending 2600 out over the trunk to the central office in Los
Angeles, thereby seizing the trunk. Your New Orleans tandem
begins sending beep tones to a tandem it has discovered idly
whistling 2600 cycles in Los Angeles. The receiving end of
that L.A. tandem is seized, stops whistling 2600, listens to
the beep tones which tell it which L.A. phone to ring, and
starts ringing the 800 number. Meanwhile a mark made in the
New Orleans office accounting tape notes that a call from your
New Orleans phone to the 800 number in L.A. has been initiated
and gives the call a code number. Everything is routine so
far.
But then the phone phreak presses his blue box to the
mouthpiece and pushes the 2600-cycle button, sending 2600 out
from the New Orleans tandem to the L.A. tandem. The L.A.
tandem notices 2600 cycles are coming over the line again and
assumes that New Orleans has hung up because the trunk is
whistling as if idle. The L.A. tandem immediately ceases
ringing the L.A. 800 number. But as soon as the phreak takes
his finger off the 2600 button, the L.A. tandem assumes the
trunk is once again being used because the 2600 is gone, so it
listens for a new series of digit tones - to find out where it
must send the call.
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Thus the blue-box operator in New Orleans now is in touch with
a tandem in L.A. which is waiting like an obedient genie to be
told what to do next. The blue-box owner then beeps out the
ten digits of the New York number which tell the L.A. tandem
to relay a call to New York City. Which it promptly does. As
soon as your party picks up the phone in New York, the side of
the New Orleans tandem facing you stops sending 2600 cycles to
you and stars carrying his voice to you by way of the L.A.
tandem. A notation is made on the accounting tape that the
connection has been made on the 800 call which had been
initiated and noted earlier. When you stop talking to New York
a notation is made that the 800 call has ended.
At three the next morning, when the phone company's accounting
computer starts reading back over the master accounting tape
for the past day, it records that a call of a certain length
of time was made from your New Orleans home to an L.A. 800
number and, of course, the accounting computer has been
trained to ignore those toll-free 800 calls when compiling
your monthly bill.
"All they can prove is that you made an 800 toll-free call,"
Gilbertson the inventor concludes. "Of course, if you're
foolish enough to talk for two hours on an 800 call, and
they've installed one of their special anti-fraud computer
programs to watch out for such things, they may spot you and
ask why you took two hours talking to Army Recruiting's 800
number when you're 4-F.
But if you do it from a pay phone, they may discover something
peculiar the next day -- if they've got a blue-box hunting
program in their computer -- but you'll be a long time gone
from the pay phone by then. Using a pay phone is almost
guaranteed safe."
"What about the recent series of blue-box arrests all across
the country -- New York, Cleveland, and so on?" I asked. "How
were they caught so easily?"
"From what I can tell, they made one big mistake: they were
seizing trunks using an area code plus 555-1212 instead of an
800 number. Using 555 is easy to detect because when you send
multi-frequency beep tones of 555 you get a charge for it on
your tape and the accounting computer knows there's something
wrong when it tries to bill you for a two-hour call to Akron,
Ohio, information, and it drops a trouble card which goes
right into the hands of the security agent if they're looking
for blue-box user.
"Whoever sold those guys their blue boxes didn't tell them how
to use them properly, which is fairly irresponsible. And they
were fairly stupid to use them at home all the time.
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"But what those arrests really mean is than an awful lot of
blue boxes are flooding into the country and that people are
finding them so easy to make that they know how to make them
before they know how to use them. Ma Bell is in trouble."
And if a blue-box operator or a cassette-recorder phone phreak
sticks to pay phones and 800 numbers, the phone company can't
stop them?
"Not unless they change their entire nationwide long-lines
technology, which will take them a few billion dollars and
twenty years. Right now they can't do a thing. They're
screwed."
Captain Crunch Demonstrates His Famous Unit (part II)
There is an underground telephone network in this country.
Gilbertson discovered it the very day news of his activities
hit the papers. That evening his phone began ringing. Phone
phreaks from Seattle, from Florida, from New York, from San
Jose, and from Los Angeles began calling him and telling him
about the phone-phreak network. He'd get a call from a phone
phreak who'd say nothing but, "Hang up and call this number."
When he dialed the number he'd find himself tied into a
conference of a dozen phone phreaks arranged through a quirky
switching station in British Columbia. They identified
themselves as phone phreaks, they demonstrated their homemade
blue boxes which they called "M-Fers" (for "multi-frequency,"
among other things) for him, they talked shop about phone-
phreak devices. They let him in on their secrets on the theory
that if the phone company was after him he must be
trustworthy. And, Gilbertson recalls, they stunned him with
their technical sophistication.
I ask him how to get in touch with the phone-phreak network.
He digs around through a file of old schematics and comes up
with about a dozen numbers in three widely separated area
codes.
"Those are the centers," he tells me. Alongside some of the
numbers he writes in first names or nicknames: names like
Captain Crunch, Dr. No, Frank Carson (also a code word for a
free call), Marty Freeman (code word for M-F device), Peter
Perpendicular Pimple, Alefnull, and The Cheshire Cat. He makes
checks alongside the names of those among these top twelve who
are blind. There are five checks.
I ask him who this Captain Crunch person is.
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"Oh. The Captain. He's probably the most legendary phone
phreak. He calls himself Captain Crunch after the notorious
Cap'n Crunch 2600 whistle." (Several years ago, Gilbertson
explains, the makers of Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal offered
a toy-whistle prize in every box as a treat for the Cap'n
Crunch set. Somehow a phone phreak discovered that the toy
whistle just happened to produce a perfect 2600-cycle tone.
When the man who calls himself Captain Crunch was transferred
overseas to England with his Air Force unit, he would receive
scores of calls from his friends and "mute" them -- make them
free of charge to them -- by blowing his Cap'n Crunch whistle
into his end.)
"Captain Crunch is one of the older phone phreaks," Gilbertson
tells me. "He's an engineer who once got in a little trouble
for fooling around with the phone, but he can't stop. Well,
they guy drives across country in a Volkswagen van with an
entire switchboard and a computerized super-sophisticated M-F-
er in the back. He'll pull up to a phone booth on a lonely
highway somewhere, snake a cable out of his bus, hook it onto
the phone and sit for hours, days sometimes, sending calls
zipping back and forth across the country, all over the world
... "
Back at my motel, I dialed the number he gave me for "Captain
Crunch" and asked for G-- T--, his real name, or at least the
name he uses when he's not dashing into a phone booth beeping
out M-F tones faster than a speeding bullet and zipping
phantomlike through the phone company's long-distance lines.
When G-- T-- answered the phone and I told him I was preparing
a story for Esquire about phone phreaks, he became very
indignant.
"I don't do that. I don't do that anymore at all. And if I do
it, I do it for one reason and one reason only. I'm learning
about a system. The phone company is a System. A computer is a
System, do you understand? If I do what I do, it is only to
explore a system. Computers, systems, that's my bag. The phone
company is nothing but a computer."
A tone of tightly restrained excitement enters the Captain's
voice when he starts talking about systems. He begins to
pronounce each syllable with the hushed deliberation of an
obscene caller.
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"Ma Bell is a system I want to explore. It's a beautiful
system, you know, but Ma Bell screwed up. It's terrible
because Ma Bell is such a beautiful system, but she screwed
up. I learned how she screwed up from a couple of blind kids
who wanted me to build a device. A certain device. They said
it could make free calls. I wasn't interested in free calls.
But when these blind kids told me I could make calls into a
computer, my eyes lit up. I wanted to learn about computers. I
wanted to learn about Ma Bell's computers. So I build the
little device, but I built it wrong and Ma Bell found out. Ma
Bell can detect things like that. Ma Bell knows. So I'm
strictly rid of it now. I don't do it. Except for learning
purposes." He pauses. "So you want to write an article. Are
you paying for this call? Hang up and call this number." He
gives me a number in a area code a thousand miles away of his
own. I dial the number.
"Hello again. This is Captain Crunch. You are speaking to me
on a toll-free loop-around in Portland, Oregon. Do you know
what a toll-free loop around is?
I'll tell you.
He explains to me that almost every exchange in the country
has open test numbers which allow other exchanges to test
their connections with it. Most of these numbers occur in
consecutive pairs, such as 302 956-0041 and 302 956-0042.
Well, certain phone phreaks discovered that if two people from
anywhere in the country dial the two consecutive numbers they
can talk together just as if one had called the other's
number, with no charge to either of them, of course.
"Now our voice is looping around in a 4A switching machine up
there in Canada, zipping back down to me," the Captain tells
me. "My voice is looping around up there and back down to you.
And it can't ever cost anyone money. The phone phreaks and I
have compiled a list of many many of these numbers. You would
be surprised if you saw the list. I could show it to you. But
I won't. I'm out of that now. I'm not out to screw Ma Bell. I
know better. If I do anything it's for the pure knowledge of
the System. You can learn to do fantastic things. Have you
ever heard eight tandems stacked up? Do you know the sound of
tandems stacking and unstacking? Give me your phone number.
Okay. Hang up now and wait a minute."
Slightly less than a minute later the phone rang and the
Captain was on the line, his voice sounding far more excited,
almost aroused.
"I wanted to show you what it's like to stack up tandems. To
stack up tandems." (Whenever the Captain says "stack up" it
sounds as if he is licking his lips.)
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"How do you like the connection you're on now?" the Captain
asks me. "It's a raw tandem. A raw tandem. Ain't nothin' up to
it but a tandem. Now I'm going to show you what it's like to
stack up. Blow off. Land in a far away place. To stack that
tandem up, whip back and forth across the country a few times,
then shoot on up to Moscow.
"Listen," Captain Crunch continues. "Listen. I've got line tie
on my switchboard here, and I'm gonna let you hear me stack
and unstack tandems. Listen to this. It's gonna blow your
mind."
First I hear a super rapid-fire pulsing of the flutelike phone
tones, then a pause, then another popping burst of tones, then
another, then another. Each burst is followed by a beep-
kachink sound.
"We have now stacked up four tandems," said Captain Crunch,
sounding somewhat remote. "That's four tandems stacked up. Do
you know what that means? That means I'm whipping back and
forth, back and forth twice, across the country, before coming
to you. I've been known to stack up twenty tandems at a time.
Now, just like I said, I'm going to shoot up to Moscow."
There is a new, longer series of beeper pulses over the line,
a brief silence, then a ring.
"Hello," answers a far-off voice.
"Hello. Is this the American Embassy Moscow?"
"Yes, sir. Who is this calling?" says the voice.
"Yes. This is test board here in New York. We're calling to
check out the circuits, see what kind of lines you've got.
Everything okay there in Moscow?"
"Okay?"
"Well, yes, how are things there?"
"Oh. Well, everything okay, I guess."
"Okay. Thank you."
They hang up, leaving a confused series of beep-kachink sounds
hanging in mid-ether in the wake of the call before dissolving
away.
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The Captain is pleased. "You believe me now, don't you? Do you
know what I'd like to do? I'd just like to call up your editor
at Esquire and show him just what it sounds like to stack and
unstack tandems. I'll give him a show that will blow his mind.
What's his number?
I ask the Captain what kind of device he was using to
accomplish all his feats. The Captain is pleased at the
question.
"You could tell it was special, couldn't you?" Ten pulses per
second. That's faster than the phone company's equipment.
Believe me, this unit is the most famous unit in the country.
There is no other unit like it. Believe me."
"Yes, I've heard about it. Some other phone phreaks have told
me about it."
"They have been referring to my, ahem, unit? What is it they
said? Just out of curiosity, did they tell you it was a highly
sophisticated computer-operated unit, with acoustical coupling
for receiving outputs and a switch-board with multiple-line-
tie capability? Did they tell you that the frequency tolerance
is guaranteed to be not more than .05 percent? The amplitude
tolerance less than .01 decibel? Those pulses you heard were
perfect. They just come faster than the phone company. Those
were high-precision op-amps. Op-amps are instrumentation
amplifiers designed for ultra-stable amplification, super-low
distortion and accurate frequency response. Did they tell you
it can operate in temperatures from -55 degrees C to +125
degrees C?"
I admit that they did not tell me all that.
"I built it myself," the Captain goes on. "If you were to go
out and buy the components from an industrial wholesaler it
would cost you at least $1500. I once worked for a
semiconductor company and all this didn't cost me a cent. Do
you know what I mean? Did they tell you about how I put a call
completely around the world? I'll tell you how I did it. I M-
Fed Tokyo inward, who connected me to India, India connected
me to Greece, Greece connected me to Pretoria, South Africa,
South Africa connected me to South America, I went from South
America to London, I had a London operator connect me to a New
York operator, I had New York connect me to a California
operator who rang the phone next to me. Needless to say I had
to shout to hear myself. But the echo was far out. Fantastic.
Delayed. It was delayed twenty seconds, but I could hear
myself talk to myself."
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"You mean you were speaking into the mouthpiece of one phone
sending your voice around the world into your ear through a
phone on the other side of your head?" I asked the Captain. I
had a vision of something vaguely autoerotic going on, in a
complex electronic way.
"That's right," said the Captain. "I've also sent my voice
around the world one way, going east on one phone, and going
west on the other, going through cable one way, satellite the
other, coming back together at the same time, ringing the two
phones simultaneously and picking them up and whipping my
voice both ways around the world back to me. Wow. That was a
mind blower."
"You mean you sit there with both phones on your ear and talk
to yourself around the world," I said incredulously.
"Yeah. Um hum. That's what I do. I connect the phone together
and sit there and talk."
"What do you say? What do you say to yourself when you're
connected?"
"Oh, you know. Hello test one two three," he says in a low-
pitched voice.
"Hello test one two three," he replied to himself in a high-
pitched voice.
"Hello test one two three," he repeats again, low-pitched.
"Hello test one two three," he replies, high-pitched.
"I sometimes do this: Hello Hello Hello Hello, Hello, hello,"
he trails off and breaks into laughter.
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Why Captain Crunch Hardly Ever Taps Phones Anymore
Using internal phone-company codes, phone phreaks have learned
a simple method for tapping phones. Phone-company operators
have in front of them a board that holds verification jacks.
It allows them to plug into conversations in case of
emergency, to listen in to a line to determine if the line is
busy or the circuits are busy. Phone phreaks have learned to
beep out the codes which lead them to a verification operator,
tell the verification operator they are switchmen from some
other area code testing out verification trunks. Once the
operator hooks them into the verification trunk, they
disappear into the board for all practical purposes, slip
unnoticed into any one of the 10,000 to 100,000 numbers in
that central office without the verification operator knowing
what they're doing, and of course without the two parties to
the connection knowing there is a phantom listener present on
their line.
Toward the end of my hour-long first conversation with him, I
asked the Captain if he ever tapped phones.
"Oh no. I don't do that. I don't think it's right," he told me
firmly. "I have the power to do it but I don't ... Well one
time, just one time, I have to admit that I did. There was
this girl, Linda, and I wanted to find out ... you know. I
tried to call her up for a date. I had a date with her the
last weekend and I thought she liked me. I called her up, man,
and her line was busy, and I kept calling and it was still
busy. Well, I had just learned about this system of jumping
into lines and I said to myself, 'Hmmm. Why not just see if it
works. It'll surprise her if all of a sudden I should pop up
on her line. It'll impress her, if anything.' So I went ahead
and did it. I M-Fed into the line. My M-F-er is powerful
enough when patched directly into the mouthpiece to trigger a
verification trunk without using an operator the way the other
phone phreaks have to.
"I slipped into the line and there she was talking to another
boyfriend. Making sweet talk to him. I didn't make a sound
because I was so disgusted. So I waited there for her to hang
up, listening to her making sweet talk to the other guy. You
know. So as soon as she hung up I instantly M-F-ed her up and
all I said was, 'Linda, we're through.' And I hung up. And it
blew her head off. She couldn't figure out what the hell
happened.
"But that was the only time. I did it thinking I would
surprise her, impress her. Those were all my intentions were,
and well, it really kind of hurt me pretty badly, and ... and
ever since then I don't go into verification trunks."
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Moments later my first conversation with the Captain comes to
a close.
"Listen," he says, his spirits somewhat cheered, "listen. What
you are going to hear when I hang up is the sound of tandems
unstacking. Layer after layer of tandems unstacking until
there's nothing left of the stack, until it melts away into
nothing. Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep," he concludes, his voice
descending to a whisper with each cheep.
He hangs up. The phone suddenly goes into four spasms: kachink
cheep. Kachink cheep kachink cheep kachink cheep, and the
complex connection has wiped itself out like the Cheshire
cat's smile.
The MF Boogie Blues
The next number I choose from the select list of phone-phreak
alumni, prepared for me by the blue-box inventor, is a Memphis
number. It is the number of Joe Engressia, the first and still
perhaps the most accomplished blind phone phreak.
Three years ago Engressia was a nine-day wonder in newspapers
and magazines all over America because he had been discovered
whistling free long-distance connections for fellow students
at the University of South Florida. Engressia was born with
perfect pitch: he could whistle phone tones better than the
phone-company's equipment.
Engressia might have gone on whistling in the dark for a few
friends for the rest of his life if the phone company hadn't
decided to expose him. He was warned, disciplined by the
college, and the whole case became public. In the months
following media reports of his talent, Engressia began
receiving strange calls. There were calls from a group of kids
in Los Angeles who could do some very strange things with the
quirky General Telephone and Electronics circuitry in L.A.
suburbs. There were calls from a group of mostly blind kids in
--, California, who had been doing some interesting
experiments with Cap'n Crunch whistles and test loops. There
was a group in Seattle, a group in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a
few from New York, a few scattered across the country. Some of
them had already equipped themselves with cassette and
electronic M-F devices. For some of these groups, it was the
first time they knew of the others.
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The exposure of Engressia was the catalyst that linked the
separate phone-phreak centers together. They all called
Engressia. They talked to him about what he was doing and what
they were doing. And then he told them -- the scattered
regional centers and lonely independent phone phreakers --
about each other, gave them each other's numbers to call, and
within a year the scattered phone-phreak centers had grown
into a nationwide underground.
Joe Engressia is only twenty-two years old now, but along the
phone-phreak network he is "the old man," accorded by phone
phreaks something of the reverence the phone company bestows
on Alexander Graham Bell. He seldom needs to make calls
anymore. The phone phreaks all call him and let him know what
new tricks, new codes, new techniques they have learned. Every
night he sits like a sightless spider in his little apartment
receiving messages from every tendril of his web. It is almost
a point of pride with Joe that they call him.
But when I reached him in his Memphis apartment that night,
Joe Engressia was lonely, jumpy and upset.
"God, I'm glad somebody called. I don't know why tonight of
all nights I don't get any calls. This guy around here got
drunk again tonight and propositioned me again. I keep telling
him we'll never see eye to eye on this subject, if you know
what I mean. I try to make light of it, you know, but he
doesn't get it. I can head him out there getting drunker and I
don't know what he'll do next. It's just that I'm really all
alone here, just moved to Memphis, it's the first time I'm
living on my own, and I'd hate for it to all collapse now. But
I won't go to bed with him. I'm just not very interested in
sex and even if I can't see him I know he's ugly.
"Did you hear that? That's him banging a bottle against the
wall outside. He's nice. Well forget about it. You're doing a
story on phone phreaks? Listen to this. It's the MF Boogie
Blues.
Sure enough, a jumpy version of Muskrat Ramble boogies its way
over the line, each note one of those long-distance phone
tones. The music stops. A huge roaring voice blasts the phone
off my ear: "AND THE QUESTION IS ..." roars the voice, "CAN A
BLIND PERSON HOOK UP AN AMPLIFIER ON HIS OWN?"
The roar ceases. A high-pitched operator-type voice replaces
it. "This is Southern Braille Tel. & Tel. Have tone, will
phone."
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This is succeeded by a quick series of M-F tones, a swift
"kachink" and a deep reassuring voice: "If you need home care,
call the visiting-nurses association. First National time in
Honolulu is 4:32 p.m."
Joe back in his Joe voice again: "Are we seeing eye to eye?
'Si, si,' said the blind Mexican. Ahem. Yes. Would you like to
know the weather in Tokyo?"
This swift manic sequence of phone-phreak vaudeville stunts
and blind-boy jokes manages to keep Joe's mind off his
tormentor only as long as it lasts.
"The reason I'm in Memphis, the reason I have to depend on
that homosexual guy, is that this is the first time I've been
able to live on my own and make phone trips on my own. I've
been banned from all central offices around home in Florida,
they knew me too well, and at the University some of my fellow
scholars were always harassing me because I was on the dorm
pay phone all the time and making fun of me because of my fat
ass, which of course I do have, it's my physical fatness
program, but I don't like to hear it every day, and if I can't
phone trip and I can't phone phreak, I can't imagine what I'd
do, I've been devoting three quarters of my life to it.
"I moved to Memphis because I wanted to be on my own as well
as because it has a Number 5 crossbar switching system and
some interesting little independent phone-company districts
nearby and so far they don't seem to know who I am so I can go
on phone tripping, and for me phone tripping is just as
important as phone phreaking."
Phone tripping, Joe explains, begins with calling up a
central-office switch room. He tells the switchman in a polite
earnest voice that he's a blind college student interested in
telephones, and could he perhaps have a guided tour of the
switching station? Each step of the tour Joe likes to touch
and feel relays, caress switching circuits, switchboards,
crossbar arrangements.
So when Joe Engressia phone phreaks he feels his way through
the circuitry of the country garden of forking paths, he feels
switches shift, relays shunt, crossbars swivel, tandems engage
and disengage even as he hears -- with perfect pitch -- his M-
F pulses make the entire Bell system dance to his tune.
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Just one month ago Joe took all his savings out of his bank
and left home, over the emotional protests of his mother. "I
ran away from home almost," he likes to say. Joe found a small
apartment house on Union Avenue and began making phone trips.
He'd take a bus a hundred miles south in Mississippi to see
some old-fashioned Bell equipment still in use in several
states, which had been puzzling. He'd take a bus three hundred
miles to Charlotte, North Carolina, to look at some brand-new
experimental equipment. He hired a taxi to drive him twelve
miles to a suburb to tour the office of a small phone company
with some interesting idiosyncrasies in its routing system. He
was having the time of his life, he said, the most freedom and
pleasure he had known.
In that month he had done very little long-distance phone
phreaking from his own phone. He had begun to apply for a job
with the phone company, he told me, and he wanted to stay away
from anything illegal.
"Any kind of job will do, anything as menial as the most lowly
operator. That's probably all they'd give me because I'm
blind. Even though I probably know more than most switchmen.
But that's okay. I want to work for Ma Bell. I don't hate Ma
Bell the way Gilbertson and some phone phreaks do. I don't
want to screw Ma Bell. With me it's the pleasure of pure
knowledge. There's something beautiful about the system when
you know it intimately the way I do. But I don't know how much
they know about me here. I have a very intuitive feel for the
condition of the line I'm on, and I think they're monitoring
me off and on lately, but I haven't been doing much illegal. I
have to make a few calls to switchmen once in a while which
aren't strictly legal, and once I took an acid trip and was
having these auditory hallucinations as if I were trapped and
these planes were dive-bombing me, and all of sudden I had to
phone phreak out of there. For some reason I had to call
Kansas City, but that's all."
A Warning Is Delivered
At this point -- one o'clock in my time zone -- a loud knock
on my motel-room door interrupts our conversation. Outside the
door I find a uniformed security guard who informs me that
there has been an "emergency phone call" for me while I have
been on the line and that the front desk has sent him up to
let me know.
Two seconds after I say good-bye to Joe and hang up, the phone
rings.
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"Who were you talking to?" the agitated voice demands. The
voice belongs to Captain Crunch. "I called because I decided
to warn you of something. I decided to warn you to be careful.
I don't want this information you get to get to the radical
underground. I don't want it to get into the wrong hands. What
would you say if I told you it's possible for three phone
phreaks to saturate the phone system of the nation. Saturate
it. Busy it out. All of it. I know how to do this. I'm not
gonna tell. A friend of mine has already saturated the trunks
between Seattle and New York. He did it with a computerized M-
F-er hitched into a special Manitoba exchange. But there are
other, easier ways to do it."
Just three people? I ask. How is that possible?
"Have you ever heard of the long-lines guard frequency? Do you
know about stacking tandems with 17 and 2600? Well, I'd advise
you to find out about it. I'm not gonna tell you. But whatever
you do, don't let this get into the hands of the radical
underground."
(Later Gilbertson, the inventor, confessed that while he had
always been skeptical about the Captain's claim of the
sabotage potential of trunk-tying phone phreaks, he had
recently heard certain demonstrations which convinced him the
Captain was not speaking idly. "I think it might take more
than three people, depending on how many machines like Captain
Crunch's were available. But even though the Captain sounds a
little weird, he generally turns out to know what he's talking
about.")
"You know," Captain Crunch continues in his admonitory tone,
"you know the younger phone phreaks call Moscow all the time.
Suppose everybody were to call Moscow. I'm no right-winger.
But I value my life. I don't want the Commies coming over and
dropping a bomb on my head. That's why I say you've got to be
careful about who gets this information."
The Captain suddenly shifts into a diatribe against those
phone phreaks who don't like the phone company.
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"They don't understand, but Ma Bell knows everything they do.
Ma Bell knows. Listen, is this line hot? I just heard someone
tap in. I'm not paranoid, but I can detect things like that.
Well, even if it is, they know that I know that they know that
I have a bulk eraser. I'm very clean." The Captain pauses,
evidently torn between wanting to prove to the phone-company
monitors that he does nothing illegal, and the desire to
impress Ma Bell with his prowess. "Ma Bell knows how good I
am. And I am quite good. I can detect reversals, tandem
switching, everything that goes on on a line. I have relative
pitch now. Do you know what that means? My ears are a $20,000
piece of equipment. With my ears I can detect things they
can't hear with their equipment. I've had employment problems.
I've lost jobs. But I want to show Ma Bell how good I am. I
don't want to screw her, I want to work for her. I want to do
good for her. I want to help her get rid of her flaws and
become perfect. That's my number-one goal in life now." The
Captain concludes his warnings and tells me he has to be
going. "I've got a little action lined up for tonight," he
explains and hangs up.
Before I hang up for the night, I call Joe Engressia back. He
reports that his tormentor has finally gone to sleep -- "He's
not blind drunk, that's the way I get, ahem, yes; but you
might say he's in a drunken stupor." I make a date to visit
Joe in Memphis in two days.
A Phone Phreak Call Takes Care of Business
The next morning I attend a gathering of four phone phreaks in
-- (a California suburb). The gathering takes place in a
comfortable split-level home in an upper-middle-class
subdivision. Heaped on the kitchen table are the portable
cassette recorders, M-F cassettes, phone patches, and line
ties of the four phone phreaks present. On the kitchen counter
next to the telephone is a shoe-box-size blue box with
thirteen large toggle switches for the tones. The parents of
the host phone phreak, Ralph, who is blind, stay in the living
room with their sighted children. They are not sure exactly
what Ralph and his friends do with the phone or if it's
strictly legal, but he is blind and they are pleased he has a
hobby which keeps him busy.
The group has been working at reestablishing the historic
"2111" conference, reopening some toll-free loops, and trying
to discover the dimensions of what seem to be new initiatives
against phone phreaks by phone-company security agents.
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It is not long before I get a chance to see, to hear, Randy at
work. Randy is known among the phone phreaks as perhaps the
finest con man in the game. Randy is blind. He is pale, soft
and pear-shaped, he wears baggy pants and a wrinkly nylon
white sport shirt, pushes his head forward from hunched
shoulders somewhat like a turtle inching out of its shell. His
eyes wander, crossing and recrossing, and his forehead is
somewhat pimply. He is only sixteen years old.
But when Randy starts speaking into a telephone mouthpiece his
voice becomes so stunningly authoritative it is necessary to
look again to convince yourself it comes from a chubby
adolescent Randy. Imagine the voice of a crack oil-rig
foreman, a tough, sharp, weather-beaten Marlboro man of forty.
Imagine the voice of a brilliant performance-fund gunslinger
explaining how he beats the Dow Jones by thirty percent. Then
imagine a voice that could make those two sound like Stepin
Fetchit. That is sixteen-year-old Randy's voice.
He is speaking to a switchman in Detroit. The phone company in
Detroit had closed up two toll-free loop pairs for no apparent
reason, although heavy use by phone phreaks all over the
country may have been detected. Randy is telling the switchman
how to open up the loop and make it free again:
"How are you, buddy. Yeah. I'm on the board in here in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, and we've been trying to run some tests on your
loop-arounds and we find'em busied out on both sides ... Yeah,
we've been getting a 'BY' on them, what d'ya say, can you drop
cards on 'em? Do you have 08 on your number group? Oh that's
okay, we've had this trouble before, we may have to go after
the circuit. Here lemme give 'em to you: your frame is 05,
vertical group 03, horizontal 5, vertical file 3. Yeah, we'll
hang on here ... Okay, found it? Good. Right, yeah, we'd like
to clear that busy out. Right. All you have to do is look for
your key on the mounting plate, it's in your miscellaneous
trunk frame. Okay? Right. Now pull your key from NOR over the
LCT. Yeah. I don't know why that happened, but we've been
having trouble with that one. Okay. Thanks a lot fella. Be
seein' ya."
Randy hangs up, reports that the switchman was a little
inexperienced with the loop-around circuits on the
miscellaneous trunk frame, but that the loop has been returned
to its free-call status.
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Delighted, phone phreak Ed returns the pair of numbers to the
active-status column in his directory. Ed is a superb and
painstaking researcher. With almost Talmudic thoroughness he
will trace tendrils of hints through soft-wired mazes of
intervening phone-company circuitry back through complex
linkages of switching relays to find the location and identity
of just one toll-free loop. He spends hours and hours, every
day, doing this sort of thing. He has somehow compiled a
directory of eight hundred "Band-six in-WATS numbers" located
in over forty states. Band-six in-WATS numbers are the big 800
numbers -- the ones that can be dialed into free from anywhere
in the country.
Ed the researcher, a nineteen-year-old engineering student, is
also a superb technician. He put together his own working blue
box from scratch at age seventeen. (He is sighted.) This
evening after distributing the latest issue of his in-WATS
directory (which has been typed into Braille for the blind
phone phreaks), he announces he has made a major new
breakthrough:
"I finally tested it and it works, perfectly. I've got this
switching matrix which converts any touch-tone phone into an
M-F-er."
The tones you hear in touch-tone phones are not the M-F tones
that operate the long-distance switching system. Phone phreaks
believe A.T.&T. had deliberately equipped touch tones with a
different set of frequencies to avoid putting the six master
M-F tones in the hands of every touch-tone owner. Ed's complex
switching matrix puts the six master tones, in effect put a
blue box, in the hands of every touch-tone owner.
Ed shows me pages of schematics, specifications and parts
lists. "It's not easy to build, but everything here is in the
Heathkit catalog."
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Ed asks Ralph what progress he has made in his attempts to
reestablish a long-term open conference line for phone
phreaks. The last big conference -- the historic "2111"
conference -- had been arranged through an unused Telex test-
board trunk somewhere in the innards of a 4A switching machine
in Vancouver, Canada. For months phone phreaks could M-F their
way into Vancouver, beep out 604 (the Vancouver area code) and
then beep out 2111 (the internal phone-company code for Telex
testing), and find themselves at any time, day or night, on an
open wire talking with an array of phone phreaks from coast to
coast, operators from Bermuda, Tokyo and London who are phone-
phreak sympathizers, and miscellaneous guests and technical
experts. The conference was a massive exchange of information.
Phone phreaks picked each other's brains clean, then developed
new ways to pick the phone company's brains clean. Ralph gave
M F Boogies concerts with his home-entertainment-type electric
organ, Captain Crunch demonstrated his round-the-world prowess
with his notorious computerized unit and dropped leering hints
of the "action" he was getting with his girl friends. (The
Captain lives out or pretends to live out several kinds of
fantasies to the gossipy delight of the blind phone phreaks
who urge him on to further triumphs on behalf of all of them.)
The somewhat rowdy Northwest phone-phreak crowd let their
bitter internal feud spill over into the peaceable conference
line, escalating shortly into guerrilla warfare; Carl the East
Coast international tone relations expert demonstrated newly
opened direct M-F routes to central offices on the island of
Bahrein in the Persian Gulf, introduced a new phone-phreak
friend of his in Pretoria, and explained the technical
operation of the new Oakland-to Vietnam linkages. (Many phone
phreaks pick up spending money by M-F-ing calls from relatives
to Vietnam G.I.'s, charging $5 for a whole hour of trans-
Pacific conversation.)
Day and night the conference line was never dead. Blind phone
phreaks all over the country, lonely and isolated in homes
filled with active sighted brothers and sisters, or trapped
with slow and unimaginative blind kids in straitjacket schools
for the blind, knew that no matter how late it got they could
dial up the conference and find instant electronic communion
with two or three other blind kids awake over on the other
side of America. Talking together on a phone hookup, the blind
phone phreaks say, is not much different from being there
together. Physically, there was nothing more than a two-inch-
square wafer of titanium inside a vast machine on Vancouver
Island. For the blind kids >there< meant an exhilarating
feeling of being in touch, through a kind of skill and magic
which was peculiarly their own.
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Last April 1, however, the long Vancouver Conference was shut
off. The phone phreaks knew it was coming. Vancouver was in
the process of converting from a step-by-step system to a 4A
machine and the 2111 Telex circuit was to be wiped out in the
process. The phone phreaks learned the actual day on which the
conference would be erased about a week ahead of time over the
phone company's internal-news-and-shop-talk recording.
For the next frantic seven days every phone phreak in America
was on and off the 2111 conference twenty-four hours a day.
Phone phreaks who were just learning the game or didn't have
M-F capability were boosted up to the conference by more
experienced phreaks so they could get a glimpse of what it was
like before it disappeared. Top phone phreaks searched distant
area codes for new conference possibilities without success.
Finally in the early morning of April 1, the end came.
"I could feel it coming a couple hours before midnight," Ralph
remembers. "You could feel something going on in the lines.
Some static began showing up, then some whistling wheezing
sound. Then there were breaks. Some people got cut off and
called right back in, but after a while some people were
finding they were cut off and couldn't get back in at all. It
was terrible. I lost it about one a.m., but managed to slip in
again and stay on until the thing died ... I think it was
about four in the morning. There were four of us still hanging
on when the conference disappeared into nowhere for good. We
all tried to M-F up to it again of course, but we got silent
termination. There was nothing there."
The Legendary Mark Bernay Turns Out To Be "The Midnight
Skulker"
Mark Bernay. I had come across that name before. It was on
Gilbertson's select list of phone phreaks. The California
phone phreaks had spoken of a mysterious Mark Bernay as
perhaps the first and oldest phone phreak on the West Coast.
And in fact almost every phone phreak in the West can trace
his origins either directly to Mark Bernay or to a disciple of
Mark Bernay.
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It seems that five years ago this Mark Bernay (a pseudonym he
chose for himself) began traveling up and down the West Coast
pasting tiny stickers in phone books all along his way. The
stickers read something like "Want to hear an interesting tape
recording? Call these numbers." The numbers that followed were
toll-free loop-around pairs. When one of the curious called
one of the numbers he would hear a tape recording pre-hooked
into the loop by Bernay which explained the use of loop-around
pairs, gave the numbers of several more, and ended by telling
the caller, "At six o'clock tonight this recording will stop
and you and your friends can try it out. Have fun."
"I was disappointed by the response at first," Bernay told me,
when I finally reached him at one of his many numbers and he
had dispensed with the usual "I never do anything illegal"
formalities which experienced phone phreaks open most
conversations.
"I went all over the coast with these stickers not only on pay
phones, but I'd throw them in front of high schools in the
middle of the night, I'd leave them unobtrusively in candy
stores, scatter them on main streets of small towns. At first
hardly anyone bothered to try it out. I would listen in for
hours and hours after six o'clock and no one came on. I
couldn't figure out why people wouldn't be interested. Finally
these two girls in Oregon tried it out and told all their
friends and suddenly it began to spread."
Before his Johny Appleseed trip Bernay had already gathered a
sizable group of early pre-blue-box phone phreaks together on
loop-arounds in Los Angeles. Bernay does not claim credit for
the original discovery of the loop-around numbers. He
attributes the discovery to an eighteen-year-old reform school
kid in Long Beach whose name he forgets and who, he says,
"just disappeared one day." When Bernay himself discovered
loop-arounds independently, from clues in his readings in old
issues of the Automatic Electric Technical Journal, he found
dozens of the reform-school kid's friends already using them.
However, it was one of Bernay's disciples in Seattle that
introduced phone phreaking to blind kids. The Seattle kid who
learned about loops through Bernay's recording told a blind
friend, the blind kid taught the secret to his friends at a
winter camp for blind kids in Los Angeles. When the camp
session was over these kids took the secret back to towns all
over the West. This is how the original blind kids became
phone phreaks. For them, for most phone phreaks in general, it
was the discovery of the possibilities of loop-arounds which
led them on to far more serious and sophisticated phone-phreak
methods, and which gave them a medium for sharing their
discoveries.
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A year later a blind kid who moved back east brought the
technique to a blind kids' summer camp in Vermont, which
spread it along the East Coast. All from a Mark Bernay
sticker.
Bernay, who is nearly thirty years old now, got his start when
he was fifteen and his family moved into an L.A. suburb
serviced by General Telephone and Electronics equipment. He
became fascinated with the differences between Bell and
G.T.&E. equipment. He learned he could make interesting things
happen by carefully timed clicks with the disengage button. He
learned to interpret subtle differences in the array of
clicks, whirrs and kachinks he could hear on his lines. He
learned he could shift himself around the switching relays of
the L.A. area code in a not-too-predictable fashion by
interspersing his own hook-switch clicks with the clicks
within the line. (Independent phone companies -- there are
nineteen hundred of them still left, most of them tiny island
principalities in Ma Bell's vast empire -- have always been
favorites with phone phreaks, first as learning tools, then as
Archimedes platforms from which to manipulate the huge Bell
system. A phone phreak in Bell territory will often M-F
himself into an independent's switching system, with switching
idiosyncrasies which can give him marvelous leverage over the
Bell System.
"I have a real affection for Automatic Electric Equipment,"
Bernay told me. "There are a lot of things you can play with.
Things break down in interesting ways."
Shortly after Bernay graduated from college (with a double
major in chemistry and philosophy), he graduated from
phreaking around with G.T.&E. to the Bell System itself, and
made his legendary sticker-pasting journey north along the
coast, settling finally in Northwest Pacific Bell territory.
He discovered that if Bell does not break down as
interestingly as G.T.&E., it nevertheless offers a lot of
"things to play with."
Bernay learned to play with blue boxes. He established his own
personal switchboard and phone-phreak research laboratory
complex. He continued his phone-phreak evangelism with ongoing
sticker campaigns. He set up two recording numbers, one with
instructions for beginning phone phreaks, the other with
latest news and technical developments (along with some
advanced instruction) gathered from sources all over the
country.
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These days, Bernay told me, he had gone beyond phone-phreaking
itself. "Lately I've been enjoying playing with computers more
than playing with phones. My personal thing in computers is
just like with phones, I guess -- the kick is in finding out
how to beat the system, how to get at things I'm not supposed
to know about, how to do things with the system that I'm not
supposed to be able to do."
As a matter of fact, Bernay told me, he had just been fired
from his computer-programming job for doing things he was not
supposed to be able to do. he had been working with a huge
time-sharing computer owned by a large corporation but shared
by many others. Access to the computer was limited to those
programmers and corporations that had been assigned certain
passwords. And each password restricted its user to access to
only the one section of the computer cordoned off from its own
information storager. The password system prevented companies
and individuals from stealing each other's information.
"I figured out how to write a program that would let me read
everyone else's password," Bernay reports. "I began playing
around with passwords. I began letting the people who used the
computer know, in subtle ways, that I knew their passwords. I
began dropping notes to the computer supervisors with hints
that I knew what I know. I signed them 'The Midnight Skulker.'
I kept getting cleverer and cleverer with my messages and
devising ways of showing them what I could do. I'm sure they
couldn't imagine I could do the things I was showing them. But
they never responded to me. Every once in a while they'd
change the passwords, but I found out how to discover what the
new ones were, and I let them know. But they never responded
directly to the Midnight Skulker. I even finally designed a
program which they could use to prevent my program from
finding out what it did. In effect I told them how to wipe me
out, The Midnight Skulker. It was a very clever program. I
started leaving clues about myself. I wanted them to try and
use it and then try to come up with something to get around
that and reappear again. But they wouldn't play. I wanted to
get caught. I mean I didn't want to get caught personally, but
I wanted them to notice me and admit that they noticed me. I
wanted them to attempt to respond, maybe in some interesting
way."
Finally the computer managers became concerned enough about
the threat of information-stealing to respond. However,
instead of using The Midnight Skulker's own elegant self-
destruct program, they called in their security personnel,
interrogated everyone, found an informer to identify Bernay as
The Midnight Skulker, and fired him.
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"At first the security people advised the company to hire me
full-time to search out other flaws and discover other
computer freaks. I might have liked that. But I probably would
have turned into a double double agent rather than the double
agent they wanted. I might have resurrected The Midnight
Skulker and tried to catch myself. Who knows? Anyway, the
higher-ups turned the whole idea down."
You Can Tap the F.B.I.'s Crime Control Computer in the Comfort
of Your Own Home, Perhaps
Computer freaking may be the wave of the future. It suits the
phone-phreak sensibility perfectly. Gilbertson, the blue-box
inventor and a lifelong phone phreak, has also gone on from
phone-phreaking to computer-freaking. Before he got into the
blue-box business Gilbertson, who is a highly skilled
programmer, devised programs for international currency
arbitrage.
But he began playing with computers in earnest when he learned
he could use his blue box in tandem with the computer terminal
installed in his apartment by the instrumentation firm he
worked for. The print-out terminal and keyboard was equipped
with acoustical coupling, so that by coupling his little ivory
Princess phone to the terminal and then coupling his blue box
on that, he could M-F his way into other computers with
complete anonymity, and without charge; program and re-program
them at will; feed them false or misleading information; tap
and steal from them. He explained to me that he taps computers
by busying out all the lines, then going into a verification
trunk, listening into the passwords and instructions one of
the time sharers uses, and them M-F-ing in and imitating them.
He believes it would not be impossible to creep into the
F.B.I's crime control computer through a local police computer
terminal and phreak around with the F.B.I.'s memory banks. He
claims he has succeeded in re-programming a certain huge
institutional computer in such a way that it has cordoned off
an entire section of its circuitry for his personal use, and
at the same time conceals that arrangement from anyone else's
notice. I have been unable to verify this claim.
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Like Captain Crunch, like Alexander Graham Bell (pseudonym of
a disgruntled-looking East Coast engineer who claims to have
invented the black box and now sells black and blue boxes to
gamblers and radical heavies), like most phone phreaks,
Gilbertson began his career trying to rip off pay phones as a
teenager. Figure them out, then rip them off. Getting his dime
back from the pay phone is the phone phreak's first thrilling
rite of passage. After learning the usual eighteen different
ways of getting his dime back, Gilbertson learned how to make
master keys to coin-phone cash boxes, and get everyone else's
dimes back. He stole some phone-company equipment and put
together his own home switchboard with it. He learned to make
a simple "bread-box" device, of the kind used by bookies in
the Thirties (bookie gives a number to his betting clients;
the phone with that number is installed in some widow lady's
apartment, but is rigged to ring in the bookie's shop across
town, cops trace big betting number and find nothing but the
widow).
Not long after that afternoon in 1968 when, deep in the stacks
of an engineering library, he came across a technical journal
with the phone tone frequencies and rushed off to make his
first blue box, not long after that Gilbertson abandoned a
very promising career in physical chemistry and began selling
blue boxes for $1,500 apiece.
"I had to leave physical chemistry. I just ran out of
interesting things to learn," he told me one evening. We had
been talking in the apartment of the man who served as the
link between Gilbertson and the syndicate in arranging the big
$300,000 blue-box deal which fell through because of legal
trouble. There has been some smoking.
"No more interesting things to learn," he continues. "Physical
chemistry turns out to be a sick subject when you take it to
its highest level. I don't know. I don't think I could explain
to you how it's sick. You have to be there. But you get, I
don't know, a false feeling of omnipotence. I suppose it's
like phone-phreaking that way. This huge thing is there. This
whole system. And there are holes in it and you slip into them
like Alice and you're pretending you're doing something you're
actually not, or at least it's no longer you that's doing what
you thought you were doing. It's all Lewis Carroll. Physical
chemistry and phone-phreaking. That's why you have these
phone-phreak pseudonyms like The Cheshire Cat, the Red King,
and The Snark. But there's something about phone-phreaking
that you don't find in physical chemistry." He looks up at me:
"Did you ever steal anything?"
"Well yes, I ... "
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"Then you know! You know the rush you get. It's not just
knowledge, like physical chemistry. It's forbidden knowledge.
You know. You can learn about anything under the sun and be
bored to death with it. But the idea that it's illegal. Look:
you can be small and mobile and smart and you're ripping off
somebody large and powerful and very dangerous."
People like Gilbertson and Alexander Graham Bell are always
talking about ripping off the phone company and screwing Ma
Bell. But if they were shown a single button and told that by
pushing it they could turn the entire circuitry of A.T.&T.
into molten puddles, they probably wouldn't push it. The
disgruntled-inventor phone phreak needs the phone system the
way the lapsed Catholic needs the Church, the way Satan needs
a God, the way The Midnight Skulker needed, more than anything
else, response.
Later that evening Gilbertson finished telling me how
delighted he was at the flood of blue boxes spreading
throughout the country, how delighted he was to know that
"this time they're really screwed." He suddenly shifted gears.
"Of course. I do have this love/hate thing about Ma Bell. In a
way I almost like the phone company. I guess I'd be very sad
if they were to disintegrate. In a way it's just that after
having been so good they turn out to have these things wrong
with them. It's those flaws that allow me to get in and mess
with them, but I don't know. There's something about it that
gets to you and makes you want to get to it, you know."
I ask him what happens when he runs out of interesting,
forbidden things to learn about the phone system.
"I don't know, maybe I'd go to work for them for a while."
"In security even?"
"I'd do it, sure. I just as soon play -- I'd just as soon work
on either side."
"Even figuring out how to trap phone phreaks? I said,
recalling Mark Bernay's game."
"Yes, that might be interesting. Yes, I could figure out how
to outwit the phone phreaks. Of course if I got too good at
it, it might become boring again. Then I'd have to hope the
phone phreaks got much better and outsmarted me for a while.
That would move the quality of the game up one level. I might
even have to help them out, you know, 'Well, kids, I wouldn't
want this to get around but did you ever think of -- ?' I
could keep it going at higher and higher levels forever."
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The dealer speaks up for the first time. He has been staring
at the soft blinking patterns of light and colors on the
translucent tiled wall facing him. (Actually there are no
patterns: the color and illumination of every tile is
determined by a computerized random-number generator designed
by Gilbertson which insures that there can be no meaning to
any sequence of events in the tiles.)
"Those are nice games you're talking about," says the dealer
to his friend. "But I wouldn't mind seeing them screwed. A
telephone isn't private anymore. You can't say anything you
really want to say on a telephone or you have to go through
that paranoid bullshit. 'Is it cool to talk on the phone?' I
mean, even if it is cool, if you have to ask 'Is it cool,'
then it isn't cool. You know. 'Is it cool,' then it isn't
cool. You know. Like those blind kids, people are going to
start putting together their own private telephone companies
if they want to really talk. And you know what else. You don't
hear silences on the phone anymore. They've got this time-
sharing thing on long-distance lines where you make a pause
and they snip out that piece of time and use it to carry part
of somebody else's conversation. Instead of a pause, where
somebody's maybe breathing or sighing, you get this blank hole
and you only start hearing again when someone says a word and
even the beginning of the word is clipped off. Silences don't
count -- you're paying for them, but they take them away from
you. It's not cool to talk and you can't hear someone when
they don't talk. What the hell good is the phone? I wouldn't
mind seeing them totally screwed."
The Big Memphis Bust
Joe Engressia never wanted to screw Ma Bell. His dream had
always been to work for her.
The day I visited Joe in his small apartment on Union Avenue
in Memphis, he was upset about another setback in his
application for a telephone job.
"They're stalling on it. I got a letter today telling me
they'd have to postpone the interview I requested again. My
landlord read it for me. They gave me some runaround about
wanting papers on my rehabilitation status but I think there's
something else going on."
When I switched on the 40-watt bulb in Joe's room -- he
sometimes forgets when he has guests -- it looked as if there
was enough telephone hardware to start a small phone company
of his own.
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There is one phone on top of his desk, one phone sitting in an
open drawer beneath the desk top. Next to the desk-top phone
is a cigar-box-size M-F device with big toggle switches, and
next to that is some kind of switching and coupling device
with jacks and alligator plugs hanging loose. Next to that is
a Braille typewriter. On the floor next to the desk, lying
upside down like a dead tortoise, is the half-gutted body of
an old black standard phone. Across the room on a torn and
dusty couch are two more phones, one of them a touch-tone
model; two tape recorders; a heap of phone patches and
cassettes, and a life-size toy telephone.
Our conversation is interrupted every ten minutes by phone
phreaks from all over the country ringing Joe on just about
every piece of equipment but the toy phone and the Braille
typewriter. One fourteen-year-old blind kid from Connecticut
calls up and tells Joe he's got a girl friend. He wants to
talk to Joe about girl friends. Joe says they'll talk later in
the evening when they can be alone on the line. Joe draws a
deep breath, whistles him off the air with an earsplitting
2600-cycle whistle. Joe is pleased to get the calls but he
looked worried and preoccupied that evening, his brow
constantly furrowed over his dark wandering eyes. In addition
to the phone-company stall, he has just learned that his
apartment house is due to be demolished in sixty days for
urban renewal. For all its shabbiness, the Union Avenue
apartment house has been Joe's first home-of-his-own and he's
worried that he may not find another before this one is
demolished.
But what really bothers Joe is that switchmen haven't been
listening to him. "I've been doing some checking on 800
numbers lately, and I've discovered that certain 800 numbers
in New Hampshire couldn't be reached from Missouri and Kansas.
Now it may sound like a small thing, but I don't like to see
sloppy work; it makes me feel bad about the lines. So I've
been calling up switching offices and reporting it, but they
haven't corrected it. I called them up for the third time
today and instead of checking they just got mad. Well, that
gets me mad. I mean, I do try to help them. There's something
about them I can't understand -- you want to help them and
they just try to say you're defrauding them."
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It is Sunday evening and Joe invites me to join him for dinner
at a Holiday Inn. Frequently on Sunday evening Joe takes some
of his welfare money, calls a cab, and treats himself to a
steak dinner at one of Memphis' thirteen Holiday Inns.
(Memphis is the headquarters of Holiday Inn. Holiday Inns have
been a favorite for Joe ever since he made his first solo
phone trip to a Bell switching office in Jacksonville,
Florida, and stayed in the Holiday Inn there. He likes to stay
at Holiday Inns, he explains, because they represent freedom
to him and because the rooms are arranged the same all over
the country so he knows that any Holiday Inn room is familiar
territory to him. Just like any telephone.)
Over steaks in the Pinnacle Restaurant of the Holiday Inn
Medical Center on Madison Avenue in Memphis, Joe tells me the
highlights of his life as a phone phreak.
At age seven, Joe learned his first phone trick. A mean baby-
sitter, tired of listening to little Joe play with the phone
as he always did, constantly, put a lock on the phone dial. "I
got so mad. When there's a phone sitting there and I can't use
it ... so I started getting mad and banging the receiver up
and down. I noticed I banged it once and it dialed one. Well,
then I tried banging it twice ... " In a few minutes Joe
learned how to dial by pressing the hook switch at the right
time. "I was so excited I remember going 'whoo whoo' and beat
a box down on the floor."
At age eight Joe learned about whistling. "I was listening to
some intercept non working-number recording in L.A.- I was
calling L.A. as far back as that, but I'd mainly dial non
working numbers because there was no charge, and I'd listen to
these recordings all day. Well, I was whistling 'cause
listening to these recordings can be boring after a while even
if they are from L.A., and all of a sudden, in the middle of
whistling, the recording clicked off. I fiddled around
whistling some more, and the same thing happened. So I called
up the switch room and said, 'I'm Joe. I'm eight years old and
I want to know why when I whistle this tune the line clicks
off.' He tried to explain it to me, but it was a little too
technical at the time. I went on learning. That was a thing
nobody was going to stop me from doing. The phones were my
life, and I was going to pay any price to keep on learning. I
knew I could go to jail. But I had to do what I had to do to
keep on learning."
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The phone is ringing when we walk back into Joe's apartment on
Union Avenue. It is Captain Crunch. The Captain has been
following me around by phone, calling up everywhere I go with
additional bits of advice and explanation for me and whatever
phone phreak I happen to be visiting. This time the Captain
reports he is calling from what he describes as "my hideaway
high up in the Sierra Nevada." He pulses out lusty salvos of
M-F and tells Joe he is about to "go out and get a little
action tonight. Do some phreaking of another kind, if you know
what I mean." Joe chuckles.
The Captain then tells me to make sure I understand that what
he told me about tying up the nation's phone lines was true,
but that he and the phone phreaks he knew never used the
technique for sabotage. They only learned the technique to
help the phone company.
"We do a lot of troubleshooting for them. Like this New
Hampshire/Missouri WATS-line flaw I've been screaming about.
We help them more than they know."
After we say good-bye to the Captain and Joe whistles him off
the line, Joe tells me about a disturbing dream he had the
night before: "I had been caught and they were taking me to a
prison. It was a long trip. They were taking me to a prison a
long long way away. And we stopped at a Holiday Inn and it was
my last night ever using the phone and I was crying and
crying, and the lady at the Holiday Inn said, 'Gosh, honey,
you should never be sad at a Holiday Inn. You should always be
happy here. Especially since it's your last night.' And that
just made it worse and I was sobbing so much I couldn't stand
it."
Two weeks after I left Joe Engressia's apartment, phone-
company security agents and Memphis police broke into it.
Armed with a warrant, which they left pinned to a wall, they
confiscated every piece of equipment in the room, including
his toy telephone. Joe was placed under arrest and taken to
the city jail where he was forced to spend the night since he
had no money and knew no one in Memphis to call.
It is not clear who told Joe what that night, but someone told
him that the phone company had an open-and-shut case against
him because of revelations of illegal activity he had made to
a phone-company undercover agent.
By morning Joe had become convinced that the reporter from
Esquire, with whom he had spoken two weeks ago, was the
undercover agent. He probably had ugly thoughts about someone
he couldn't see gaining his confidence, listening to him talk
about his personal obsessions and dreams, while planning all
the while to lock him up.
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"I really thought he was a reporter," Engressia told the
Memphis Press-Seminar. "I told him everything ... " Feeling
betrayed, Joe proceeded to confess everything to the press and
police.
As it turns out, the phone company did use an undercover agent
to trap Joe, although it was not the Esquire reporter.
Ironically, security agents were alerted and began to compile
a case against Joe because of one of his acts of love for the
system: Joe had called an internal service department to
report that he had located a group of defective long-distance
trunks, and to complain again about the New Hampshire/Missouri
WATS problem. Joe always liked Ma Bell's lines to be clean and
responsive. A suspicious switchman reported Joe to the
security agents who discovered that Joe had never had a long-
distance call charged to his name.
Then the security agents learned that Joe was planning one of
his phone trips to a local switching office. The security
people planted one of their agents in the switching office. He
posed as a student switchman and followed Joe around on a
tour. He was extremely friendly and helpful to Joe, leading
him around the office by the arm. When the tour was over he
offered Joe a ride back to his apartment house. On the way he
asked Joe -- one tech man to another -- about "those blue
boxers" he'd heard about. Joe talked about them freely, talked
about his blue box freely, and about all the other things he
could do with the phones.
The next day the phone-company security agents slapped a
monitoring tape on Joe's line, which eventually picked up an
illegal call. Then they applied for the search warrant and
broke in.
In court Joe pleaded not guilty to possession of a blue box
and theft of service. A sympathetic judge reduced the charges
to malicious mischief and found him guilty on that count,
sentenced him to two thirty-day sentences to be served
concurrently and then suspended the sentence on condition that
Joe promise never to play with phones again. Joe promised, but
the phone company refused to restore his service. For two
weeks after the trial Joe could not be reached except through
the pay phone at his apartment house, and the landlord
screened all calls for him.
Phone-phreak Carl managed to get through to Joe after the
trial, and reported that Joe sounded crushed by the whole
affair.
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"What I'm worried about," Carl told me, "is that Joe means it
this time. The promise. That he'll never phone-phreak again.
That's what he told me, that he's given up phone-phreaking for
good. I mean his entire life. He says he knows they're going
to be watching him so closely for the rest of his life he'll
never be able to make a move without going straight to jail.
He sounded very broken up by the whole experience of being in
jail. It was awful to hear him talk that way. I don't know. I
hope maybe he had to sound that way. Over the phone, you
know."
He reports that the entire phone-phreak underground is up in
arms over the phone company's treatment of Joe. "All the while
Joe had his hopes pinned on his application for a phone-
company job, they were stringing him along getting ready to
bust him. That gets me mad. Joe spent most of his time helping
them out. The bastards. They think they can use him as an
example. All of sudden they're harassing us on the coast.
Agents are jumping up on our lines. They just busted --'s mute
yesterday and ripped out his lines. But no matter what Joe
does, I don't think we're going to take this lying down."
Two weeks later my phone rings and about eight phone phreaks
in succession say hello from about eight different places in
the country, among them Carl, Ed, and Captain Crunch. A
nationwide phone-phreak conference line has been reestablished
through a switching machine in --, with the cooperation of a
disgruntled switchman.
"We have a special guest with us today," Carl tells me.
The next voice I hear is Joe's. He reports happily that he has
just moved to a place called Millington, Tennessee, fifteen
miles outside of Memphis, where he has been hired as a
telephone-set repairman by a small independent phone company.
Someday he hopes to be an equipment troubleshooter.
"It's the kind of job I dreamed about. They found out about me
from the publicity surrounding the trial. Maybe Ma Bell did me
a favor busting me. I'll have telephones in my hands all day
long."
"You know the expression, 'Don't get mad, get even'?" phone-
phreak Carl asked me. "Well, I think they're going to be very
sorry about what they did to Joe and what they're trying to do
to us."
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_______________________________________________________________
The History of ESS
_______________________________________________________________
Another original phile by
Lex Luthor
Of all the new 1960s wonders of telephone technology -
satellites, ultra modern Traffic Service Positions (TSPS) for
operators, the picturephone, and so on - the one that gave
Bell Labs the most trouble, and unexpectedly became the
greatest development effort in Bell System's history, was the
perfection of an electronic switching system, or ESS.
It may be recalled that such a system was the specific end in
view when the project that had culminated in the invention of
the transistor had been launched back in the 1930s. After
successful accomplishment of that planned miracle in 1947-48,
further delays were brought about by financial stringency and
the need for further development of the transistor itself. In
the early 1950s, a Labs team began serious work on electronic
switching. As early as 1955, Western Electric became involved
when five engineers from the Hawthorne works were assigned to
collaborate with the Labs on the project. The president of
AT&T in 1956, wrote confidently, "At Bell Labs, development of
the new electronic switching system is going full speed ahead.
We are sure this will lead to many improvements in service and
also to greater efficiency. The first service trial will start
in Morris, Ill., in 1959." Shortly thereafter, Kappel said
that the cost of the whole project would probably be $45
million.
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But it gradually became apparent that the development of a
commercially usable electronic switching system -in effect, a
computerized telephone exchange - presented vastly greater
technical problems than had been anticipated, and that,
accordingly, Bell Labs had vastly underestimated both the time
and the investment needed to do the job. The year 1959 passed
without the promised first trial at Morris, Illinois; it was
finally made in November 1960, and quickly showed how much
more work remained to be done. As time dragged on and costs
mounted, there was a concern at AT&T and some-thing
approaching panic at Bell Labs. But the project had to go
forward; by this time the investment was too great to be
sacrificed, and in any case, forward projections of increased
demand for telephone service indicated that within a phew
years a time would come when, without the quantum leap in
speed and flexibility that electronic switching would provide,
the national network would be unable to meet the demand. In
November 1963, an all-electronic switching system went into
use at the Brown Engineering Company at Cocoa Beach, Florida.
But this was a small installation, essentially another test
installation, serving only a single company. Kappel's tone on
the subject in the 1964 annual report was, for him, an almost
apologetic: "Electronic switching equipment must be
manufactured in volume to unprecedented standards of
reliability.... To turn out the equipment economically and
with good speed, mass production methods must be developed;
but, at the same time, there can be no loss of precision..."
Another year and millions of dollars later, on May 30, 1965,
the first commercial electric central office was put into
service at Succasunna, New Jersey.
Even at Succasunna, only 200 of the town's 4,300 subscribers
initially had the benefit of electronic switching's added
speed and additional services, such as provision for three
party conversations and automatic transfer of incoming calls.
But after that, ESS was on its way. In January 1966, the
second commercial installation, this one serving 2,900
telephones, went into service in Chase, Maryland. By the end
of 1967 there were additional ESS offices in California,
Connecticut, Minnesota, Georgia, New York, Florida, and
Pennsylvania; by the end of 1970 there were 120 offices
serving 1.8 million customers; and by 1974 there were 475
offices serving 5.6 million customers.
The difference between conventional switching and electronic
switching is the difference between "hardware" and "software";
in the former case, maintenance is done on the spot, with
screwdriver and pliers, while in the case of electronic
switching, it can be done remotely, by computer, from a
central point, making it possible to have only one or two
technicians on duty at a time at each switching center.
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The development program, when the final figures were added up,
was found to have required a staggering four thousand man-
years of work at Bell Labs and to have cost not $45 million
but $500 million!
_______________________________________________________________
The History of British Phreaking
_______________________________________________________________
Another original phile by
Lex Luthor and the Legion of Doom
Note: The British Post Office, is the U.S. equivalent of Ma
Bell.
In Britain, phreaking goes back to the early fifties, when the
technique of 'toll a drop back' was discovered. Toll a was an
exchange near st. Pauls which routed calls between london and
nearby non-london exchanges. The trick was to dial an
unallocated number, and then depress the receiver-rest for 1/2
second. This flashing initiated the 'clear forward' signal,
leaving the caller with an open line into the toll a
exchange.the could then dial 018, which forwarded him to the
trunk exchange at that time, the first long distance exchange
in britain and follow it with the code for the distant
exchange to which he would be connected at no extra charge.
The signals needed to control the uk network today were
published in the "institution of post office engineers
journal" and reprinted in the sunday times (15 oct. 1972).
The signalling system they use: signalling system no. 3 Uses
pairs of frequencies selected from 6 tones separated by 120Hz.
With that info, the phreaks made "bleepers" or as they are
called here in the u.s. "Blue box", but they do utilize
different mf tones then the u.s., thus, your u.s. Blue box
that you smuggled into the uk will not work, unless you change
the frequencies.
In the early seventies, a simpler system based on different
numbers of pulses with the same frequency (2280Hz) was used.
For more info on that, try to get a hold of: Atkinson's
"Telephony and Systems Technology".
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In the early days of british phreaking, the Cambridge
university titan computer was used to record and circulate
numbers found by the exhaustive dialing of local networks.
These numbers were used to create a chain of links from local
exchange to local exchange across the country, bypassing the
trunk circuits. Because the internal routing codes in the uk
network are not the same as those dialed by the caller, the
phreaks had to discover them by 'probe and listen' techniques
or more commonly known in the u.s.-- scanning. What they did
was put in likely signals and listened to find out if they
succeeded. The results of scanning were circulated to other
phreaks. Discovering each other took time at first, but
eventually the phreaks became organized. The "tap" of britain
was called "undercurrents" which enabled british phreaks to
share the info on new numbers, equipment etc.
To understand what the british british phreaks did, think of
the phone network in three layers of lines: local, trunk, and
international.#in the uk, subscriber trunk dialing (std), is
the mechanism which takes a call from the local lines and
(legitimately) elevates it to a trunk or international
level.#the uk phreaks figured that a call at trunk level can
be routed through any number of exchanges, provided that the
right routing codes were found and used correctly. They also
had to discover how to get from local to trunk level either
without being charged (which they did with a bleeper box) or
without using (std). Chaining has already been mentioned but
it requires long strings of digits and speech gets more and
more faint as the chain grows, just like it does when you
stack trunks back and forth across the u.s.#the way the
security reps snagged the phreaks was to put a simple
'printermeter' or as we call it: a pen register on the
suspects line, which shows every digit dialed from the
subscribers line.
The British prefer to get onto the trunks rather than
chaining. One way was to discover where local calls use the
trunks between neighboring exchanges, start a call and stay on
the trunk instead of returning to the local level on reaching
the distant switch. This again required exhaustive dialing and
made more work for titan; it also revealed 'fiddles', which
were inserted by post office engineers.
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What fiddling means is that the engineers rewired the
exchanges for their own benefit. The equipment is modified to
give access to a trunk with out being charged, an operation
which is pretty easy in step by step (sxs) electromechanical
exchanges, which were installed in britain even in the 1970s
(note: I know of a back door into the canadian system on a 4a
co., so if you are on sxs or a 4a, try scanning 3 digit
exchanges, ie: dial 999,998,997 etc.#and listen for the beep-
kerchink, if there are no 3 digit codes which allow direct
access to a tandem in your local exchange and bypasses the ama
so you won't be billed, not have to blast 2600 every time you
wish to box a call.
A famous british 'fiddler' revealed in the early 1970s worked
by dialing 173. The caller then added the trunk code of 1 and
the subscribers local number. At that time, most engineering
test services began with 17x, so the engineers could hide
their fiddles in the nest of service wires. When security reps
started searching, the fiddles were concealed by tones
signalling: 'number unobtainalbe' or 'equipment engaged' which
switched off after a delay. The necessary relays are small and
easily hidden.
There was another side to phreaking in the uk in the sixties.
Before std was widespread, many 'ordinary' people were driven
to.
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Occasional phreaking from sheer frustration at the inefficient
operator controlled trunk system. This came to a head during a
strike about 1961 when operators could not be reached. Nothing
complicated was needed. Many operators had been in the habit
of repeating the codes as they dialled the requested numbers
so people soon learnt the numbers they called frequently. The
only 'trick' was to know which exchanges could be dialled
through to pass on the trunk number.callers also needed a
pretty quiet place to do it, since timing relative to clicks
was important the most famous trial of british phreaks was
called the old baily trial.#which started on 3 oct. 1973.#What
they phreaks did was to dial a spare number at a local call
rate but involving a trunk to another exchange then they send
a 'clear forward' to their local exchange, indicating to it
that the call is finished;but the distant exchange doesn't
realize because the caller's phone is still off the hook. They
now have an open line into the distant trunk exchange and
sends to it a 'seize' signal: '1' which puts him onto its
outgoing lines now, if they know the codes, the world is open
to them. All other exchanges trust his local exchange to
handle the billing; they just interpret the tones they hear.
Mean while, the local exchange collects only for a local call.
The investigators discovered the phreaks holding a conference
somewhere in england surrounded by various phone equipment and
bleeper boxes, also printouts listing 'secret' post office
codes. (They probably got them from trashing?) the judge said:
"some take to heroin, some take to telephones" for them phone
phreaking was not a crime but a hobby to be shared with
phellow enthusiasts and discussed with the post office openly
over dinner and by mail. Their approach and attitude to the
worlds largest computer, the global telephone system, was that
of scientists conducting experiments or programmers and
engineers testing programs and systems. The judge appeared to
agree, and even asked them for phreaking codes to use from his
local exchange!
The End
_______________________________________________________________
Bad as Shit
_______________________________________________________________
Recently, a telephone fanatic in the northwest made an
interesting discovery. He was exploring the 804 area code
(Virginia) and found out that the 840 exchange did something
strange.
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In the vast majority of cases, in fact in all of the cases
except one, he would get a recording as if the exchange didn't
exist. However, if he dialed 804-840 and four rather
predictable numbers, he got a ring!
After one or two rings, somebody picked up. Being experienced
at this kind of thing, he could tell that the call didn't
"supe", that is, no charges were being incurred for calling
this number.
(Calls that get you to an error message, or a special
operator, generally don't supervise.) A female voice, with a
hint of a Southern accent said, "Operator, can I help you?"
"Yes," he said, "What number have I reached?"
"What number did you dial, sir?"
He made up a number that was similar.
"I'm sorry that is not the number you reached." Click.
He was fascinated. What in the world was this? He knew he was
going to call back, but before he did, he tried some more
experiments. He tried the 840 exchange in several other area
codes. In some, it came up as a valid exchange. In others,
exactly the same thing happened -- the same last four digits,
the same Southern belle. Oddly enough, he later noticed, the
areas worked in seemed to travel in a beeline from Washington
DC to Pittsburgh, PA.
He called back from a payphone. "Operator, can I help you?"
"Yes, this is the phone company. I'm testing this line and we
don't seem to have an identification on your circuit. What
office is this, please?"
"What number are you trying to reach?"
"I'm not trying to reach any number. I'm trying to identify
this circuit."
"I'm sorry, I can't help you."
"Ma'am, if I don't get an ID on this line, I'll have to
disconnect it. We show no record of it here."
"Hold on a moment, sir."
After about a minute, she came back. "Sir, I can have someone
speak to you. Would you give me your number, please?"
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He had anticipated this and he had the payphone number ready.
After he gave it, she said, "Mr. XXX will get right back to
you."
"Thanks." He hung up the phone. It rang. INSTANTLY! "Oh my
God," he thought, "They weren't asking for my number -- they
were confirming it!"
"Hello," he said, trying to sound authoritative.
"This is Mr. XXX. Did you just make an inquiry to my office
concerning a phone number?"
"Yes. I need an identi--"
"What you need is advice. Don't ever call that number again.
Forget you ever knew it."
At this point our friend got so nervous he just hung up. He
expected to hear the phone ring again but it didn't.
Over the next few days he racked his brains trying to figure
out what the number was. He knew it was something big -- that
was pretty certain at this point. It was so big that the
number was programmed into every central office in the
country. He knew this because if he tried to dial any other
number in that exchange, he'd get a local error message from
his CO, as if the exchange didn't exist.
It finally came to him. He had an uncle who worked in a
federal agency. He had a feeling that this was government
related and if it was, his uncle could probably find out what
it was. He asked the next day and his uncle promised to look
into the matter.
The next time he saw his uncle, he noticed a big change in his
manner. He was trembling. "Where did you get that number?!" he
shouted. "Do you know I almost got fired for asking about
it?!? They kept wanting to know where I got it."
Our friend couldn't contain his excitement. "What is it?" he
pleaded. "What's the number?!"
"IT'S THE PRESIDENT'S BOMB SHELTER!"
He never called the number after that. He knew that he could
probably cause quite a bit of excitement by calling the number
and saying something like, "The weather's not good in
Washington. We're coming over for a visit." But our friend was
smart. he knew that there were some things that were better
off unsaid and undone. <>
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_______________________________________________________________
Chapter 3
_______________________________________________________________
This chapter is really just a bunch of FACS (pun intended).
Here is where random facts that really have something to do
with everything else but nothing to do with anything else, are
presented. They cover various topics such as: Conferencing,
Tracing, Pen registers, Calling cards, and some basic FMF
(Fool the Mother Fuckers). The aspects covered here are very
brief and could easily be covered much more thoroughly, but it
is no problem since they are not very important topics.
Something that would make a very nice gift is covered in the
article AT&T forgery. Just make up stationary with AT&T letter
head and give it as a present to your phriends who would
appreciate it.
Phreaking COSMOS
COSMOS is Bell's computer for handling information on customer
lines, special services on lines, and orders to change line
equipment, disconnect lines, etc. COSMOS stands for
Computerized System for Mainframe Operations. It is based on
the UNIX operating system and, depending upon the COSMOS and
upon your access, has some, many, or no UNIX standard
commands. COSMOS is powerful, but there is no reason to be
afraid of it. This article will give some of the basic,
pertinent info on how users get in, account format, and a few
other goodies.
Password Identification
To get onto COSMOS you need a dialup, account, password, and
wire center (WC). Wire centers are two letter codes that tell
what section of the COSMOS you are in. There are different
WC's f or different areas and groups of exchanges. Examples
are PB, SR, LK, et c. Sometimes there are accounts that have
no password; obviously such accounts are the easiest to hack.
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Checking It Out
Let's suppose you have a COSMOS number which you obtained one
way or another. The first thing to do would be to make sure it
is really a COSMOS system, not some other Bell or AT&T
computer. To do this, you would call it and connect your
modem,, then hit some returns until you got a response. It
should say:
';LOGIN:' or 'NAME:'
If you enter some garbage it should say:
'PASSWORD:'
If you hit a return and it says 'WC?', it is a COSMOS system.
If it says something like 'TA%' then you're in business. If it
doesn't do any of the above, then it is either some other kind
of system, or, if you're not getting anything at all, the
dialup has probably gone bad.
Getting In
COSMOS has certain accounts that are usually on the system,
one of which might not have a password. They consist of ROOT
(most powerful and almost always on the system), SYS (second
most powerful, still many privileges), BIN (a little less
power), PREOP (a little less), and COSMOS (hardly any
privileges, like a normal user). The way to tell if they have
passwords is by entering accounts at the ';LOGIN:' or ' NAME:'
prompt, and if it jumps straight to 'WC?', all you need is a
WC to get in. But suppose all of the accounts have passwords?
You have two choices. You can try to hack the password and WC
to one of the above accounts. I won't deal with this method,
as is self-explanatory. Or you can do something I find much
easier...call the COSMOS during business hours and hope that
someone forgot to log off. Keep calling until when you connect
and hit return until you get a 'WC%' prompt. 'WC' is the WC
that the account you found is currently in. You are now in!
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What to Do While On-line
The first thing you want to do is write down the WC you are
in. Only on our first login it is a good idea to print
everything or dump everything to a buffer.
Commands
'WCFLDS'(!) Should list all WC's.
'WHO' Should print everyone currently logged on
the system, giving some accounts.
'TTY' Tells what terminal port you are on.
'WHERE' Should tell the location of the COSMOS
installation.
'WHAT' Tells what version of COSNIX, COSMOS's
operating system, it is.
'LS *' Prints all the files you have access to.
'CD /dir' Connects you to the directory '/dir'.
'CAT filename ' Prints the file 'filename'.
'Q' Quits the editor.
CTRL-Y. Logs off
'TAT' Sometimes prints a little help file.
'ISH' Check someone's telefone #, type 'ISH' at
the COSMOS 'WC%' prompt. Then type.
'HTN XXX-XXXX' (Hunt Telephone Number) to tell you about
the local number you are interested in.
'CAT /ETC/PASSWD' Prints out the password file, if you have
access. The passwords are almost always
encrypted, but you get a list of all the
accounts. If you are lucky, one of the
lines will have two colons after the
account name. This means there is no
prompt from the ';LOGIN:' or 'NAME:'
prompts when you enter that account.
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To run a file just type the name followed by a return.
When the system gives you a '-', you type a '.', and it will
type all kinds of info on the phone number you entered (in
Bell abbreviations, of course). If it is not a good exchange,
it will say something to that effect. You type a period to end
the ISH.
If you wish to learn more information about COSMOS, find
yourself a COSMOS manual or look at future issues of 2600. A
UNIX manual would also be helpful for standard UNIX commands.
_______________________________________________________________
FACS Facts
A Look at the New FACS Systems
_______________________________________________________________
By Sharp Razor
Bell Atlantic (and probably the rest of the U.S. soon enough)
is revamping Cosmos. The project is called FACS (facilitated
assignment and control system).FACS is composed of 5 modules
which are designed to function as a unified system. The PREMIS
and the COSMOS systems can function as stand-alone systems.the
five parts of FACS are PREMIS, SOAC, LFACS, COSMOS, and the
wm.
The PREMIS (premises information system) supports both
residence and business accounts. Premis is used for various
inquiries for the street address guide(sag),ie::phone
numbers,billing charges,credit,etc.
The second part of FACS is the SOAC(service order analysis and
control). This is primarily used to input service order data
into FACS, and to get the appropriate output. Soac interprets,
validates,and decomposes all inputed data and sends the info
to the COSMOS and the LFACS systems.
The third part of the system is LFACS (loop facilities and
control system). This is the component of FACS that is
responsible for maintaining the inventory,doing the
assignments, administrating inquiries and reports, and is the
inventory transformation center. This part of FACS will be
mostly used for aiding the AT&T linemen.
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The COSMOS system(computer system for mainframe operations)
comprises the fourth part of the FACS system. Cosmos is the
component of FACS that is responsible for maintaining the
mechanized inventory of mdf facilities,storing custom call
features(ie:speed dialing numbers),and other misc. Info.
The fifth and last piece of the FACS system is the work
manager (wm). His component serves as the front-end processor
for COSMOS. It enables a number of COSMOS computers to
reliably communicate with the other FACS components. Wm serves
as the messages switching system for the FACS pieces, and
generally is the "messenger and stabilizer" of the system.
The hardware that will run this FACS system is:
COSMOS 22-weco. 3B-20s mini comps.
wm 6-weco. 3B-20s mini comps.
soac-lfacs-premis two sperry univac 1100/92 mainframes.
bancs 2 thp cyber 1000 processors.
The FACS system is starting up at this very moment. This is
basically a broad view of the FACS system. At&t seems to think
that FACS will be more efficient,save them money in the long
run, and save them workers(here come some massive layoffs!)
what this means to phreakers and hackers is that you will now
have at least five dial-ups in an area code with which you can
phuck with AT&T!
..later..
..sharp razor>>
..the legion of doom!
(Note: The FACS system has recently been put into
operation(summer 84) in St.Louis Missouri)
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_______________________________________________________________
Telenet
_______________________________________________________________
It seems that not many of you know that Telenet is connected
to about 80 computer-networks in the world. No, I don't mean
80 nodes, but 80 networks with thousands of unprotected
computers. When you call your local Telenet- gateway, you can
only call those computers which accept reverse-charging-
calls.
If you want to call computers in foreign countries or
computers in USA which do not accept R-calls, you need a
Telenet-ID. Did you ever notice that you can type ID XXXX when
being connected to Telenet? You are then asked for the
password. If you have such a NUI (Network-User-ID) you can
call nearly every host connected to any computer-network in
the world. Here are some examples:
026245400090184 Is a VAX in Germany (Username: DATEXP and
leave mail for CHRIS !)
0311050500061 Is the Los Alamos Integrated computing
network (One of the hosts connected to it
is the DNA (Defense Nuclear Agency)!)
0530197000016 Is a BBS in New Zealand
024050256 Is the S-E-Bank in Stockholm, Sweden
(Login as GAMES !)
02284681140541 CERN in Geneva in Switzerland (one of the
biggest nuclear research centers in the
world) Login as GUEST
0234212301161 A Videotex-standard system. Type OPTEL to
get in and use the ID 999_ with the
password 9_
0242211000001 University of Oslo in Norway (Type LOGIN
17,17 to play the Multi-User-Dungeon !)
0425130000215 Something like ITT Dialcom, but this one
is in Israel ! ID HELP with password HELP
works fine with security level 3
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0310600584401 Is the Washington Post News Service via
Tymnet (Yes, Tymnet is connected to
Telenet, too !) ID and Password is: PETER
You can read the news of the next day !
The prefixes are as follows:
02624 is Datex-P in Germany
02342 is PSS in England
03110 is Telenet in USA
03106 is Tymnet in USA
02405 is Telepak in Sweden
04251 is Isranet in Israel
02080 is Transpac in France
02284 is Telepac in Switzerland
02724 is Eirpac in Ireland
02704 is Luxpac in Luxembourg
05252 is Telepac in Singapore
04408 is Venus-P in Japan
...and so on... Some of the countries have more than one
packet-switching-network (USA has 11, Canada has 3, etc).
OK. That should be enough for the moment. As you see most of
the passwords are very simple. This is because they must not
have any fear of hackers. Only a few German hackers use these
networks. Most of the computers are absolutely easy to hack !
So, try to find out some Telenet-ID's and leave them here. If
you need more numbers, leave e-mail.
I'm calling from Germany via the German Datex-P network, which
is similar to Telenet. We have a lot of those NUI's for the
German network, but none for a special Tymnet-outdial-computer
in USA, which connects me to any phone #.
CUL8R, Mad Max
ps. Call 026245621040000 and type ID INF300 with password
DATACOM to get more information on packet-switching-
networks !
ps. The new password for the Washington Post is KING !
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_______________________________________________________________
Phreaking AT&T Cards
_______________________________________________________________
My topic will deal with using an AT&T calling card for
automated calls. Ok to place a call with an AT&T card, lift
the handset (PAY PHONE) hit (0) and the desired area code and
the number to call. Also when calling the same number that the
card is being billed to you enter the phone number and at the
tone only enter the last four digits on the card. But we don't
want to do that now, do we. If additional calls are wanted all
you do is hit the (#) and you will get a new dial tone! After
you hit (#) you do not have to re-enter the calling card
number simply enter your desired number and it will connect
you.
If the number you called is busy just keep hitting (#) and the
number to be called until you connect! Ok to calL the U.S. of
a from another country, you use the exact same format as
described above!
Ok now I will describe the procedure for placing calls to a
foreign country, such as CANADA,RUSSIA,SOUTH AMERICA, etc.. Ok
first lift the handset then enter (01) + the country code +
the city code + the local telephone number. Ok after you get
the tone enter the AT&T calling card number. Ok if you can not
dial operator assisted calls from your area don't worry just
jingle the operator and she will handle your call, don't worry
she can't see you!
The international number on the AT&T calling card is used for
calling the US of A from places like RUSSIA, CHINA you never
know when you might get stuck in a country like those and you
have no money to make a call! The international operator will
be able to tell you if they honor the AT&T calling card.
Well I hope that this has straightened out some of your
problems on the use of an AT&T calling card! All you have to
remember is that weather you are placing the call or the
operator, be careful and never use the calling card from your
home phone! That is a BIG NO NO..
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Also AT&T has came out with a new thing called (NEW CARD
CALLER SERVICE) they say that it was designed to meet the
public's needs! These phones will be popping up in many place
such as airport terminals, hotels, etc... What the new card
caller service is, is a new type of phone that has a (CRT)
screen that will talk to you in a language of your choice. The
service works something like this, when you find a (NEW CARD
CALLER PHONE), all you do is follow the instructions on the
(CRT) screen, then you insert the (NEW CARD CALLER CARD) and
there is a strip of magnetic tape on the card which reads the
number, thus no one can hear you saying your number or if
there were a bug in the phone,no touch tones will be heard!
You can also bill the call to a third party. that is one that
I am not totally clear on yet! The phone is supposed to tell
you how it can be done. That is after you have inserted your
card and lifted the receiver!
_______________________________________________________________
AT&T Forgery
_______________________________________________________________
Written by The Blue Buccaneer
Uploaded by Elric of Imrryr of Lunatic Labs UnLtd
Call the Everlasting Speed Demon BBS
(415) 522-3074
Here is a very simple way to either:
1. Play an incredibly cruel and realistic joke on a
phreaking friend.
2. Provide yourself with everything you ever wanted to be an
AT&T person.
All you need to do is get your hands on some AT&T paper and/or
business cards. To do this you can either go down to your
local business office and swipe a few or call up somewhere
like WATTS INFORMATION and ask them to send you their
information package. They will send you:
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1. A nice letter (with the AT&T logo letterhead) saying
"Here is the info."
2. A business card (again with AT&T) saying who the sales
representative is.
3. A very nice color booklet telling you all about WATTS
lines.
4. Various billing information. (Discard as it is very
worthless)
Now take the piece of AT&T paper and the AT&T business card
down to your local print/copy shop. Tell them to run you off
several copies of each, but to leave out whatever else is
printed on the business card/letter. If they refuse or ask
why, take your precious business elsewhere. (This should only
cost you around $2.00 total)
Now take the co ies home and either with your ty ewriter, MAC,
or Fontrix, add whatever name, address, tele hone number, etc.
you like. (I would recommend just changing the name on the
card and using whatever information was on there earlier)
And there you have official AT&T letters and business cards.
As mentioned earlier, you can use them in several ways. Mail a
nice letter to someone you hate (on AT&T paper..hehehe) saying
that AT&T is onto them or something like that. (Be sure to use
correct English and spelling) (Also do not hand write the
letter! Use a typewriter! - Not Fontrix as AT&T doesn't use
OLD ENGLISH or ASCII BOLD when they type letters. Any IBM
typewriter will do perfectly)
Another possible use (of many, I guess) is (if you are old
enough to look the part) to use the business card as some sort
of fake id.
The last example of uses for the fake AT&T letters & b.cards
is mentioned in my textfile, BASIC RADIO CALLING. Briefly,
send the station a letter that reads:
WCAT - FM202: (Like my examples? Haha!)
As you probably know, radio stations give away things by
accepting the 'x' call. (ie: The tenth caller through wins a
pair of Van Halen tickets) Sometimes they may ask a trivia
question, but that's your problem. Anyway, the letter
continues:
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(You basically say that they have become so popular
that they are getting too many calls at once from
listeners trying to win tickets. By asking them to
call all at the same time is overloading our
systems. We do, of course, have means of handling
these sort of matters, but it would require you
sending us a schedule of when you will be asking
your listeners to call in. That way we would be able
to set our systems to handle the amount of callers
you get at peak times..(etc..etc..more BS..But you
get the idea, right?)
Joseph Hakimout
AT&T Telecommunications
East Bumblefuck, Nowheresville 55555
Ok, so it probably won't work (DJs just aren't that dumb,
unless you really do live in Nowheresville), but using AT&T
paper and a business card might up your chances some.
_______________________________________________________________
A Little Something About Your Phone Company
_______________________________________________________________
By Col. Hogan
Ever get an operator who gave you a hard time, and you didn't
know what to do? Well if the operator hears you use a little
Bell jargon, she might wise up. Here is a little diagram
(excuse the artwork) of the structure of operators:
+--------+ +------+ +-----+
|Operator| ---> | S.A. | ---> | BOS |
+--------+ +------+ +-----+
|
|
V
+-------------+
| Group Chief |
+-------------+
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Now most of the operators are not bugged, so they can curse at
you, if they do ask INSTANTLY for the "S.A." or the Service
Assistant. The operator does not report to her (95% of them
are hers) but they will solve most of your problems. She MUST
give you her name as she connects & all of these calls are
bugged. If the SA gives you a rough time get her BOS (Business
Office Supervisor) on the line. S/He will almost always back
her girls up, but sometimes the SA will get tarred and
feathered. The operator reports to the Group Chief, and S/He
will solve 100% of your problems, but the chances of getting
S/He on the line are nill.
If a lineman (the guy who works out on the poles) or an
installation man gives you the works ask to speak to the
Installation Foreman, that works wonders.
Here is some other Bell jargon, that might come in handy if
you are having trouble with the line. Or they can be used to
lie your way out of situations....
An Erling is a line busy for 1 hour, used mostly in traffic
studies A Permanent Signal is that terrible howling you get if
you disconnect, but don't hang up.
Everyone knows what a busy signal is, but some idiots think
that is the *Actual* ringing of the phone, when it just is a
tone "beeps" when the phone is ringing, wouldn't bet on this
though, it can (and does) get out of sync.
When you get a busy signal that is 2 times as fast as the
normal one, the person you are trying to reach isn't really on
the phone, (he might be), it is actually the signal that a
trunk line somewhere is busy and they haven't or can't reroute
your call. Sometimes you will get a Recording, or if you get
nothing at all (Left High & Dry in fone terms) all the
recordings are being used and the system is really overused,
will probably go down in a little while. This happened when
Kennedy was shot, the system just couldn't handle the calls.
By the way this is called the "reorder signal" and the trunk
line is "blocked".
One more thing, if an overseas call isn't completed and
doesn't generate any money for AT&T, is is called an "Air &
Water Call".
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_______________________________________________________________
Essence of Telephone Conferencing
_______________________________________________________________
Written by Forest Ranger
Telephone conferencing is an easy way of getting many friends
together at once. This can be accomplished easily with little
or no trouble what so ever. The techniques that I will teach
you do not require a blue box or a touch tone phone line. The
only prerequisite is that you have a phone that has a tone
switch on it or have a hookable touch tone keypad. Now, if you
are the paranoid type of person and refuse to use your own
phone out of your house then here are some simple ways of
getting conferences started from another phone. Go to a mall
or a place where you know the phone is being payed for by the
business it is in.
Now there are two to call the conference operator; dial "0" to
get your local operator so she can put you through to the
conference operator or dial the conference operator directly
if you have the number handy. The system you will be linked up
to is called the "alliance" system. There are three branches;
1000,2000,3000.
Now once you have gotten the conference operator you tell her
you would like to start a conference and you would like to
maintain control of it. She will then proceed to ask you for
your name and number. You will then give her a fake name and
the number of the pay phone. She will hang up and call you
back once she has checked the number. They usually don't
realize it is a payphone so don't think it won't work! Now
once the operator has given you control you will then proceed
to hack my voice phone and put me on the conference.
Now, the other way of starting a conference in which you don't
get a live operator is a "pbx". With this you will call a pbx
number and you will then receive a recording of a business or
office co. Then when the recording is over you will here a
beep...then after about 10-30 seconds after the beep you will
get a dial tone on the on the end of the pbx. You will then
type the pbx code which will then respond with a recording
welcoming you to the conferencing network (which will in most
if not all be the "alliance" system).
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It will be self explanatory from there. Now if you don't wish
to call the conference operator either way already explained
then there is a was of getting your friends in conference.
This is done over a loop extension. No one will have control,
but you will still be on conference. This is called the seven
line loop extension. This means you can have up to seven
members, but that is it! The number is in la, ca. 213-206-
2820. The last way I will explain to you if you are in
desperate need of a conference is to go to pay phone like I
mentioned before any make sure some business pays the bill for
it then call the conference operator in the fashions mentioned
and ask the conference operator to place conference calls.
They will then ask for the numbers of the people to put on
conference, you give her the numbers and she will put you all
on conference. When you are done you will hang up on her so
there will be no one in control.that means the conference will
be billed to the payphone and no one can be blamed for the
conference due to no one being in control! *Note* the
conference operator will not be on while you are all talking!
Remember that conferences are not hard and it is very hard to
get arrested on one due to what I have mentioned.
Remember: Reach out and phreak someone!
Telephone Conference Controls
# - control mode
# - 6 passes control
# - 1 + area code & number adds
# - 9 silent mode
# - 7 gets conference operator
* ends conference
The "#" is the control key on your conferences. When you pass
control to someone else hit the "#" then "6". Wait for the
recording to say enter # of person to pass control to, then
enter the number of the person you are going to give control
to.
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To add a person on to the conference hit "#" then "1","area
code","number". Then when the person answers wait five seconds
then hit the "#" to add. If you are in control of the
conference and you want to hear everyone else, but you do not
want to be heard it "#" then "9" then the "#" to rejoin the
conference. Remember after adding someone on or passing
control to someone you must always hit the "#" to rejoin the
others on conference: passing control: "#","6", wait for
recording to say enter number of party to give control to then
enter number and hit "#" to rejoin your conference.if you ever
want to get a conference operator for some strange reason then
hit "#","7" and wait for a conference operator to click on. To
end a conference hit "*".
With help from: Silicon Falcon, Silver Condor, and the
Eliminator.
_______________________________________________________________
Phone Tapping
_______________________________________________________________
Here is some info on phone taps. I have enclosed a schematic
for a simple wiretap & instructions for hooking up a tape
recorder control relay to the phone line.
First I'll discuss taps a little. There are many different
types of taps. There are transmitters, wired taps and
induction taps to name a few. Wired and wireless transmitters
must be physically connected to the line before they'll do any
good. Once a wireless tap is connected to the line, it can
transmit all conversations over a limited range. The phones in
the house can even be modified to pick up conversations in the
room & transmit them too! These taps are usually powered off
the phone line, but can have an external power source.
Wired taps, on the other hand, need no power source, but a
wire must be run from the line to the listener or to a
transmitter. There are obvious advantages of wireless taps
over wired ones. There is one type of wireless tap that looks
like a normal telephone mike. All you have to do is replace
the original mike with this & it'll transmit all
conversations!
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There is an exotic type of wired tap known as the 'infinity
transmitter' or 'harmonica bug'. In order to hook up one of
these, you need access to the target telephone. It has a tone
decoder & switch inside. When it is installed, someone calls
the tapped phone & *before* it rings, blows a whistle over the
line. The x-mitter receives the tone & picks up the phone via
a relay. The mike on the phone is activated so the caller can
hear all conversations in the room.
There is a sweep tone test at 415/bug-1111 which can be used
to detect on of these taps. If one of these is on your line &
the test # sends the correct tone, you'll hear a click.
Induction taps have one big advantage over taps that must be
physically wired to the phone. They don't have to be touching
the phone in order to pick up the conversation. They work on
the same principle as the little suction-cup tape recorder
mikes you can get at radio shack. Induction mikes can be
hooked up to a transmitter or be wired. Here is an example of
industrial espionage using the phone:
A salesman walks into an office & makes a fone call. He fakes
the conversation, but when he hangs up he slips some foam-
rubber cubes under the handset, so the fone is still off the
hook. The called party can still hear all conversations in the
room. When someone picks up the fone, the cubes fall away
unnoticed.
I use a tap on my line to monitor what ae-pro is doing when it
auto-dials, since it doesn't take advantage of the handset on
the apple cat II. I can also hook up the tap to a cassette
recorder or amplifier. Here is the schematic:
-------)!----)!(------------->
)!(
cap ^ )!(
)!(
)!(
)!(
^^^^^---)!(------------->
^ 100k
!
!<input
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The 100k pot is used for volume. It should be on its highest
(least resistance) setting if you hook a speaker across the
output, but it should be set on its highest resistance for a
tape recorder or amplifier. You may find it necessary to add
another 10-40k. The capacitor should be around .47 mfd. It's
only purpose is to prevent the relay in the co from tripping &
thinking you have the fone off the hook. The audio output
transformer available at radio shack (273-1380) is fine for
the x-former. The black & green are fine for input & the red &
white go to the output device. You may want to experiment with
the x-former for the best output.
Hooking up a tape recorder control relay is east. Just one of
the fone wires (usu. Red) before the telephones & hook one end
to one wire of the relay & the other end to the other relay
wire. Like this:
------^^^^^^^^^------------
---------
relay^^
_______________________________________________________________
Wiretapping and Divestiture:
A Lineman Speaks Out
_______________________________________________________________
By the Knights of Shadow
2600 - January 1985
Never missing an opportunity for social engineering, the kid &
co. And I naturally carried on a conversation with the new
jersey Bell fone installer when he came to put in my modem
line. The conversation turned to fone tapping, and several
interesting details came to light. He swore up and down that
Bell had nothing to do with wire tapping. He said the
supervisor receives sealed orders from the sheriff's office,
merely passing them on to the linemen. Then the linemen follow
the orders to go up on the poles and mark the pair in the
"can" that fit the fone line in question, and then leave the
site.
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One day, our lineman drove back by the pole he had marked
earlier in the day, and saw a Bell truck. Wondering who it
was, he stopped to ask. The guy up on the pole told him to go
away and to leave him alone. Since our friendly lineman didn't
recognize the mystery man as one of the linemen for the area,
he asked his supervisor who it could have been. His supervisor
curtly told him to forget the entire incident.
The lineman told us that in the old days the telco and the
prosecutor's office worked hand-in-hand. They would let the
authorities right into the co to listen in on conversations.
But this ended around 1973 when someone sued jersey Bell
because of this too close interaction. The telco then realized
that they didn't have to go that far in order to help the
police. After this they gradually broke from the close
relationship. Now the fone company merely marks the lines, and
the prosecutor's office handles the rest. He also said that
now the police sometimes use ultrasonic waves bounced off of
window panes to listen to suspects, removing all contact with
the fone lines. Since the presence of a fone company truck
messing with telephone wires is taken for granted by the
general populace, the sheriff's office also has a couple of
them for undercover work. Since they got them back in the good
old days of Bell friendliness, the trucks tend to be the older
models, with outdated gear. The lineman told us a sure way to
identify the local police's trucks: they have wooden ladders.
New jersey Bell switched over to plastic ones years ago.
Continuing the discussion with the lineman, we covered the
breakup. New jersey Bell now no longer gives as much overtime
as it once did. The lineman complained that his standard of
living had gone down since the breakup as he no longer has as
much take home pay. The breakup has caused a total severing of
ties with AT&T. He professed total ignorance about long
distance calling. He had originally gone with AT&T, but
disliked fixing pbx's and computer systems. As soon as he
could, he switched back to the local operating company.
He told us about a technical institute western union was
operating somewhere in the midwest. He had gone there to learn
about the various types of switching systems. On campus was a
gigantic, multi-story building split up into rooms
approximately the size of gymnasiums. In each was a fully
operational scale model of each of the various switching
systems. Western electric manufactures, including all the ESS
and crossbar machines, as well as some step-by-step, and
several types of pbx's. They trouble-shot and repaired
problems in these machines in order to learn about actual
operating equipment.
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We talked about the local switching equipment, which turned
out to be a #1a ESS. According to him, soon all the local co's
will be run automatically from central locations called
"hubs". The "hub" handles any overload between central offices
that might cause the dreaded "gridlock" of the fone system. If
the interoffice signaling lines get overloaded, the calls are
rerouted through the hub. The hub also serves as a central
spot where troubles at the local co are handled in the first
stages of trouble-shooting. The "hub" concept is alive and
well in our local area, with #5 ESS, the third installed in
the entire nation, running the whole operation.
When he was getting ready to leave he thanked us for the
interesting conversation, and we waved at him as he pulled
out. I now not only had a new fone line, but also a lot of
useful and interesting info, as well as the satisfaction of a
friendly chat.
The lesson is clear. Whenever a Bell employee visits your
house, fell phree to ask whatever you want, within reason.
Most are extremely willing to shoot the bull about almost
anything of which they have knowledge. At first, merely joke
with them lightheartedly, in order to get them off there
guard. Legit questions askable by a normal customer, such as
equal access cutovers, will get them rolling, leaving you to
direct the conversation wherever you like. Asking about the
breakup and how it affected them is a sure fire way to get
them talking. Questions like "how does the fone network work?"
also are good, especially if you guide them into the
discussion of switching technology. Most Bell employees are
really glad to talk to someone. Remember, they usually
interact with disgruntled customers with complaints. Their
spouses probably yell at them, and their supervisors either
complain about their performance or ignore them. Society at
large just doesn't care about them. They're most probably
disenchanted with the world at large, and maybe even
dissatisfied with their jobs. The chance to talk to some one
who merely wants to listen to what they say is a welcome
change. They will talk on and on about almost anything, from
telecommunications to their home life and their childhood. The
possibilities for social engineering are endless. Remember,
Bell employees are humans, too. All you have to do is listen.
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_______________________________________________________________
PEN Registering and Tracing
_______________________________________________________________
Written by Forest Ranger
PEN registering is a special device used by AT&T. This device
deciphers the tones used when phreaking phone calls. This
means that each tone key pressed is deciphered if you had a
PEN register on your line or were being traced with a PEN
register, every phone number you dialed would be known. That
means every time you would phreak a number not only would the
access number be recorded, but the code being used and where
you called to! So if you know you have a PEN register on your
line then I would advise you not to phreak!
Tracing - the FBI does not trace,the police do not trace. The
phone co. Traces. If the FBI wants a trace on your line they
simply call the phone co. The FBI does not sit up all night to
listen in on your phone. They don't trace for years or 6
months, but just for a few days at a time if at all. The
police traces the same way. It costs too much money to trace
all the computer phreakers and hackers, so they merely pick on
a select few. So tracing isn't as dangerous as it seems! The
people that tell you different have been watching too many
late night films! So don't get too paranoid if you think you
are being traced due to the facts mentioned above!
Forest Ranger
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_______________________________________________________________
The Phone Phreak's Fry-Um Guide
Volume One, Issue One, Phile #4 of 8
_______________________________________________________________
Compiled by the Iron Soldier
With help from Dr. Dove
Note This guide is still being compiled, and as phone phreaks
learn more in the art of vengeance it will always expand.
"Vengeance is mine", says the Phreak.
Method 1
Phone Line Phun
Call up the business office. It should be listed at the front
of the white pages. Say you wanted to disconnect Scott
Korman's line. DIAL 800-xxx-xxxx.
"Hello, this is Mr. Korman, I'm moving to California
and would like to have my phone service
disconnected. I'm at the airport now. I'm calling
from a payphone, my number is [414] 445 5005. You
can send my final bill to: (somewhere in
California). Thank you."
Method 2
Phone Books
Call up the business office from a pay phone. Say :
"Hello, I'd like to order a Phone Book for Upper
Volta (or any out-of-the way area with Direct
Dialing). This is Scott Korman, ship to 3119 N. 44th
St. Milwaukee, WI 53216. Yes, I under stand it will
cost $xx($25-$75!). Thank you."
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Method 3
Phone Calls
Call up a PBX, enter the code and get an outside line. Then
dial 0+ the number desired to call. You will hear a bonk and
then an operator. Say, "I'd like to charge this to my home
phone at 414-445-5005. Thank you." A friend and I did this to
a loser, I called him at 1:00 AM and we left the fone off the
hook all night. I calculated that it cost him $168.
Method 4
Misc. Services
Call up the business office once again from a payfone. Say
you'd like call waiting, forwarding, 3 way, etc. Once again
you are the famed loser Scott Korman. He pays-you laugh. You
don't know how funny it was talking to him, and wondering what
those clicks he kept hearing were.
Method 5
Changed & Unpublished
Do the same as in #4, but say you'd like to change and unlist
your (Scott's) number. Anyone calling him will get:
"BEW BEW BEEP. The number you have reached, 445-
5005, has been changed to a non-published number. No
further....."
Method 6
Forwarding
This required an accomplice or two or three. Around Christmas
time, go to Toys 'R' Us. Get everyone at the customer service
or manager's desk away ("Hey, could you help me"). then you
get on their phone and dial (usually dial 9 first) and the
business office again. This time, say you are from Toys 'R'
Us, and you'd like to add call forwarding to 445-5005. Scott
will get 100-600 calls a day!
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Method 7
Russian Caller
Call a payphone at 10:00 PM. Say to the operator that you'd
like to book a call to Russia. Say you are calling from a
payphone, and your number is that of the loser to fry (e.g.
445-5005). She will say that she'll have to call ya back in 5
hours, and you ok that. Meanwhile the loser (e.g.) Scott, will
get a call at 3:00 AM from an operator saying that the call he
booked to Russia is ready.
If you have any questions, leave e-mail for me on any board
I'm on.
The Iron Soldier
TSF-The Second Foundation!
_______________________________________________________________
Interesting Things to do on Step Lines
_______________________________________________________________
if you have step lines in your prefix, (a good way of checking
to see if you have step is to look at the payphones around
your house, if they are rotary, then you have step, if not,
your outta luck.)
From your house dial "0", (this will not work at a payphone).
You will hear a few "kerplunks", if you hit the hang up button
when the second-to-the-last "kerplunk" is heard then the
operator will get on and be very confused. (I will tell why
she is confused in just a second, but for now just....) say
that you are trying to complete a call when she got on. She
will ask for the number you are trying to call. Tell her the
number (long distance of course), and she will ask you for
your number, pick a number out of your head, (it must be in
your prefix though), and tell her it. She will believe you and
will connect you with the charges charged to the number you
said. (If you didn't hit the button at the correct time just
tell the operator your sorry, you were trying to dust the
phone or some other bullshit like that.)
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What you did was screw up the automatic number find that was
built into the first step lines. This is what would tell the
operator your number so she could bill you if she had to
complete a call for you. The operator will get some garbage on
her screen that is supposed to be your number, but since you
interrupted that process, it looks really bizzare.
What is really phun to do is complain to the operator that
this is the third time today that you have not been able to
get through and she will give you some sob story about "we're
sorry, but we've had a computer malfunction and it is being
fixed right now".
I'm kinda sure that the phone company knows nothing of this.
The worst thing that could happen is you get a call asking why
you've hung up on the operator so many times, (if you did this
alot, that is). Just give them some bullshit about a baby
brother just learning how to use the phone, or something like
that.
Live long and don't get caught,
Agrajag
Brought to you by Agrajag and the Hitchhikers
Bring your towel.
_______________________________________________________________
2600 Magazine's Story on the Private Sector Bust
_______________________________________________________________
Uploaded by Elric of Imrryr
Lunatic Labs Unlimited
Typed By Shooting Shark
The following article appeared in the August, 1985 issue of
2600 Magazine. Subscriptions to 2600 are $12 a year for
individuals. Make checks payable to 2600 Enterprises, Inc.
Write to: 2600, Box 752, Middle Island, NY 11953-0752. Their
phone number is 516-751-2600. Text of article follows.
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Seized!
2600 Bulletin Board is Implicated in Raid on Jersey Hackers
On July 12, 1985, law enforcement officials seized the Private
Sector BBS, the official computer bulletin board of 2600
magazine, for "complicity in computer theft," under the newly
passed, and yet untested, New Jersey Statute 2C:20-25. Police
had uncovered in April a credit carding ring operated around a
Middlesex County electronic bulletin board, and from there
investigated other North Jersey bulletin boards. Not
understanding subject matter of the Private Sector BBS, police
assumed that the sysop was involved in illegal activities. Six
other computers were also seized in this investigation,
including those of Store Manager [perhaps they mean Swap Shop
Manager? - Shark] who ran a BBS of his own, Beowolf, Red
Barchetta, the Vampire, NJ Hack Shack, sysop of the NJ Hack
Shack BBS, and that of the sysop of the Treasure Chest BBS.
Immediately after this action, members of 2600 contacted the
media, who were completely unaware of any of the raids. They
began to bombard the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office with
questions and a press conference was announced for July 16.
The system operator of the Private Sector BBS attempted to
attend along with reporters from 2600. They were effectively
thrown off the premises. Threats were made to charge them with
trespassing and other crimes. An officer who had at first
received them civilly was threatened with the loss of his job
if he didn't get them removed promptly. Then the car was
chased out of the parking lot. Perhaps prosecutor Alan Rockoff
was afraid that he presence of some technically literate
reporters would ruin the effect of his press release on the
public. As it happens, he didn't need our help.
The next day the details of the press conference were reported
to the public by the press. As Rockoff intended, paranoia
about hackers ran rampant. Headlines got as ridiculous as
hackers ordering tank parts by telephone from TRW and moving
satellites with their home computers in order to make free
phone calls. These and even more exotic stories were reported
by otherwise respectable media sources. The news conference
understandably made the front page of most of the major
newspapers in the US, and was a major news item as far away as
Australia and in the United Kingdom due to the sensationalism
of the claims. We will try to explain why these claims may
have been made in this issue.
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On July 18 the operator of The Private Sector was formally
charged with"computer conspiracy" under the above law, and
released in the custody of his parents. The next day the
American Civil Liberties Union took over his defense. The ACLU
commented that it would be very hard for Rockoff to prove a
conspiracy just "because the same information, construed by
the prosecutor to be illegal, appears on two bulletin boards."
especially as Rockoff admitted that "he did not believe any of
the defendants knew each other." The ACLU believes that the
system operator's rights were violated, as he was assumed to
be involved in an illegal activity just because of other
people under investigation who happened to have posted
messages on his board.
In another statement which seems to confirm Rockoff's belief
in guilt by association, he announced the next day that "630
people were being investigated to determine if any used their
computer equipment fraudulently." We believe this is only the
user list of the NJ Hack Shack, so the actual list of those to
be investigated may turn out to be almost 5 times that. The
sheer overwhelming difficulty of this task may kill this
investigation, especially as they find that many hackers
simply leave false information. Computer hobbyists all across
the country have already been called by the Bound Brook, New
Jersey office of the FBI. They reported that the FBI agents
used scare tactics in order to force confessions or to provoke
them into turning in others. We would like to remind those who
get called that there is nothing inherently wrong or illegal
in calling any ANY BBS, nor in talking about ANY activity. The
FBI would not comment on the case as it is an "ongoing
investigation" and in the hands of the local prosecutor. They
will soon find that many on the Private Sector BBS's user list
are data processing managers, telecommunications security
people, and others who are interested in the subject of the
BBS, hardly the underground community of computer criminals
depicted at the news conference. The Private Sector BBS was a
completely open BBS, and police and security people were even
invited on in order to participate. The BBS was far from the
"elite" type of underground telecom boards that Rockoff
attempted to portray.
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Within two days, Rockoff took back almost all of the
statements he had made at the news conference, as AT&T and the
DoD [Department of Defense - Shark] discounted the claims he
had made. He was understandably unable to find real proof of
Private Sector's alleged illegal activity, and was faced with
having to return the computer equipment with nothing to show
for his effort. Rockoff panicked, and on July 31, the system
operator had a new charge against him, "wiring up his computer
as a blue box." Apparently this was referring to his Novation
Applecat modem which is capable of generating any hertz tone
over the phone line. By this stretch of imagination an
Applecat could produce a 2600 hertz tone as well as the MF
which is necessary for "blue boxing." However, each and every
other owner of an Applecat or any other modem that can
generate its own tones therefore has also "wired up his
computer as a blue box" by merely installing the modem. This
charge is so ridiculous that Rockoff probably will never
bother to press it. However, the wording of WIRING UP THE
COMPUTER gives rockoff an excuse to continue to hold onto the
computer longer in his futile search for illegal activity.
"We have requested that the prosecutors give us more specific
information," said Arthur Miller, the lawyer for The Private
Sector. "The charges are so vague that we can't really present
a case at this point." Miller will appear in court on August
16 to obtain this information. He is also issuing a demand for
the return of the equipment and, if the prosecutors don't
cooperate, will commence court proceedings against them. "They
haven't been particularly cooperative," he said.
Rockoff probably will soon reconsider taking Private Sector's
case to court, as he will have to admit he just didn't know
what he was doing when he seized the BBS. The arrest warrant
listed only "computer conspiracy" against Private Sector,
which is much more difficult to prosecute than the multitude
of charges against some of the other defendants, which include
credit card fraud, toll fraud, the unauthorized entry into
computers, and numerous others.
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Both Rockoff and the ACLU mentioned the Supreme Court in their
press releases, but he will assuredly take one of his stronger
cases to test the new New Jersey computer crime law. by
seizing the BBS just because of supposed activities discussed
on it, Rockoff raises constitutional questions. Darrell
Paster, a lawyer who centers much of his work on computer
crime, says the New Jersey case is "just another example of
local law enforcement getting on the bandwagon of crime that
has come into vogue to prosecute, and they have proceeded with
very little technical understanding, and in the process they
have abused many people's constitutional rights. What we have
developing is a mini witch hunt which is analogous to some of
the arrests at day care centers, where they sweep in and
arrest everybody, ruin reputations, and then find that there
is only one or two guilty parties." We feel that law
enforcement, not understanding the information on the BBS,
decided to strike first and ask questions later.
2600 magazine and the sysops of the Private Sector BBS stand
fully behind the system operator. As soon as the equipment is
returned, the BBS will go back up. We ask all our readers to
do their utmost to support us in our efforts, and to educate
as many of the public as possible that a hacker is not a
computer criminal. We are all convinced of our sysop's
innocence, and await Rockoff's dropping of the charges.
Note Readers will notice that our reporting of the events are
quite different than those presented in the media and by
the Middlesex County Prosecutor. We can only remind you
that we are much closer to the events at hand than the
media is, and that we are much more technologically
literate than the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office.
The Middlesex County Prosecutor has already taken back
many of his statements, after the contentions were
disproven by AT&T and the DoD. One problem is that the
media and the police tend to treat the seven cases as one
case, thus the charges against and activities of some of
the hackers has been extended to all of the charged. We
at 2600 can only speak about the case of Private Sector.
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_______________________________________________________________
Chapter 4
_______________________________________________________________
By now I assume that the reader has a fair idea of what
phreaking is, and know a little bit about how to go about it.
From now on, I will assume that the reader has read all the
material before this or understands all the material covered.
Now we will take a journey into the "Basics of
Telecommunications" and learn a little about how everything
works, and is related to everything else. This series of
articles is extremely good and should be read by all levels of
phreaks.
As we go further into the advanced world of phreaking, we come
closer to the edge of technology. As we approach it,
everything seems to become larger and more complicated. We
notice that many things that were possible aren't anymore.
Blue boxing is starting to become the only method of
exploration as Equal Access looms nearer and nearer. As it
stands now, equal access is here, and many LD services such as
Sprint and MCI will be tougher to hack. Extenders will become
more used and abused, which will cause them to get access
codes miles long...
Blue boxing becomes harder as all Bell switching and
transmission facilities go under to CCIS. Then to further
complicate things, digital microwave, fiber optic, and
satellite transmission are all coming to be digital and do not
recognize 2600Hz for the hang up signal. I predict that around
1990, blue boxes will be obsolete from all major cities. A new
type of box will have to be invented, or you'll have to get
two fone line to phreak with, on to place the actual call and
the other to tap into a COSMOS computer to change the status
of the call from toll to toll-free, ie. 800#.
Well somethings will change for the better, with ISDN you'll
get 144k bps lines and some other neat stuff.
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_______________________________________________________________
Basic Telecommunications
Part II
_______________________________________________________________
BIOC Agent 003
Preface
In part II, we will explore the various special Bell#'s, such
as: CN/A, AT&T newslines, loops, 99xx #'s, ANI, ringback, and
a few others.
CN/A
CN/A, which stands for customer name and address, are bureaus
that exist so that authorized Bell employees can find out the
name and address of any customer in the Bell system. All #'s
are maintained on file including unlisted #'s.
Here's how it works:
1) you have a # and you want to find out who owns it, e.g.
(914) 555-1234.
2) You look up the CN/A # for that NPA in the list below. In
the example, the NPA is 914 and the CN/A# is 518-471-
8111.
3) You then call up the CN/A # (during business hours) and
say something like, "hi, this is john jones from the
residential service center in miami. Can I have the
customer's name at 914-555-1234. That # is 914-555-1234."
make up your own real sounding name, though.
4) If you sound natural & cheery, the operator will ask no
questions.
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Here's the list:
NPA CN/A # NPA CN/A #
201 201-676-7070 517 313-232-8690
202 202-384-9620 518 518-471-8111
203 203-789-6800 519 416-487-3641
204 ****n/a***** 601 601-961-0877
205 205-988-7000 602 303-232-2300
206 206-382-8000 603 617-787-2750
207 617-787-2750 604 604-432-2996
208 303-232-2300 605 402-345-0600
209 415-546-1341 606 502-583-2861
212 518-471-8111 607 518-471-8111
213 213-501-4144 608 414-424-5690
214 214-948-5731 609 201-676-7070
215 412-633-5600 612 402-345-0600
216 614-464-2345 613 416-487-3641
217 217-525-7000 614 614-464-2345
218 402-345-0600 615 615-373-5791
219 317-265-7027 616 313-223-8690
301 301-534-11?? 617 617-787-2750
302 412-633-5600 618 217-525-7000
303 303-232-2300 701 402-345-0600
304 304-344-8041 702 415-546-1341
305 912-784-9111 703 804-747-1411
306 ****N/a***** 704 912-784-9111
307 303-232-2300 705 416-487-3641
308 402-345-0600 707 415-546-1341
309 217-525-7000 709 ****n/a*****
312 312-769-9600 712 402-345-0600
313 313-223-8690 713 713-658-1793
314 314-436-3321 714 213-995-0221
315 518-471-8111 715 414-424-5690
316 816-275-2782 716 518-471-8111
317 317-265-7027 717 412-633-5600
318 318-227-1551 801 303-232-2300
319 402-345-0600 802 617-787-2750
401 617-787-2750 803 912-784-9111
402 402-345-0600 804 804-747-1411
403 403-425-2652 805 415-546-1341
404 912-784-9111 806 512-828-2502
405 405-236-6121 807 416-487-3641
406 303-232-2300 808 212-226-5487
408 415-546-1341 bermuda only
412 412-633-5600 809 212-334-4336
413 617-787-2750 812 317-265-7027
414 414-424-5690 813 813-228-7871
415 415-546-1132 814 412-633-5600
416 416-487-3641 815 217-525-7000
417 314-436-3321 816 816-275-2782
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418 514-861-6391 817 214-948-5731
419 614-464-2345 819 514-861-6391
501 405-236-6121 901 615-373-5791
502 502-583-2861 902 902-421-4110
503 503-241-3440 903 ****n/a*****
504 504-245-5330 904 912-784-9111
505 303-232-2300 906 313-223-8690
506 506-657-3855 907 ****n/a*****
507 402-345-0600 912 912-784-9111
509 206-382-8000 913 816-275-2782
512 512-828-2501 914 518-471-8111
513 614-464-2345 915 512-828-2501
514 514-861-6391 916 415-546-1341
515 402-345-0600 918 405-236-6121
516 518-471-8111 919 912-784-9111
Bell uses these #'s mainly to find out who owns a # that a
customer claims he never called.
Note This is the most complete list of CN/A #'s in my
possession (with only 5 #'s not available) this list was
copyrighted in 1982 by "judas gerard" as it originally
appeared in tap issue #78.
AT&T Newslines
Newslines are recordings that Bell employees call up to find
out the latest info on stock, technology, etc. Concerning the
Bell system.
Here are the #'s that are currently known to phreaks (at least
me, anyway):
201-483-3800 nj 513-421-9060 oh
203-771-4920 ct 516-234-9914 ny
212-393-2151 ny 518-471-2272 ny
213-621-4141 ca 617-955-1111 ma
213-829-0111 ca (GTE) 702-789-6711 nv
213-449-8830 ca 713-224-6116 tx
312-368-8000 il 714-238-1111 ca
313-223-7223 mi 717-255-5555 pa
314-247-5511 mo 717-787-1031 pa
408-493-5000 ca 802-955-1111 ve
412-633-3333 pa 808-533-4426 hi
414-678-3511 wi 813-223-5666 fl
416-929-4323 ont. 914-948-8100 Ny
503-228-6271 or 916-480-8000 ca
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Loops
First of all, you must understand the concept of loops. I
think that the best way that this is understood is the way
that phred phreek explained it...
"no self-respecting phone phreak can go through life
without knowing what a loop is, how to use one, and
the types that are available. The loop is a great
alternative communication medium that has many
potential uses that haven't even been tapped yet. In
order to explain what a loop is, it would be helpful
to visualize two phone numbers (lines) just floating
around in the telco central office (co).
"Now, if you (and a friend perhaps) were to call
these two numbers at the same time, poooopfff!, you
are now connected together. I hear what you're
saying out there..., "big deal" or "why should ma
Bell collect here two msu's (message units) for one
lousy phone call!?" well... Think again. Haven't you
ever wanted someone to call you back but, were
reluctant to give out your home phone number (like
the last time you tried to get your friend's
unlisted # from the business office)? Or how about a
collect call to your friend waiting on a loop, who
will gladly accept the charges? Or better yet,
stumbling upon a loop that you discover that has
multi-user capability (for those late-night
conferences). Best of all is finding a non-
supervised loop that doesn't charge any msu's or
tolls to one or both parties.
"Example: many moons ago, a loop affectionately
known as 'the 332 loop' was non-sup (ie, non-
supervised) on the tone side. I had my friend in
california dial the free (non-sup) side, (212) 332-
9906 and I dialed the side that charged, 332-9900.
As you can see, I was charged one msu, and my friend
as charged zilch, for as long as we wished to talk!"
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Ahhh...have I perked your interest yet? If so, here is how to
find a loop of you very own. First, do all of you loop
searching at night! This is because the loops serve a genuine
test function which telco uses during the day. (We don't want
to run into an irate lineman now, do we?) to find a loop,
having 2 #'s is a definite plus. If not, have a friend to dial
#'s at his location. Last resort, try dialing from two
adjacent pay phones. Now get your trusty white pages (*), and
turn to the page where it lists the # of msu's from your
exchange (or exchanges in your primary calling area) the idea
is to find a loop that is within your primary calling area or
is only 1 msu in your area (call area a). This is so you don't
go bankrupt trying to find a loop. Write down all of these
exchanges and do a 99xx scan of those exchanges (99xx scanning
will be discussed shortly).
Before we get up to 99xx scanning, we will look at some other
loop info:
Loops are found pairs which are usually close to each other.
For example, in NPA 212, where the infamous loops are found,
there is a standard loop format:
manhattan & bronx NXX-9977/9979
brooklyn & queens NXX-9900/9906
NXX is the exchange to be scanned. Here are some loops that
have been found in nyc. These are used mostly by phreaks and
call-in lines for pirate radio stations:
212-220-9900 / 9906
212-283-9977 / 9979
212-352-9900 / 9906
212-365-9977 / 9979
212-529-9900 / 9906
212-562-9977 / 9979
212-982-9977 / 9979
212-986-9977 / 9979
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The lower # is the tone side (singing switch). The higher # is
always silent. The tone disappears on the lower # when
somebody dials in the other side of the loop. If you are on
the higher #, you'll have to listen to the clicks to see if
somebody dialed-in. The nyc 982 & 986 loops are different from
others. Usually when you park on a loop, you will hear who
ever calls in on the other half. When they're done, the next
caller (if any) will be queued in, one after another. On the
nyc 982 & 986, you sometimes can't get any more callers in
after the first. Furthermore, if you park one of these loops
and there is nobody on the other end for more than 4 minutes,
you may be automatically disconnected. These loops are good
for back-up purposes when all other loops are busy.
99xx Scanning
Most every exchange in the Bell system has a wide variety of
test #'s and other "goodies," such as loops. These "goodies"
are usually found between 9900 and 9999 in your local
exchange. If you have the time and initiative, scan your
exchange and you may become lucky!
Here are my findings in the 914-268:
9901 verification (recording of a/c and exchange)
9936 voice # to the telco co
9937 voice # to the telco co
9941 carrier
9960 osc. Tone (tone side loop)
9963 tone (stops: muted)
9966 carrier
9968 tone that disappears--responds to certain touch-tone
keys
Most of the #'s between 9900 & 9999 will ring, be busy, go to
a special intercept operator ("what #, please?"), or will go
to a "the # you have reached..." recording. What you find
depends upon the switching equipment in the exchange and the
telco operating company.
When searching for loops, you may find one of the following
possibilities when you find one:
1. You can hear through the loop (not muted), but there is a
1/2 second click every 10 seconds that interrupts the
audio. This type is good for back-up use but the fucking
click is super annoying.
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2. One side of the loop is busy; try it again later.
3. The tone disappears, but you cannot hear through it (the
loop is muted, try again in a month or so)
4. You get "the # you have reached recording." no loop here!
Most loops are muted (#3), but their status does changes from
time-to-time. It all depends if the telco maintenance
personnel remember to "throw the switch", ie, turn off the
loop.
Since I have done the above 914-268 99xx scan, congers (268)
has installed new switching equipment (dms100). Some of the
numbers are the same, but I have noticed that on the dms100,
the recordings are also stored in this area. 268-9903, 9906,
9909, & 9912 Are all different recordings. Also, there are 2
fortress fone recordings at 268-9911 (deposit 5 cents or else)
and 268-9913 (deposit 10 cents). None of these recordings supe
and alot of other 99xx#'s don't supe either.
In some areas (like md), 9906-7 is ringback. In washington,
there is a sweep tone test at (202) 560-9944. In nyc (212),
you'll find the infamous loop lines (as mentioned above).
It will be easier to scan your exchange if you make up a chart
like the one below:
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npa-NXX-99xx scan
_________________________________________________________
| 99x x>|0 |1 |2 |3 |4 |5 |6 |7 |8 |9 |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 990 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 991 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 992 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 993 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 994 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 995 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 996 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 997 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 998 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
| 999 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_______|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|____|
This leaves you with 100 boxes (1 for each # between 9900 &
9999). You should make your boxes big enough so you can write
some sort of shorthand in them. For example:
b busy (try again at another time)
r rings (try again at another time)
o intercept operator ("what # you calling?)
r1 recording 1 (make a margin note of the types of
recordings you get)
t tone ] tone at a lower # + ignore
i ignore ] at a higher # = loop
v voice # to telco co - they usually answer with the
city name or area.
c carrier
There will be others and you should use other characters that
you can understand.
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Now, back to loops! As you may have noticed in my 914-268
scan, I found a muted loop and a tone side. 914-268 Failed to
come up with the silent side of a loop! Therefore, there is no
loop in that exchange. I then scanned another exchange in my
primary calling area (914-634) and I found a loop! "(914) 634-
9923/9924" So, if at first you don't succeed, move onto
another exchange. If you use the box method that I have
outlined above, you will see a "t" & "i" next to each other
for a loop.
Some exchanges are special. For example, 914-623 is a testing
bureau. In this exchange, not only did I find a loop, but I
also found several interesting tones, noises, and other test
functions. Also, the more important the exchange is, the more
you will find. For example, in 914-623, I found well over 10
voice #'s!
Also, loops are usually, but not exclusively, found in the
99xx series. For example: "(713) 324-1799/1499" is a loop.
The perfect loop? Here is what I would look for:
1. Non-sup on one or both sides. To check for a non-sup
loop, go to a tone-first fortress fone and dial the #. If
it asks for a dime, it is supervised. If the call goes
through, then it is non-suped!
2. 800 Loops would be a plus. They are not necessarily found
between 9900 & 9999 though. I would check the 1xxx series
first.
3. Multi-user loops are also a plus for those late night
conferences.
Finally, remember it is only a local call to find out what you
co has in store for you. If you find anything interesting, be
sure to drop me a line.
Note your local white pages can be a valuable asset. You can
also order other fone books from your business office
(usually free for books within your operating company's
district). A large fone book, such as manhattan, contains
much more info in the first few pages than other books.
ANI
Automatic number identification (ANI), is a number that you
call up that will tell you what # you are calling from.
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This has a few uses. First, were you ever somewhere and the
fone didn't have a # printed on it? Or perhaps you were
fooling around in some cans (those large boxes on fone poles
that contain terminals for lineman use--to be discusses in a
future chapter.) and you want to know what what the line # is.
In NPA 914, the ANI is 990. In npa's 212 & 516, ANI is 958.
This varies from area to area.
Here are some other ANI's that I have seen:
890-751-5191
202-222-2222
1-xxx-1111 (in some 914 areas, esp. Under
step-by-step switching, you have to
dial 1-990-1111)
To find ANI for other areas, check 3 digits #'s first, usually
in the 9xx series (excluding 911). In areas under step-by-step
(to be discussed in the next part), try 1-9xx-1111.
ANI may also be in 99xx. Last resort, try to get friendly with
your neighbor who works for the fone company.
Ring Back
Ringback, as its name implies, calls back the # you are at
when you dial the ringback #. Ringback, in NPA 914, is 660.
You dial 660+the last 4 digits of the fone. You will then get
a tone, hang-up quickly and pick-up in about 2 seconds. You
will then get a second tone, hang-up again and the fone will
ring.
In nyc, it is also 660, but you may have to press 6 or 7
before you hang up for the first time (ie, at the first tone).
Other ringback #'s that I have seen are:
26011 this 5 digit format is used
primarily on step-by-step. The last
2 digits (11) are dummy digits.
890-897-xxxx xxxx are the last 4 digits of the
fone #.
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119911/11911/1199911 GTE
NXX-9906/9907 NPA 301, NXX is the exchange
The reason you get the tone when you pick-up after it rings is
because in some areas, people were using ringback as an in-
house intercom. They would dial ringback, and when it stopped
ringing, they would pick-up & talk with the person who picked
up the other extension. Bell didn't like this since there is
usually only 1 piece of equipment in each exchange that does
the ringback. When people used this as an intercom, linemen &
repairmen couldn't get through! In some areas, especially
those under step-by-step, ringback can still be used as an
intercom. Also, under step-by-step, the ringback procedure it
usually simple. For example, in one area you would dial 26011
and hang-up; it would then ringback.
Touch-Tone Test
In areas that have a touch-tone test, you dial the ringback #.
At the first tone, you touch-tone digits 1-0. If they are
correct it will beep twice. I have also seen a tt test in some
areas at: 890-751-5191
Coming Soon
In the next part, we will look at various switching equipment
and the network.
Break Up of Bell
The operating companies are not going to change all the
switching equipment around. While there will be some changes,
most of the information provided here will remain pertinent
after january 1, 1984. Just substitute the word "fone network"
for Bell system.
au revoir,
BIOC Agent 003
december 8, 1983
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Acknowledgements
Tap, Phred Phreek, Judas Gerard, The Magician, Dark Priest, &
Myself.
I would also like to thank the Mulcher ][ for his assistance
in distributing this tutorial.
_______________________________________________________________
Basic Telecommunications
Part III
_______________________________________________________________
BIOC Agent 003
Preface
In part III, we will discuss the dialing procedures for
domestic as well as international dialing. We will also take a
look at the telephone numbering plan.
North American Numbering Plan
In North America, the telephone numbering plan is as follows:
a) a 3 digit numbering plan area (NPA) code, [ie, area code]
b) a 7 digit telephone # consisting of a 3 digit central
office (co) code plus a 4 digit station #.
These 10 digits are called the network address or destination
code. It is in the format of:
area code telephone #
n*x nxx-xxxx
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where n a digit from 2-9
* the digit 0 or 1
x a digit 0-9
Area Codes
Check your telephone book or the separate listing of area
codes found on many BBS's. Here are the special area codes
(sac's):
510 twx (usa)
610 twx (canada)
700 new service
710 twx (usa)
800 wats
810 twx (usa)
900 dial-it services
910 twx (usa)
The other area codes never cross state lines, therefore each
state must have at least one exclusive NPA code. When a
community is split by a state line, the co #'s are often
interchangeable (ie, you can dial the same # from 2 different
area codes)
TWX
TWX (telex II) consists of 5 teletype-writer area codes. They
are owned by western union. These sac's may only be reached
via other TWX machines. These run at 110 baud. Besides the TWX
#'s, these machines are routed to normal telephone #'s. Twx
machines always respond with an answerback. For example, wu's
fyi TWX # is (910) 988-5956, the corresponding real number to
this is (201) 279-5956. The answerback for this service is "wu
fyi mawa."
If you don't want to buy a TWX machine, you can still send TWX
messages using easylink [800/325-4112 - see tuc's and my
article entitled "hacking western union's easylink]
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700
At the time of this writing, the 700 exchange does not yet
exist. At&t plans to use it soon though. They plan to make it
a type of fancy call forwarding service. It will be targeted
towards salesmen on the run.
To understand how it works, i'll explain it with an example.
Let's say joe q. Salespig works for AT&T security and he is on
the run chasing a phreak around the country who royally
screwed up an important COSMOS system. Let's say that joe's
700 # is (700) 382-5968. Every time joe goes to a new hotel,
he dials a special 700 #, enters a code, and the # where he is
staying. Now, if his boss received some important info, all he
would do is dial (700) 382-5968 and it would ring wherever joe
last programmed it to. Neat, huh?
800
This sac is one of my favorites since it allows for toll-free
calls.
Inward wats (inwats): inward wide area telecommunications
service is the 800 #'s that we are all familiar with. 800 #'S
are set up in service areas or bands. There are 6 of these.
Band 6 is the largest and you can call a band 6 # from
anywhere in the us except the state where the call is
terminated (this is why most companies have one 800 # for the
country and then another for just one state). Band 5 includes
the 48 contiguous states. All the way down to band 1 which
includes only the states contiguous to that one. Therefore,
less people can reach a band 1 inwats # that a band 6 #.
Intrastate inwats #'s (ie, you can call it from only 1 state)
always have a 2 as the last digit in the exchange (ie, 800-
nx2-xxxx). The nxx on 800 #'s represent the area where the
business is located. For example, a # beginning with 800-431
would terminate at a new york co.
800 #'s always end up in a hunt series in a co. This means
that it tries the first # allocated to the company for their
8p0 lines; if this is busy it will then try the next #, etc).
You must have a minimum of two lines per each 800 #. For
example, travelnet uses a hunt series. If you dial (800) 521-
8400, it will first try the # associated with 8400; if it is
busy it will go to the next available port, etc. Inwats
customers are billed by the # of hours of calls that are made
to their #.
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Outwats (outward wats): outwats are for making outgoing calls
only. Large companies use outwats since they receive bulk-rate
discounts. Since outwats # cannot have incoming calls, they
are in the format of:
(800) *xx-xxxx
Where * is the digit 0 or 1 which cannot be dialed unless you
box the call. The *xx identifies the type of service and the
areas that the company can call.
Remember: inwats + outwats = wats extender (see part I)
900
This dial-it sac is a nationwide dial-it service. It is used
for taking television polls and other stuff. The first minute
currently costs an outrageous 50 cents and each additional
minute costs 35 cents. Bell takes in alot of revenue in this
way.
Dial (900) 555-1212 to find out what is currently on the
service.
CO Codes
These identify the switching office where the call is to be
routed. The following co codes are reserved nationwide:
555 directory assistance
844 time \ these are now in
936 weather / the 976 exchange
950 future services
958 plant test
959 plant test
970 plant test (temporary)
976 dial-it services
Also, the 3 digit ANI & ringback #'s are regarded as plant
test and are thus reserved. These numbers vary from area to
area.
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950
(also see part I)
Here are the services that are currently on the 950 exchange:
1000 spc
1022 MCI execunet
1033 us telephone
1044 allnet
1066 lexitel
1088 sbs skyline
These scc's (specialized common carriers) are free from
fortresses!
Publishers note: Most 950's now require the station
code (1022, 1000, 1088, etc.) to be five digits
long. Mci 950-10222, us telefone 10333, allnet
10444, etc. Look in "equal access and the american
dream" p. for a complete list.
Plant Tests
These include ANI, ringback, and other various tests.
976
Dial 976-1000 to see what is currently on the service. Also,
many BBS's have a listing of these #'s.
N11 Codes
Bell is trying to phase some of these out, but they still
exist in many areas.
011 international dialing prefix
211 coin refund operator
411 directory assistance
611 repair service
811 business office
911 emergency
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International Dialing
With international dialing, the world has been divided into 9
numbering zones. To make an international call, you must dial:
int. Prefix + country code + nat. #
In north america, the international dialing prefix is 011 for
station-to-station calls and 01 for operator- serviced calls.
Iddd stands for international direct distance dialing.
The country code, which varies from 1 to 3 digits, always has
the world numbering zone as the first digit. For example, the
country code for the united kingdom is 44, thus it is in world
numbering zone 4.
Some boards may contain a complete listing of other country
codes, but here are a few:
001 north america (us, canada,etc)
020 egypt
258 mozambique
034 spain
049 germany
052 mexico (southern portion)
061 australia
007 ussr
081 japan
098 iran
If you call from an area other than north america, the format
is generally the same. For example, let's say you wanted to
call the white house from switzerland. First you would dial 00
(the swiss international dialing prefix), then 1 (the us
country code), followed by 202-456-1414 (the national # for
the white house).
Also, country code 87 is reserved for maritime mobile service,
ie calling ships:
871 marisat (atlantic)
872 marisat (pacific)
873 marisat (indian )
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International Switching
In north america, there are currently 7 no. 4 Ess's that
perform the duty of isc (international switching centers). All
international calls dialed from numbering zone 1 will be
routed through one of these "gateway cities." they are:
182 White Plains, ny
183 New York, ny
184 Pittsburgh, pa
185 Orlando, fl
186 Oakland, ca
187 Denver, co
188 New York, ny
The 18x series are operator routing codes for overseas access
(to be further discussed with blue boxes). All international
calls use a signaling system called ccitt. It is an
international standard for signaling.
Coming Soon
In part IV, we will discuss switching equipment, various
operators, co types, etc.
Phreaking lives in '84,
BIOC Agent 003
fargo 4a
23-feb-84
References,
Acknowledgements
o Notes on the network (AT&T)
o Tap (room 603, 147w 42 ST, new york, ny 10036)
o Understanding Telephone Electronics
o and many others / Tuc, Mulcher...
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_______________________________________________________________
Basic Telecommunications
Part IV
_______________________________________________________________
BIOC Agent 003
Preface
Part IV will deal with the various types of operators, office
hierarchy, & switching equipment.
Operators
There are many types of operators in the network and the more
common ones will be discussed.
TSPS Operator
The TSPS (traffic service position system) operator is
probably the bitch (or bastard for the phemale liberationists)
that most of us are use to having to deal with.
Here are her responsibilities:
1) obtaining billing information for calling card or 3rd
number calls.
2) identifying called customer on person-to-person calls.
3) obtaining acceptance of charges on collect calls.
4) identifying calling numbers. This only happens when the
calling # is not automatically recorded by cama
(centralized automatic message accounting) & forwarded
from the local office. This could be caused by equipment
failures or if the office is not equipped for cama (most
are).
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I once had an equipment failure happen to me &
the TSPS operator came on and said, "what # are
you calling from?" out of curiosity, I gave her
the # to my co, she thanked me & then I was
connected to a conversion that appeared to be
between a fire man & his wife. Then it started
ringing the party I originally wanted to call &
everyone phreaked out (excuse the pun). I
immediately dropped this dual line conference!
You shouldn't mess with the TSPS operator since she knows
where you are calling from. She also knows whether or not you
are at a fortress fone & she can trace calls quite readily.
Out of all the operators, she is one of the most dangerous.
Inward Operator
This operator assists your local TSPS ("0") operator in
connecting calls. She will never question a call as long as
the call is within her service area. She can only be reached
via other operators or by a blue box. From a bb, you would
dial KP+NPA+121+ST for the inward operator that will help you
connect any calls within that NPA area only. (Blue boxing will
be discussed in a future part of basic telcom)
Directory Assistance Operator
This is the operator that you are connected to when you dial:
411 or npa-555-1212. She does not readily know where you are
calling from. She does not have access to unlisted #'s, but
she does know if an unlisted # exists for a certain listing.
There is also a directory assistance for deaf people who use
teletypewriters if you modem can transfer baudot (the apple
cat can), then you can call her up and have an interesting
conversation with her. The # is:800/855-1155. She uses the
standard telex abbreviations such as ga for go ahead. They
tend to be nicer & will talk longer than your regular
operators. Also, they are more vulnerable into being talked
out of information through the process of "social engineering"
as cheshire catalyst would put it.
Other operators have access to their own da by dialing
KP+NPA+131+ST (mf).
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This is a little out of the scope of this tutorial, but many
telco's are now charging for calls to dir. Asst. You can beat
this by:
1. Count how many calls you make to directory assistance in
a billing period. Go to a fortress fone & dial da. When
the operator comes on, give her a name that you know has
an unlisted # or ask for a town that isn't in the NPA.
She will then ask for your # so she can credit the call
to you. Give her your home #, she doesn't know that you
are making a free call from the fortress. Just make sure
that you don't credit yourself for more calls than you
actually made or you might have a few problems!
2. If you have a baudot terminal, use the 800 #, it's free &
there is one # for all requests.
C/NA Operators
C/NA operators are operators that do exactly the opposite of
what directory assistance operators are for. See part II, for
more info on C/NA & #'s. In my experiences, these operators
know more than the da op's do & they are more susceptible to
"social engineering." it is possible to bullshit a C/NA
operator for the non-pub da # (ie, you give them the name &
they give you the unlisted #). This is due to the fact that
they assume your are a phellow company employee.
Intercept Operator
The intercept operator is the one that you are connected to
when there are not enough recordings available to tell you
that the # has been disconnected or changed. She usually says,
"what # you callin' ? " With a foreign accent. This is the
lowest operator lifeform. Even though they don't know where
you are calling from, it is a waste of your time to try to
verbally abuse them since they usually understand very little
english.
Other Operators
And then there are the:
o mobile
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o ship-to-shore
o conference
o marine verify, "leave word & call back,"
o rout & rate (KP+NPA+141+ST) & other special operators who
have one purpose or
o another in the network.
Problems with an operator? Ask to speak to their supervisor...
Which is the equivalent of the madame in a whorehouse (if you
will excuse the analogy).
By the way, some co's that will allow you to dial a 1 or 0 as
the 4th digit, will also allow you to call special operators
without a blue box. This is very rare though! For example,
212-121-1111 will get you a ny inward operator.
Office Hierarchy
Every switching office office in north america (the NPA
system), is assigned an office name & class. There are five
classes of offices numbered 1 through 5. Your co is most
likely a class 5 or end office. All long-distance (toll) calls
are switched by a toll office which can be a class 4, 3, 2, or
1 office. There is also a 4x office called an intermediate
point. The 4x office is a digital one that can have an
unattended exchange attached to it (known as a remote
switching unit-rsu).
The following chart will list the office #, name, & how many
of those offices existed in north america in 1981:
class name abb # existing
1 regional center rc 12
2 sectional center sc 67
3 primary center pc 230
4 toll center tc 1,30
4p toll point tp ?
4x intermediate pt ip ?
5 end office eo 19,000
r rsu rsu ?
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When connecting a call from one party to another, the
switching equipment usually tries to find the shortest route
between the class 5 end office of the caller & the class 5 end
office of the called party. If no inter-office trunks exist
between the 2 parties, it will then move upto the next highest
office for servicing (class 4). If the class 4 office cannot
handle the call by sending it to another class 4 or 5 office,
it will be sent to the next office in the hierarchy (3). The
switching equipment first uses the high-usage interoffice
trunk groups, if they are busy it then goes to the final trunk
groups on the next highest level. If the call cannot be
connected then, you will probably get a re-order (120ipm busy
signal) signal. At this time, the guys at network operations
are probably shitting in their pants and trying to avoid the
dreaded network dreadlock (as seen on tv!).
It is also interesting to note that 9 connections in tandem is
called ring-around-the rosy and it has never occurred in
telephone history. This would case an endless loop connection.
[ A neat way to really screw-up the network].
The 10 regional centers in the us & the 2 in canada are all
interconnected. They form the foundation of the entire
telephone network. Since there are only 12 of them, they are
listed below:
class 1 regional office location .. NPA
Dallas 4 ESS ...................... 214
Wayne, pa ......................... 215
Denver 4t ......................... 303
Regina no.2 sp1-4w (Canada) ....... 306
St. Louis 4t ...................... 314
Rockdale, ga ...................... 404
Pittsburgh 4e ..................... 412
Montreal no.1 4aets (Canada) ...... 504
Norwich, ny ....................... 607
San Bernardino, ca ................ 714
Norway, il ........................ 815
White Plains 4t, ny ............... 914
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The following diagram demonstrates how the various offices may
be connected:
_________________________
_|_ _|_ _|_ regional
| | | | | | offices
| 1 | <=--=> | 1 | <=--=> | 1 | <<==------
|___| |___| |___|
| others\/
_________________|_______________________|
_|_ _|_ _|_ _|__ _|_
| | | | | | | | | |
| 2 | | 3 | | 4 | | 4p | | 5 |
|___| |___| |___| |____| |___|
| | | |
|____ | _|__ |
_|_ _|_ | __|_ _|_ \
| || || | || | |_____
| 3 || 4 || | 4x || 5 | _|__ _|_
|___||___|| |____||___|| || |
| | | 4x || 5 |
__|_ | |____||___|
| ||_____________
| 5r | _______|_________
|____| | | |
_|_ _|_ _|_ __|_
| | | | | | | |
| r | | 4 | | 5 | | 5r |
|___| |___| |___| |____|
Note The preceding diagram used special symbols from an apple
//e that may not be viewed as I intended them if you are
not using an apple//e or //c.
Switching Equipment
In the network, there are 3 major types of switching
equipment. They are known as: step, crossbar, & ESS.
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Step-by-Step (SxS)
The step-by-step, a/k/a the strowger switch or two-motion
switch, was invented in 1889 by an undertaker named almon
strowger. He invented this mechanical switching equipment
because he felt that the biased operator was routing all
requests for an 'undertaker' to her husband's business. Bell
started using this system in 1918 as of 1978, over 53% of the
Bell exchanges used this method of switching.
Step-by-step switching is controlled directly by the dial
pulses which move a series of switches (called the switch
train) in order. When you first pick up the fone under SxS, a
linefinder acknowledges the request (sooner or later) by
sending a dial tone. If you then dialed 1234, the equipment
would first find an idle selector switch. It would then move
vertically 1 pulse, it would then move horizontally to find a
free second selector, it would then move 2 vertical pulses,
step horizontally to find the next selector, etc. Thus the
first switch in the train takes no digits, the second switch
takes 1 digit, the third switch takes 1 digit, & the last
switch in the train (called the connector) takes the last 2
digits & connects your calls. A normal (10,000 line) exchange
requires 4 digits (0000-9999) to connect a local call & thus
it takes 4 switches to connect every call (linefinder, 1st &
2nd selectors, & the connector) .
While it was the first, SxS sucks for the following reasons:
1. the switched often become jammed thus the calls often
become blocked.
2. you can't use DTMF (dual-tone multi-frequency a/k/a
touch-tone) directly. It is possible that the telco may
have installed a conversion kit but then the calls will
go through just as slow as pulse, anyway!
3. they use a lot of electricity & mechanical maintenance.
(Bad from telco point of view)
4. everything is hardwired.
They can still hook up pen registers & other shit on the line
so it is not exactly a phreak haven.
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You can identify SxS offices by:
1. lack of DTMF or pulsing digits after dialing DTMF.
2. if you go near the co, it will sound like a typewriter
testing factory.
3. lack of speed calling, call forwarding, & other customer
services.
4. fortress fones that want your money first (as opposed to
dial tone first ones).
The preceding don't necessarily imply that you have SxS but
they surely give evidence that it might be. Also, if any of
the above characteristics exist, it certainly isn't ESS! Also,
SxS have pretty much been eradicated from large metropolitan
areas such as nyc (212).
Crossbar
There are 3 major types of crossbar systems called: no. 1
Crossbar (1xb), no. 4 Crossbar (4xb), & no. 5 Crossbar (5xb).
5Xb has been the primary end office switch of Bell since the
60's and thus it is in wide-use.
Crossbar uses a common control switching method. When there is
an incoming call, a stored program determines its route
through the switching matrix.
In crossbar, the basic operation principle is that a
horizontal & a vertical line are energized in a matrix known
as the crosspoint matrix. The point where these 2 lines meet
in the matrix is the connection.
ESS
Electronic switching system (ESS) the phreak's nightmare come
true (or orwell's prophecy as 2600 puts it)
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ESS is bell's move towards the airstrip one society depicted
in orwell's 1984. With ESS, every single digit that you dial
is recorded--even if it is a mistake. They know who you call,
when you call, how long you talked for, & probably what you
talked about (in some cases). Ess can (and is) also programmed
to print out #'s of people who make excessive calls to 800 #'s
or directory assistance. This is called the "800 exceptional
calling report." ESS could also be programmed to print out
logs of who calls certain #'s--like a bookie, a known
communist, a BBS, etc the thing to remember with ESS is that
it is a series of programs working together. These programs
can be very easily changed to do whatever they want it to do.
One phreak whom I know has some ESS source code listing which
is incredibly complex (as well as documented--gracias dios).
This system makes the job of Bell security, the FBI, NSA, &
other organizations that like to invade privacy incredibly
easy.
With ESS, tracing is done in microseconds (eine augenblick) &
the results are printed at the console of a Bell gestapo
officer. Ess will also pick up any "foreign" tones on the line
such as 2600 Hz!
Bell predicts that the country will become totally ESS by the
1990's.
You can identify ESS by the following which are usually ESS
functions:
1. dialing 911 for help.
2. dial-tone-first fortresses.
3. custom calling services such as:call forwarding, speed
dialing, & call waiting. (Ask your business office if you
can get these.)
4. ANI (automatic number identification) on LD calls.
Phreaking does not come to a complete halt under ESS though -
just be very careful, though!
Due to the fact that ESS sends a computer generated
"artificial ring," where the voice is not connected directly
to the called parties line until he picks up, black boxes &
infinity transmitters will not work!
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Note another interesting way to find out what type of
equipment you are on is to raid the trash can of you
local co - this art will discussed in a separate article
soon.
Coming Soon
In the part V, we will start to take a look at telephone
electronics.
Further Reading
For more information on the above topics, I suggest the
following:
o notes on the network, AT&T, 1980.
o understanding telephone electronics,texas instruments,
1983.
and subscriptions to:
o tap, room 603, 147 w 42 ST, new york, ny 10036.
Subscriptions are $10/year.#back issues are $0.75. The
current issues is #90 (jan/feb 1984)
o 2600, box 752, middle island, ny 11953. Subscriptions are
$10/year. Backissues are $1 each. The current issue is #4
(april 1984).
They are both excellent sources of all sorts of information
(primarily phreaking/hacking).
Note for the most part, I have assumed that you have read my
previous 3 courses in the basic telcom series.
hasta luego,
BIOC Agent 003
april 13, 1984 [the year of big brother]
Fargo 4A
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_______________________________________________________________
Basic Telecommunications
Part V
_______________________________________________________________
BIOC Agent 003
Preface
Previous installments of this series were focused on telephony
from a network point-of-view. Part V will deal with telephone
electronics focusing primarily on the subscriber's telephone.
Here-in-after simply referred to as "fone."
Wiring
Assuming a standard one-line fone, there are usually 4 wires
that lead out of the fone set. These are standardly colored
red, green, yellow, & black. The red & green sires are the two
that are actually hooked up to your co. The yellow wire is
sometimes used to ring different fones on a party line (ie,
one #, several families--found primarily in rural areas where
they pay less for the service and they don't use the fone as
much); otherwise, the yellow is usually just ignored. On some
two-line fones, the red & green wires are used for the first
fone # and the yellow & black are used for the second line. In
this case there must be an internal or external device that
switches between the two lines and provides a hold function.
(Such as radio shack's outrageously priced 2 line & hold
module-9.
In telephony, the red & green wires are often referred to as
tip (t) & ring (r). The tip is usually the more positive of
the two wires. This naming goes back to the old operator cord
boards where one of the wires was the tip of the plug and the
other was the ring (of the barrel).
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A rotary fone (aka dial or pulse) will work fine regardless
whether the red (or green) wire is connected the tip(+) or
ring(-). A touch-tone (tm) fone is a different story, though.
It will not work except if the tip(+) is the green wire.
[Although, some of the more expensive DTMF fones do have a
rectifier bridge which compensates for polarity reversal.]
this I why under certain (non-digital) switching equipment you
can reverse the red & green wires on a touch-tone fone and
receive free DTMF service. Even though it won't break dial
tone, reversing the wires on a rotary line on a digital switch
will cause the tones to be generated.
Voltages, etc.
When your telephone is on-hook (ie, hung up) there is
approximately 48 volts of DC current (vDC) flowing through the
tip & ring. When the handset of a fone is lifted a few
switches close which cause a loop to be connected (known as
the "local loop") between your fone & the co. Once this
happens DC current is able to flow through the fone with less
resistance. This causes a relay to energize which causes other
co equipment to realize that you want service. Eventually, you
should end up with a dial tone. This also causes the 48 vDC to
drop down into the vicinity of 13 volts. The resistance of the
loop also drops below the 2500 ohm level.
As of now, you are probably saying to yourself that this is
all nice and technical but what the hell good is the
information. Well, also consider that this voltage (&
resistance) drop is how the co detects that a fone was taken
off hook (picked up). In this way, they know when to start
billing the calling number. Now what do you suppose would
happen if a device such as a resistor or a zener diode was
placed on the called parties line so that the voltage would
drop just enough to allow talking but not enough to start
billing? First off, the calling party would not be billed for
the call but conversation could be pursued. Secondly, the co
equipment would think that the fone just kept on ringing. The
telco calls this a "no-no" (toll fraud to be more specific)
while phone phreaks affectionately call this mute a black box.
The following are instructions on how to build a simple black
box. Of course, anything that prevents the voltage from
dropping would work. You one or two parts: a spst toggle
switch and a 10,000 ohm (10 k), 1/2 watt resistor. Any
electronics store should stock these parts.
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Now, cut 2 pieces of wire (about 6 inches long) and attach one
end of each wire to one of the terminals on the switch. Now
turn your k500 (standard desk fone) upside down and take off
the cover. Locate the 2 screws on the network box labeled >f<
and >rr<. Wrap the resistor between the 2 screws making sure
that it doesn't touch any other terminals!. Now connect one
wire from the switch to the rr terminal. Finally, attach the
remaining wire to the green wire (disconnect it from its
terminal). Now bring the switch out the rear of the fone and
replace the cover.
Put the switch in a position where you receive a dial tone.
Mark this position normal. Mark the other side free.
When your phriends call (at a prearranged time), quickly lift
& drop the receiver as fast a possible. This will stop the
ringing (do it again if it doesn't) with out starting the
billing. It is important that you do it quickly (less than one
second then put the switch in the free position and pick up
the fone. Keep all call short and preferably under 15 minutes.
Note if anyone picks up an extension in the called parties
house and that fone is not set for free then billing will
start.
Note an old way of signaling a phriend that you are about to
call is making a collect call to a non-existent person in
the house. Since your friend will not accept the charges,
he will know that you are about to call and thus prepare
the black box (or visa versa).
Warning the telco can detect black boxes if they suspect one
on your line. This is done due to the presence of ac
voice signal at the wrong DC level!
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Pictorial diagram
(standard rotary k500 fone)
_____________________________________
| |
***blue wire**>>f< |
| * * |
**white wire** * |
| * |
| resistor |
| * |
| * |
| >rr<*******switch**** |
| * |
****green wire********************** |
| |
|_____________________________________|
Note the black box will not work under ESS or other similar
digital switches since ESS does not connect the voice
circuits until the fone is picked up (& billing starts).
Instead, ESS uses an "artificial" computer generated
ring.
Ringing
To inform a subscriber of an incoming call, the telco sends 90
volts (rms) of ac current down the line (at around 15 to 60
Hz) in standard fones, this causes a metal armature to be
attracted alternately between two electro-magnets thus
striking 2 bells. Of course, the standard Bell (patented in
1878 by tom a. Watson) can be replaced by a more modern
electronic Bell or signaling device.
Also, you can have lights and other similar devices in lieu of
(or in conjunction with) the Bell. A simple neon light (with
its corresponding resistor) can simply be connected between
the red & green wires (usually l1 & l2 on the network box) so
that it lights up on incoming calls. A regular 60 watt light
bulb can also be hooked up using a simple (120 vac) relay.
Warning 90 & 120 vac can give quite a shock. Exercise
extreme caution if you wish to further pursue these
topics.
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Also included in the ringing circuit is a capacitor to prevent
the DC current from interfering with the Bell [a capacitor
will pass ac current while it will prevent DC current from
flowing (by storing it)].
Another reason that the telco hates black boxes is because
ringing uses alot of common-control equipment, in the co,
which use alot of electricity. Thus the ringing generators are
being tied up while a free call is being made. Usually calls
that are allowed to ring for a long period of time may be
construed as suspicious. Some offices may be set up to drop a
trouble card for long periods of ringing then a "no-no"
detection device may be placed on the line.
Incidentally, the term "ring trip" refers to the co process
involved to stop the ac ringing signal when the calling fone
goes off hook.
Note it is suggested that you actually dissect fones to help
you better understand them. It will also help you to
better understand the concepts here if you actually prove
them to yourself. For example, actually take the voltage
readings on your fone line [any simple multi-tester (a
must) will do.] phreaking is an interactive process not a
passive one!
Dialing
On a standard fone, there are two common types of dialing:
pulse & DTMF. Of course, some people insist upon being
different and don't use the dt thus leaving them with mf
(multi frequency, aka operator, blue box) tones. This is
another "no-no" and the telco security gentlemen have a
special knack for dealing with such "phreaks" on the network.
When you dial rotary, you are actually rapidly breaking &
reconnecting (making) the local loop once for every digit
dialed. Since the physical connection must be broken, you
cannot dial if another extension (of that #) is off-hook.
Neither of the fones will be able to dial pulse unless the
other hangs up.
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Another term often referred to in telephone electronics is the
break ratio. In the us, there are 10 pulses per second (max).
When the circuit is opened it is called the break interval.
When it is closed it is called the make interval. In the us,
there is a 60 millisecond (ms) break period and a 40 ms make
period. (60+40=100 Ms = 1/10 minute). This is referred to as a
60% break interval. Some of the more sophisticated electronic
fones can switch between a 60% & a 67% break interval. This is
due to the fact that many foreign nations use a 67% break
interval.
Have you ever been in an office or a similar facility and saw
a fone waiting to be used for a free call but some asshole put
a lock on it to prevent outgoing calls?
Well, don't fret phellow phreaks, you can simulate pulse
dialing by rapidly depressing the switchook. (If you depress
it for longer than a second it will be construed as a
disconnect.) by rapidly switchooking you are causing the local
loop to be broken & made similar to rotary dialing! Thus if
you can manage to switchook rapidly 10 times you can reach an
operator to place any call you want! This takes alot of
practice, though. You might want to practice on your own fone
dialing a friend's # or something else. Incidentally, this
method will also work with DTMF fones since all DTMF lines can
also handle rotary.
Another problem with pulse dialing is that it produces high-
voltage spikes that make loud noises in the earpiece and cause
the Bell to "tinkle." if you never noticed this then your fone
has a special "anti-tinkle" & earpiece shorting circuit (most
do). If you have ever dissected a rotary fone (a must for any
serious phreak) you would have noticed that there are 2 sets
of contact that open and close during pulsing (on the back of
the rotary dial under the plastic cover). One of these
actually opens and closes the loop while the other mutes the
earpiece by shorting it out. The second contacts also
activates a special anti-tinkle circuit that puts a 340 ohm
resistor across the ringing circuit which prevents the high
voltage spikes from interfering with the Bell.
Dual tone multi frequency (DTMF) is a modern day improvement
on pulse dialing in several ways. First of all, it is more
convenient for the user since it is faster and can be used for
signaling after the call is completed (ie, scc's, computers,
etc.). Also, it is more upto par with modern day switching
equipment (such as ESS) since pulse dialing was designed to
actually move relays by the number of digits dialed (in sxs
offices).
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Each key on a DTMF keypad produces 2 frequencies
simultaneously (one from the high group and another from the
low group).
_______________________________________________
low group | | | | |
697 Hz-| q | abc | def | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | a |
|___________|___________|___________|___________|
| | | | |
770 Hz-| ghi | jkl | mno | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | b |
|___________|___________|___________|___________|
| | | | |
852 Hz-| prs | tuv | wxy | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | c |
|___________|___________|___________|___________|
| | operator | | |
941 Hz-| | z | | |
| * | 0 | # | d |
|___________|___________|___________|___________|
| | | |
1209 Hz 1336 Hz 1477 Hz 1633 Hz
high group
A portable DTMF keypad is known as a white box.
The fourth column (1633 Hz) is not normally found on regular
fones but it does have several special uses. For one, it is
used to designate the priority of calls on autovon, the
military fone network. These key are called: flash, immediate,
priority, & routine (with variations) instead of abcd.
Secondly, these keys are used for testing purposes by the
telco. In some area you can find loops as well as other neat
tests (see part II) on the 555-1212 directory assistance
exchange. For this, you would call up an da in certain areas
[that have an automatic call distributor (acd)] and hold down
the "d" key which should blow the operator off. You will then
hear a pulsing dial tone which indicates that you are in the
acd internal testing mode. You can get on one side of a loop
by dialing a 6. The other side is 7. Some phreaks claim that
if the person on side 6 hangs up, occasionally the equipment
will screw up ad start directing directory assistance calls to
the other side of the loop. Another alleged test is called
remob which allows you to tap into lines by entering a special
code followed by the 7 digit number you want to monitor. Then
there is the possibility of mass conferencing.
ACD's are become rare though. You will probably have to make
several npa-555- 1212 calls before you find one.
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You can modify regular fones quite readily so that they have a
switch to change between the 3rd and 4th columns. This is
called a silver box (aka grey box) ad plans can be found in
tap as well as on many BBS's.
Transmitter/Receiver
When you talk into the transmitter, the sound waves from your
voice cause a diaphragm to vibrate and press against the
carbon granules (or another similar substance). This causes
the carbon granules to compress and contract thus changing the
resistance of the DC current flowing through it. Therefore,
your ac voice signal is superimposed over the DC current of
the local loop. The receiver works in a similar fashion where
the simple types utilize a magnet, armature, & diaphragm.
Hybrid/Induction Coil
As you may have noticed, there are two wires for the receiver
and two for the transmitter in the fone, yet the local loop
consists of 2 wires instead of 4. This 4-wire to 2-wire
conversion is done inside the fone by a device known as an
induction coil which uses coupling transformers.
The reason 2 sires are used on the local loops are because it
is alot cheaper for the telco. Although, all of the inter-
office trunks utilize 4 wires. This is necessary for full
duplex (ie, simultaneous conversation on both sides) and for
amplification devices. There are similar devices in the co's,
known as a hybrid, that couple the 4-wire trunks to the 2-wire
local loops and visa-versa.
Miscellaneous
In the telephone, there is also a balancing network consisting
of a few capacitors & resistors which provide sidetone.
Sidetone allows the caller to hear his own volume in the
receiver. He can then adjust his voice accordingly. This
prevents people from shouting or speaking too softly without
noticing it.
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Hold
When a telephone goes off hook, the resistance drops below
2500 ohms. At this point, the telco will send a dial tone. To
put someone on hold you must put a 1000 ohm resistor (1 watt)
across the tip & ring before it reaches the switchook. In this
way, when the fone is hung up (for hold) the resistance
remains below 2500 ohms which causes the co to believe that
you are still off-hook. You can build a simple hold device
using the following pictorial diagram:
(red) o_________________________
[l1] | | |
| | |
1000 ohm | \
| | \
resistor ringing |
| circuit | -switch
| | | hook
/ | |
/ spst switch | \
| | \
| | |
| | |
(green) o__|_____________|______|
[l2]
--> to rest of fone
Conclusion
Note many of the electronics components of normal fones (k500)
are enclosed in the network box (which shouldn't be
opened).
I have assumed that the reader has a basic knowledge of
electronics. Also, I have assumed that you have read the 4
previous installments of this series (and hopefully enjoyed
them).
In part VI, we will take a look at fortress fones.
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Suggested Further Reading
o electronics courses a-d, tap, @ $.75 each.
o electronic telephone projects, a.j. Caristi, howard sams
books.
o everything you always wanted to know about 1633 Hz tones
but were afraid to ask, the magician, tap, issue #62.
o free Bell phone calls, tap, fact sheet #2, @ $.50.
o free GTE phone calls, tap, fact sheet #3, @ $.50.
o how to modify your Bell touch tone fone to have 1633
cycle tones, tap, issue #63.
o modifying your phone for 1633 Hz (new electronic
keypads), fred steinbeck, tap, issue #84.
o notes on the network, AT&T.
o the phone book, j. Edgar Hyde.
o regulating the telephone company in your home, ramapart
magazine, june 1972.
o remobs, tap #91 (not yet published as of this writing).
o understanding telephone electronics, texas instruments.
& other assorted sources...
o tap, room 603/147 w 42 ST./new york, ny 10036. Please
specify by backissue #'s (not article names). All back-
issues are $1 each. Subscriptions are $10/year (10
issues). Say that bioc agent 003 sent you.
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_______________________________________________________________
Basic Telecommunications
Part VI
_______________________________________________________________
BIOC Agent 003
Revised 27-OCT-84
Preface
This article will focus primarily on the standard Western
Electric single-slot coin telephone (aka fortress fone) which
can be divided into 3 types:
o Dial-Tone First (DTF)
o Coin-First (CF): (ie, it wants your $ before you receive
a dial tone)
o Dial Post-Pay Service (PP): you pay after the party
answers
Depositing Coins (Slugs)
Once you have deposited your slug into a fortress, it is
subjected to a gamut of tests. The first obstacle for a slug
is the magnetic trap. This will stop any light-weight magnetic
slugs and coins. If it passes this, the slug is then
classified as a nickel, dime, or quarter. Each slug is then
checked for appropriate size and weight. If these tests are
passed, it will then travel through a nickel, dime, or quarter
magnet as appropriate. These magnets set up an eddy current
effect which causes coins of the appropriate characteristics
to slow down so they will follow the correct trajectory. If
all goes well, the coin will follow the correct path (such as
bouncing off of the nickel anvil) where it will hopefully fall
into the narrow accepted coin channel.
The rather elaborate tests that are performed as the coin
travels down the coin chute will stop most slugs and other
undesirable coins, such as pennies, which must then be
retrieved using the coin release lever.
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If the slug miraculously survives the gamut, it will then
strike the appropriate totalizer arm causing a ratchet wheel
to rotate once for every 5-cent increment (eg, a quarter will
cause it to rotate 5 times).
The totalizer then causes the coin signal oscillator to
readout a dual-frequency signal indicating the value deposited
to ACTS (a computer) or the TSPS operator. These are the same
tones used by phreaks in the infamous red boxes.
For a quarter, 5 beep tones are outpulsed at 12-17 pulses per
second (PPS). A dime causes 2 beep tones at 5 - 8.5 PPS while
a nickel causes one beep tone at 5 - 8.5 PPS. A beep consists
of 2 tones: 2200 + 1700 Hz.
A relay in the fortress called the "B relay" (yes, there is
also an 'A relay') places a capacitor across the speech
circuit during totalizer read-out to prevent the "customer"
from hearing the red box tones.
In older 3 slot phones: one Bell (1050-1100 Hz) for a nickel,
two bells for a dime, and one gong (800 Hz) for a quarter are
used instead of the modern dual-frequency tones.
TSPS & ACTS
While fortresses are connected to the CO of the area, all
transactions are handled via the Traffic Service Position
System (TSPS). In areas that do not have ACTS, all calls that
require operator assistance, such as calling card and collect,
are automatically routed to a TSPS operator position.
In an effort to automate fortress service, a computer system
known as Automated Coin Toll Service (ACTS) has been
implemented in many areas. ACTS listens to the red box signals
from the fones and takes appropriate action. It is ACTS which
says, "Two dollars please (pause) Please deposit two dollars
for the next ten seconds" (and other variations). Also, if you
talk for more than three minutes and then hang-up, ACTS will
call back and demand your money. ACTS is also responsible for
Automated Calling Card Service.
ACTS also provide trouble diagnosis for craftspeople
(repairmen specializing in fortresses). For example, there is
a coin test which is great for tuning up red boxes. In many
areas this test can be activated by dialing 09591230 at a
fortress (thanks to Karl Marx for this information). Once
activated it will request that you deposit various coins. It
will then identify the coin and outpulse the appropriate red
box signal. The coins are usually returned when you hang up.
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To make sure that there is actually money in the fone, the CO
initiates a "ground test" at various times to determine if a
coin is actually in the fone. This is why you must deposit at
least a nickel in order to use a red box!
Green Boxes
Paying the initial rate in order to use a red box (on certain
fortresses) left a sour taste in many red boxer's mouths thus
the GREEN BOX was invented. The green box generates useful
tones such as COIN COLLECT, COIN RETURN, and RINGBACK. These
are the tones that ACTS or the TSPS operator would send to the
CO when appropriate. Unfortunately, the green box cannot be
used at a fortress station but it must be used by the CALLED
party.
Here are the tones
Coin Collect 700 + 1100 Hz
Coin Return 1100 + 1700 Hz
Ringback 700 + 1700 Hz
Before the called party sends any of these tones, an operator
released signal should be sent to alert the MF detectors at
the CO. This can be accomplished by sending 900 + 1500 Hz or a
single 2600 Hz wink (90 ms) followed by a 60 ms gap and then
the appropriate signal for at least 900 ms.
Also, do not forget that the initial rate is collected shortly
before the 3 minute period is up.
Incidentally, once the above MF tones for collecting and
returning coins reach the CO, they are converted into an
appropriate DC pulse (-130 volts for return & +130 volts for
collect). This pulse is then sent down the tip to the
fortress. This causes the coin relay to either return or
collect the coins.
The alleged "T-Network" takes advantage of this information.
When a pulse for COIN COLLECT (+130 VDC) is sent down the
line, it must be grounded somewhere. This is usually either
the yellow or black wire. Thus, if the wires are exposed,
these wires can be cut to prevent the pulse from being
grounded. When the three minute initial period is almost up,
make sure that the black & yellow wires are severed; then hang
up, wait about 15 seconds in case of a second pulse, reconnect
the wires, pick up the fone, hang up again, and if all goes
well it should be "JACKPOT" time.
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Physical Attack
A typical fortress weighs roughly 50 lbs. with an empty coin
box. Most of this is accounted for in the armor plating. Why
all the security? Well, Bell contributes it to the following:
"Social changes during the 1960's made the multislot
coin station a prime target for: vandalism, strong
arm robbery, fraud, and theft of service. This
brought about the introduction of the more rugged
single slot coin station and a new environment for
coin service."
As for picking the lock, I will quote Mr. Phelps:
"We often fantasize about 'picking the lock' or
'getting a master key.' Well, you can forget about
it. I don't like to discourage people, but it will
save you from wasting alot of your time--time which
can be put to better use (heh, heh)."
As for physical attack, the coin plate is secured on all four
side by hardened steel bolts which pass through two slots
each. These bolts are in turn interlocked by the main lock.
One phreak I know did manage to take one of the 'mothers' home
(which was attached to a piece of plywood at a construction
site; otherwise, the permanent ones are a bitch to detach from
the wall!). It took him almost ten hours to open the coin box
using a power drill, sledge hammers, and crow bars (which was
empty -- perhaps next time, he will deposit a coin first to
hear if it slushes down nicely or hits the empty bottom with a
clunk.)
Taking the fone offers a higher margin of success. Although
this may be difficult often requiring brute force and there
has been several cases of back axles being lost trying to take
down a fone! A quick and dirty way to open the coin box is by
using a shotgun. In Detroit, after ecologists cleaned out a
municipal pond, they found 168 coin phones rifled.
In colder areas, such as Canada, some shrewd people tape up
the fones using duct tape, pour in water, and come back the
next day when the water will have froze thus expanding and
cracking the fone open.In one case:
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"unauthorized coin collectors" where caught when
they brought $6,000 in change to a bank and the bank
became suspicious...
At any rate, the main lock is an eight level tumbler located
on the right side of the coin box. This lock has 390,625
possible positions (5 ^ 8, since there are 8 tumblers each
with 5 possible positions) thus it is highly pick resistant!
The lock is held in place by 4 screws. If there is sufficient
clearance to the right of the fone, it is conceivable to punch
out the screws using the drilling pattern below (provided by
Alexander Mundy in TAP)
_______________________________________________________________
Chapter 5
_______________________________________________________________
What is covered in these last few articles, is the essence of
phreaking, blue boxing & equal access. These last articles, I
hope will be the final stage of phreak education for now.
Basic telecommunications 7 is a brief intro to the art of blue
boxing, while Better Homes & Blue Boxing will cover it in
full. Equal access will be an interesting switch, it is
installed in my area already and I have been investigating it.
One thought is to call MCI operators and box through them,
over MCI lines...
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_______________________________________________________________
Basic Telecommunications
Part VII
_______________________________________________________________
BIOC Agent 003
Preface
After most neophyte phreaks overcome their fascination with
Metro codes and WATS extenders, they will usually seek to
explore other avenues in the vast phone network. Often they
will come across references such as "simply dial KP +
2130801050 + ST for the Alliance teleconferencing system in
LA.". Numbers such as the one above were intended to be used
with a blue box; this article will explain the fundamental
principles of the fine art of blue boxing.
Genesis
In the beginning, all long distance calls were connected
manually by operators who passed on the called number verbally
to other operators in series. This is because pulse (aka
rotary) digits are created by causing breaks in the DC current
(see Basic Telcom V). Since long distance calls require
routing through various switching equipment and AC voice
amplifiers, pulse dialing cannot be used to send the
destination number to the end local office (CO).
Eventually, the demand for faster and more efficient long
distance (LD) service caused Bell to make a multi-billion
dollar decision. They had to create a signaling system that
could be used on the LD Network. Basically, they had two
options:
1. To send all the signaling and supervisory information
(ie, ON & OFF HOOK) over separate data links. This type
of signaling is referred to as out-of-band signaling.
2. To send all the signaling information along with the
conversation using tones to represent digits. This type
of signaling is referred to as in-band signaling.
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Being the cheap bastard that they naturally are, Bell chose
the latter (and cheaper) method -- IN-BAND signaling. They
eventually regretted this, though (heh, heh)...
In-Band Signalling Principles
When a subscriber dials a telephone number, whether in rotary
or touch-tone (aka DTMF), the equipment in the CO interprets
the digits and looks for a convenient trunk line to send the
call on its way. In the case of a local call, it will probably
be sent via an inter-office trunk; otherwise, it will be sent
to a toll office (class 4 or higher -- see Telcom IV) to be
processed.
When trunks are not being used there is a 2600 Hz tone on the
line; thus, to find a free trunk, the CO equipment simply
checks for the presence of 2600 Hz. If it doesn't find a free
trunk the customer will receive a re-order signal (120 IPM
busy signal) or the "all circuits are busy..." message. If it
does find a free trunk it "seizes" it -- removing the 2600 Hz.
It then sends the called number or a special routing code to
the other end or toll office.
The tones it uses to send this information are called multi-
frequency (MF) tones. An MF tone consists of two tones from a
set of six master tones which are combined to produce 12
separate tones. You can sometimes hear these tones in the
background when you make a call but they are usually filtered
out so your delicate ears cannot hear them. These are NOT the
same as touch-tones.
To notify the equipment at the far end of the trunk that it is
about to receive routing information, the originating end
first sends a Key Pulse (KP) tone. At the end of sending the
digits, #he originating end then sends a STart (ST) tone. Thus
to call 914-359-1517, the equipment would send KP + 9143591517
+ ST in MF tones. When the customer hangs up, 2600 Hz is once
again sent to signify a disconnect to the distant end.
History
In the November 1960 issue of The Bell System Technical
Journal, an article entitled "Signaling Systems for Control of
Telephone Switching" was published. This journal, which was
sent to most university libraries, happened to contain the
actual MF tones used in signaling. They appeared as follows:
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Digit Tones
1 700 + 900 Hz
2 700 + 1100 Hz
3 900 + 1100 Hz
4 700 + 1300 Hz
5 900 + 1300 Hz
6 1100 + 1300 Hz
7 700 + 1500 Hz
8 900 + 1500 Hz
9 1100 + 1500 Hz
0 1300 + 1500 Hz
KP 1100 + 1700 Hz
ST 1500 + 1700 Hz
11 (*) 700 + 1700 Hz
12 (*) 900 + 1700 Hz
KP2 (*) 1300 + 1700 Hz
(*) Used only on CCITT SYSTEM 5 for special
international calling.
Bell caught wind of blue boxing in 1961 when it caught a
Washington state college student using one. They originally
found out about blue boxes through police raids and
informants. In 1964, Bell Labs came up with scanning
equipment, which recorded all suspicious calls, to detect blue
box usage. These units were installed in CO's where major toll
fraud existed. AT&T Security would then listen to the tapes to
see if any toll fraud was actually committed. Over 200
convictions resulted from the project. Surprisingly enough,
blue boxing is not solely limited to the electronics
enthusiast; AT&T has caught businessmen, film stars, doctors,
lawyers, college students, high school students and even a
millionaire financier (Bernard Cornfeld) using the device.
AT&T also said that nearly half of those that they catch are
businessmen.
Of course, phone phreaks have achieved an almost cult status.
They have also had their fair share of media. In October 1971,
Esquire published the infamous "Secrets of the Little Blue
Box" article which featured phreaks such as Captain Crunch,
who took his name from the cereal which one gave away whistles
that produced a perfect 2600 Hz pitch; Joe Engressia, the
blind phreak; and Mark Bernay, one of the nation's first and
oldest phreaks. Others such as Apple computer co-founders
Steve Wozniak & Steve Jobs have also had blue box backgrounds.
1971 also saw the publication of the first issue of YIPL, the
phone phreak newsletter, (now TAP) under the editorship of
supreme yippie Abbie Hoffman.
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Usage
To use a blue box, one would usually make a free call to any
800 number or distant directory assistance (NPA-555-1212).
This, of course, is legitimate. When the call is answered, one
would then swiftly press the button that would send 2600 Hz
down the line. This has the effect of making the distant CO
equipment think that the call was terminated and it leaves the
trunk hanging. Now, the user has about 10 seconds to enter in
the telephone number he wished to dial -- in MF, that is. The
CO equipment merely assumes that this came from another office
and it will happily process the call. Since there are no
records (except on toll fraud detection devices!) of these MF
tones, the user is not billed for the call. When the user
hangs up, the CO equipment simply records that he hung up on a
free call.
Detection
Bell has had 20 years to work on detection devices; therefore,
in this day and age, they are rather well refined. Basically,
the detection device will look for the presence of 2600 Hz
where it does not belong. It then records the calling number
and all activity after the 2600 Hz. If you happen to be at a
fortress fone, though, and you make the call short, your
chances of getting caught are significantly reduced (see
Telcom VI). Incidentally, there have been rumors of certain
test numbers (see Telcom II) that hook directly into trunks
thus avoiding the need for 2600 Hz and detection!
Another way that Bell catches boxers is to examine the CAMA
(Centralized Automatic Message Accounting) tapes. When you
make a call, your number, the called number, and time of day
are all recorded. The same thing happens when you hang up.
This tape is then processed for billing purposes. Normally,
all free calls are ignored. But Bell can program the billing
equipment to make note of lengthy calls to directory
assistance. They can then put a pen register (aka DNR) on the
line or an actual full-blown tap. This detection can be
avoided by making short-haul (aka local) calls to box off of.
It is interesting to note that NPA+555-1212 originally did not
return answer supervision. Thus the calls were not recorded on
the AMA/CAMA tapes. AT&T changed this though for "traffic
studies!"
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CCIS
Besides detection devices, Bell has begun to gradually
redesign the network using out-of-band signaling. This is
known as Common Channel Inter-office Signaling (CCIS). Since
this signaling method sends all the signaling information over
separate data lines, blue boxing is impossible under it.
While being implemented gradually, this multi-billion dollar
project is still strangling the fine art of blue boxing. Of
course until the project is totally complete, boxing will
still be possible. It will become progressively harder to find
places to box off of, though. In areas with CCIS, one must
find a directory assistance office that doesn't have CCIS yet.
Area codes in Canada and predominately rural states are the
best bets. WATS numbers terminating in non-CCIS cities are
also good prospects.
Pink Noise
Another way that may help to avoid detection is too add some
"pink noise" to the 2600 Hz tone. Since 2600 Hz tones can be
simulated in speech, the detection equipment must be careful
not to misinterpret speech as a disconnect signal. Thus a
virtually pure 2600 Hz tone is required for disconnect.
Keeping this in mind, the 2600 Hz detection equipment is also
probably looking for pure 2600 Hz or else is would be
triggered every time someone hit that note (highest E on a
piano =2637 Hz). This is also the reason that the 2600 Hz tone
must be sent rapidly; sometimes, it won't work when the
operator is saying "Hello, hello." It is feasible to send some
"pink noise" along with the 2600 Hz. Most of this energy
should be above 3000 Hz. The pink noise won't make it into the
toll network (where we want our pure 2600 Hz to hit) but it
should make it past the local CO and thus the fraud detectors.
Construction
While step-by-step details for the construction of a blue box
is beyond the scope of this tutorial, it is worthwhile to
mention some of the details.
First there are some alternatives but they are not as good as
an actual blue box. Many computers are capable of generating
MF tones. Thus, your local phriendly software pirate should
have a program compatible for your computer.
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However, it is highly advisable not to box from home as stated
in The Ten Commandments (as interpreted for phreaks by Fred
Steinbeck -- TAP #86).
I. Box thou not over thine home telephone wires,
for those who doest must surely bring the full
wrath of the Chief Special Agent down upon thy
heads.
Another alternative that has a moderate success rate involves
recording the tones from a phriend with a box or computer onto
a cassette tape. They can then be used at a fortress.
As for actual construction techniques, TAP has devoted many
issues to blue boxing. Basically, a blue box is merely a
device capable of generating two different tones
simultaneously. There are two basic construction methods that
I will outline below for the electronics hobbyist.
The first involves the use of two 555 timer chips (or a 556 --
i.e., two 555's in one chip). It offers excellent frequency
and voltage stability. Also, it does not need a diode matrix
keypad but used double-pole switches instead. Schematics for
this type of box can be found in TAP issue #29.
The other common box makes use of two Intersil 8038CC Function
Generators. It does require a diode matrix keypad though,
potentiometers, an LM-100 voltage regulator, a 741 Op-amp, and
a handful of other parts. The schematics for this type of blue
box can be found in TAP #26. Both designs draw about 20 ma of
current.
Also, most blue boxes use telephone earpieces (with the
varistor removed) for speakers. These can be easily liberated
from fortress fones with a small coping saw.
Usually, the hardest part about building a blue box is the
calibration. A frequency counter is a must and an oscilloscope
won't hurt.
Some boxes also take timing into account. It is feasible on
the ESS systems that they check to see if the digits are of
uniform length. If they aren't, they are probably from a blue
box and a trouble card may be dropped. With this in mind, the
Bell standard for MF pulses and interdigit intervals is around
75 ms. It varies with the equipment used since ESS can handle
higher speeds and doesn't need interdigit intervals.
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Applications
Besides dialing normal calls free, i.e., KP+NPA+NNX+XXXX+ST,
blue boxes offer the entire network for exploration. Emergency
break-ins, service monitoring (aka taps), stacking tandems
(the art of busying out all trunks between two points), re-
routing calls, conference calls, and much, much more are all
feasible. Although, Bell frequently changes these codes due to
phreaks. Here are some standard ones, though:
Operator & Other Codes
(an optional NPA may proceed all of the numbers; otherwise,
you will reach the one local for the area where the call is
originated)
001 Trunk Access System
009 Rate Quote System
101 toll office test board
121 INWARD Operator
This operator assists the local "0" operator in completing
calls. (S)he will do virtually anything for you providing it
is within her NPA.
131 Operator Directory assistance
141 Rout & Rate
141 (defunct) use KP + 800 + 141 +1212 + ST)
These operators are very useful if you know how to mumble a
few cryptic phrases as compiled below (with thanks to Fred
Steinbeck): To find out ...
... Area Codes
For example say , "Miami, Florida, numbers route,
please." The R&R operator will tell you "305 plus,"
meaning that 305 plus the seven digit number will get you
Miami.
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... Inward Operator City Codes
Usually, the INWARD operator for an area is simply KP +
NPA + 121 + ST. In some area codes, though, there are
several large cities and thus several inwards. To find
the inward for a specific city, you would say "916 756,
operator route, please" to the R&R operator who will then
tell you "916 plus 001 plus." This means that KP+ 916 +
001 + 121 + ST will get you an inward for Sacramento, CA
(916-756).
... City names
If you want to know the city that corresponds to an area
code and exchange, you simply tell the R&R, "Place name,
914 390, please." In this example, the R&R operator will
respond with "White Plains, NY."
... International Directory Assistance
If you need a directory route for London, you could say
"International, London, England. TSPS directory route,
please." The R&R operator will respond with "Directory to
London, England. Country code 44 plus 1 plus 986 plus
3611." Therefore to get a DA operator in London, you
would route yourself to an international sender and KP +
04419863611 + ST.
... Country & City codes
If you need to know the country and city code for an
international number you can say "International, Sydney,
Australia, TSPS numbers route, please" and get "Country
code 61 plus 2."
... International Inwards Routes
To get routing codes for international inwards say
"International, London, England, TSPS inward route,
please." The R&R Operator will respond with "Country code
44 plus 121."
Finally, to get language assistance for completing a foreign
call you can tell the foreign inward, "United States calling.
Language assistance in completing a call to (called party) at
(called number)."
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151 Overseas incoming (212 +& 914+)
160-XX0 Various Overseas Operators
161 Trouble reporting operator (defunct)
181 Coin Refund Operator
18X Overseas senders
To make an international call, one would KP + 011 + 0CC + ST
where CC is the country code. This will route you to the
appropriate overseas sender. You will then receive a 480 Hz
dial tone. Here you enter KP + 0CC + city code + local number
+ ST and the call is on its way.
Country codes can be either 1, 2, or 3 digits but they must be
padded for three digits to create a pseudo-country code with
extra zero's if necessary. For example, England, country code
44, becomes 044.
To see which international sender a certain country (lets use
French Guiana, country code 594, for example) goes through,
you can dial KP + 011 + 594 + ST, wait for the Proceed to Send
tone then KP + 000 + 0000 + ST and you will receive a
recording saying which ISC (International Switching Center) it
is. For the example it will say, "This is the international
switching center in Pittsburg, PA -- This is a recording -
4121." You can actually route calls to certain senders
yourself (KP + NPA + 18X + ST) but it is better off not to
since it may look suspicious if a call is sent through a
sender that it shouldn't go through. Here are the senders:
182 White Plains, NY
183 New York, NY
184 Pittsburg, PA
185 Orlando, FL
186 Oakland, CA
187 Denver, CO
188 New York, NY
Also, there tends to be alot of talk about the Code 11, Code
12, KP2, STP, ST3P, & ST2P keys. While they do exist the blue
boxer need not concern himself with them. The first three are
used on CCITT System 5. This is the signaling system that the
International Senders use to send information to other
countries. These codes are usually added automatically just
like the language assistance digit [which distinguishes
operator (or blue box) dialed calls from customer dialed
calls]. The STP, ST3P, & ST2P tones are used when equipment is
communicating with the TSPS. These also are automatically
added when needed in most cases.
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[see Telcom III for more on International Switching Centers
(ISC)]
11XXX miscellaneous operators
11501 universal cordboard operator
11511 conference operator
11521 mobile operator
11531 marine operator
11541 LD incoming switchboard
11551 leave word for time & charges (neat stuff)
11561 same as 11551 but for hotel/motels
11571 overseas operators (language assistance)
The 11XXX series is interesting scanning material.
Miscellaneous Routing Codes
Alliance Teleconferencing has several numbers, a few of which
are listed below:
KP + 213 080 XXXX + ST
KP + 305 025 XXXX + ST
KP + 312 001 XXXX + ST
XXXX = 1050, 1100, or a few others
Also, at KP + 317 009 + ST there is a MF tone checker. After
the beep-kerclunk, dial in KP + 999 1234567 890 + ST and it
will repeat the digits that you pulsed if they are of the
right frequency.
Tandem Scanning
To find all sorts of interesting things, you must look. Begin
scanning three digit codes in your area (i.e., KP + 000 + ST,
KP + 001 + ST, etc.). Keep track of all of your results.
Sometimes you must probe things, send additional digits and
see what happens, send touch-tone, send it 2600 Hz, rip it
apart. You never know, you may run into something phun, like a
computer that checks CC numbers.
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Incidentally, in some exchange you can dial inwards and other
box codes directly! For example, 914-121-1111 will get you a
NY inward. The only problem is that a 0 or 1 as the first
digit of the exchange is usually *prohibited in customer
dialing. Somebody may have "accidentally" changed this
screening code on your ESS's computer, though -- you never
know and it can't hurt to try. WATS translation numbers also
take up some of the 0XX & 1XX codes.
Finally, certain tones on the blue box can also be used for
other purposes. An MF "2" corresponds to COIN COLLECT while
"KP" corresponds to COIN RETURN. Thus every blue box is also a
green box (see Telcom VI).
Coming soon
Telcom VIII will deal with cordless phones, mobile phones, and
other neat things.
Be careful and have phun,
BIOC Agent 003
_______________________________________________________________
Better Homes and Blue Boxing
Part I: Theory of Operation
_______________________________________________________________
To quote Karl Marx, blue boxing has always been the most noble
form of phreaking. As opposed to such things as using an MCI
code to make a free fone call, which is merely mindless
pseudo-phreaking, blue boxing is actual interaction with the
Bell System toll network. It is likewise advisable to be more
cautious when blue boxing, but the careful phreak will not be
caught, regardless of what type of switching system he is
under.
In this part, I will explain how and why blue boxing works, as
well as where. In later parts, I will give more practical
information for blue boxing and routing information.
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To begin with, blue boxing is simply communicating with
trunks. Trunks must not be confused with subscriber lines (or
"customer loops") which are standard telefone lines. Trunks
are those lines that connect central offices. Now, when trunks
are not in use (i.e., idle or "on-hook" state) they have
2600Hz applied to them. If they are two-way trunks, there is
2600Hz in both directions. When a trunk IS in use (busy or
"off-hook" state"), the 2600Hz is removed from the side that
is off-hook. The 2600Hz is therefore known as a supervisory
signal, because it indicates the status of a trunk; on hook
(tone) or off-hook (no tone). Note also that 2600Hz denoted SF
(single frequency) signalling and is "in-band." This is very
important. "In-band" means that is is within the band of
frequencies that may be transmitted over normal telefone
lines. Other SF signals, such as 3700Hz are used also.
However, they cannot be carried over the telefone network
normally (they are "out-of-band") and are therefore not able
to be taken advantage of as 2600Hz is.
Back to trunks. Let's take a hypothetical phone call. You pick
up your fone and dial 1+806-258-1234 (your good friend in
Armarillo, Texas). For ease, we'll assume that you are on #5
Crossbar switching and not in the 806 area. Your central
office (CO) would recognize that 806 is a foreign NPA, so it
would route the call to the toll centre that serves you. [For
the sake of accuracy here, and for the more experienced
readers, note that the CO in question is a class 5 with LAMA
that uses out-of-band SF supervisory signalling]. Depending on
where you are in the country, the call would leave your toll
centre (on more trunks) to another toll centre, or office of
higher "rank". Then it would be routed to central office 806-
258 eventually and the call would be completed.
Illustration:
A -------- CO1 ----- TC1 ----- TC2 ----- CO2 ----- B
A you
CO1 your central office
TC1 your toll office
TC2 toll office in Amarillo
CO2 806-258 central office
B your friend (806-258-1234)
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In this situation it would be realistic to say that CO2 uses
SF in-band (2600Hz) signalling, while all the others use out-
of-band signalling (3700Hz). If you don't understand this,
don't worry too much. I am pointing this out merely for the
sake of accuracy. The point is that while you are connected to
806-258-1234, all those trunks from YOUR central office (CO1)
to the 806-258 central office (CO2) do *NOT* have 2600Hz on
them, indicating to the Bell equipment that a call is in
progress and the trunks are in use.
Now let's say you're tired of talking to your friend in
Amarillo (806-258-1234) so you send a 2600Hz down the line.
This tone travels down the line to your friend's central
office (CO2) where it is detected. However, that CO thinks
that the 2600Hz is originating from Bell equipment, indicating
to it that you've hung up, and thus the trunks are once again
idle (with 2600Hz present on them). But actually, you have not
hung up, you have fooled the equipment at your friend's CO
into thinking you have. Thus,it disconnects him and resets the
equipment to prepare for the next call. All this happens very
quickly (300-800ms for step-by-step equipment and 150-400ms
for other equipment).
When you stop sending 2600Hz (after about a second), the
equipment thinks that another call is coming towards it (e.g.
it thinks the far end has come "off-hook" since the tone has
stopped. It could be thought of as a toggle switch: tone -->
on hook, no tone -->off hook. Now that you've stopped sending
2600Hz, several things happen:
1) A trunk is seized.
2) A "wink" is sent to the CALLING end from the CALLED end
indicating that the CALLED end (trunk) is not ready to
receive digits yet.
3) A register is found and attached to the CALLED end of the
trunk within about two seconds (max).
4) A start-dial signal is sent to the CALLING end from the
CALLED end indicating that the CALLED end is ready to
receive digits.
Now, all of this is pretty much transparent to the blue boxer.
All he really hears when these four things happen is a
<beep><kerchunk>. So, seizure of a trunk would go something
like this:
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1) Send a 2600Hz
2) Terminate 2600Hz after 1-2 secs.
3) [beep][kerchunk]
Once this happens, you are connected to a tandem that is ready
to obey your every command. The next step is to send
signalling information in order to place your call. For this
you must simulate the signalling used by operators and
automatic toll-dialing equipment for use on trunks. There are
mainly two systems, DP and MF. However, DP went out with the
dinosaur , so I'll only discuss MF signalling. MF (multi-
frequency) signalling is the signalling used by the majority
of the inter- and intra-lata network. It is also used in
international dialing known as the CCITT no.5 system.
MF signalling consists of 7 frequencies, beginning with 700Hz
and separated by 200Hz. A different set of two of the 7
frequencies represent the digits 0 thru 9, plus an additional
5 special keys. The frequencies and uses are as follows:
Frequencies (Hz) Domestic Int'l
700 + 900 1 1
700 + 1100 2 2
900 + 1100 3 3
700 + 1300 4 4
900 + 1300 5 5
1100 + 1300 6 6
700 + 1500 7 7
900 + 1500 8 8
1100 + 1500 9 9
1300 + 1500 0 0
700 + 1700 ST3p Code 11
900 + 1700 STp Code 12
1100 + 1700 KP KP1
1300 + 1700 ST2p KP2
1500 + 1700 ST ST
The timing of all the MF signals is a nominal 60ms, except for
KP, which should have a duration of 100ms. There should also
be a 60ms silent period between digits. This is very flexible,
however, and most Bell equipment will accept outrageous
timings.
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In addition to the standard uses listed above, MF pulsing also
has expanded usages known as "expanded inband signalling" that
include such things as coin collect, coin return, ringback,
operator attached, and operator released. KP2, code 11, and
code 12 and the ST_ps (STart "primes") all have special uses
which will be mentioned only briefly here.
To complete a call using a blue box, once seizure of a trunk
has been accomplished by sending 2600Hz and pausing for the
<beep><kerchunk>, one must first send a KP. This readies the
register for the digits that follow. For a standard domestic
call, the KP would be followed by either 7 digits (if the call
were in the same NPA as the seized trunk) or 10 digits (if the
call were not in the same NPA as the seized trunk). [Exactly
like dialing a normal fone call]. Following either the KP and
7 or 10 digits, a STart is sent to signify that no more digits
follow. Example of a complete call:
1) Dial 1-806-258-1234
2) wait for a call-progress indication
(such as ring, busy, recording, etc.)
3) Send 2600Hz for about 1 second.
4) Wait for about 2 seconds while a trunk is seized.
5) Send KP+305+994+9966+ST
The call will then connect if every-thing was done properly.
Note that if a call to an 806 number were being placed in the
same situation, the area code would be omitted and only KP+
seven digits+ST would be sent.
Code 11 and code 12 are used in international calling to
request certain types of operators. KP2 is used in
international calling to route a call other than by way of the
normal route, whether for economic or equipment reasons.
STp, ST2p, and ST3p (prime, two prime, and three prime) are
used in TSPS signalling to indicate calling type of call (such
as coin-direct dialed).
This has been Part I of Better Homes and Blue Boxing. I hope
you enjoyed and learned from it. If you have any questions,
comments, threats or insults, please fell free to drop me a
line. If you have noticed any errors in this text (yes, it
does happen), please let me know and perhaps a correction will
be in order. Part II will deal mainly with more advanced
principles of blue boxing, as well as routings and operators.
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Note 1 other highly trunkable areas include:
816,305,813,609,205. I personally have excellent luck
boxing off of 609-953-0000. Try that if you have any
trouble.
_______________________________________________________________
Better Homes and Blue Boxing
Part II: Practical Applications
_______________________________________________________________
(It is assumed that the reader has read and understood Part I
of this series).
The essential purpose of blue boxing in the beginning was
merely to receive toll services free of charge. Though this
can still be done, blue boxing has essentially outlived its
usefulness in this area. Modern day "extenders" and long
distance services provide a safer and easier way to make free
fone calls. However, you can do things with a blue box that
just can't be done with anything else. For ordinary toll-
fraud, a blue box is impractical for the following reasons:
1) Clumsy equipment required (blue box or equivalent)
2) Most boxed calls must be made through an extender. Not
for safety reasons, but for reasons I'll explain later.
3) Connections are often sacrificed because considerable
distances must be dialed to cross a seizable trunk, in
addition to awkward routing.
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As stated in reason #2, boxed calls are usually made through
an extender. This is for billing reasons. If you recall from
Part I, 2600Hz is used as a "supervisory" signal. That is, it
signals the status of a trunk--"on-hook" or "off-hook." When
you seize a trunk (by briefly sending 2600Hz), your end (the
CALLING end) goes on hook for the duration of the 2600Hz and
then goes off-hook once again when the 2600Hz is terminated.
The CALLED end recognizes that a call is on the way and
attaches a register, which interprets the digits which are to
be sent. Now, understand that even though your end has come
off-hook (no 2600Hz present), the other end is still on-hook.
You may wonder then, why, if the other end (the CALLED end) is
still on-hook, there is no 2600Hz coming the other way on the
trunk, when there should be. This is correct. 2600Hz *IS*
present on the trunk when you seize it and afterwards, but you
cannot hear it because of a Band Elimination Filter (BEF) at
your central office.
Back to the problem. Remember that when you seize a trunk,
2600Hz is indeed coming the other way on the trunk because the
CALLED end is still on-hook, but you don't actually hear it
because of a filter. However, the Bell equipment knows it's
there (they can "hear" it). The presence of the 2600Hz is
telling the billing equipment that your call has not yet been
completed (i.e., the CALLED end is still on-hook). When
finally you do connect with your boxed call, the 2600Hz from
the called end terminates. This tells the billing equipment
that someone picked up the fone at the CALLED end and you
should begin to be billed. So you do start to get billed, but
for the call to the trunk, NOT the boxed call. Your billing
equipment thinks that you've connected with the number you
used to seize the trunk. Illustration:
1) You call 1+806-258-2222 (directly)
2) Status of trunks:
<-------------------------------------->
(You) --------------------- 806-258-2222
No 2600Hz ---------><------------ 2600Hz
When you seize a trunk (before the number you called answers)
there is no affect on your billing equipment. It simply thinks
that you're still waiting for the call to complete (the CALLED
end is still on-hook; it is ringing, busy, going to recorder
or intercept operator.
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Now, let's say that you've seized a trunk (806-258-2222) and
for example, KP+314+949+1705+ST. The call is routed from the
tandem you seized to: 314-949-1705.
Illustration:
<------------------>O<----------------->
(You) ------------ 806 --------- 314-949
tandem
No 2600Hz --------- >< ---------- 2600Hz
Note that the entire path towards the right (the CALLED end)
has no 2600Hz present and is therefore "off-hook." The entire
path towards the left (the CALLING end) does have 2600Hz
present on it, indicating that the CALLED end has not picked
up (or come "off-hook"). When 314-949-1705 answers, "answer
supervision" is given and the 2600Hz towards the left (the
CALLING end) terminates. This tells your billing equipment,
which thinks that you're still waiting to be connected with
806-258-2222, that you've finally connected. Billing then
begins to 806-258-2222. Not exactly an auspicious beginning
for an aspiring young phone phreak.
To avoid this, several actions may be taken. As previously
mentioned, one may avoid being charged for the number called
to seize a trunk by using an extender (in which case the
extender will get billed). In some areas, boxing may be
accomplished using an 800 number, generally in the format of
800-858-xxxx (many Amarillo numbers) or 800-NN2-xxxx (special
intra-state class in-WATS numbers). However, boxing off of 800
numbers is impossible in many areas. In my area, Denver, I am
served by #1A ESS and it is impossible for me to box off of
any 800 number.
Years ago, in the early days of blue boxing (before my time),
phreaks often used directory assistance to box off of because
they were "free" long distance calls. However, because of
competitive long distance companies, directory assistance
surcharges are now $0.50 in many areas. It is additionally
advised that directory assistance numbers not be used to box
from because of the following:
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o Average DA calls last under 2 minutes. When you box a
call, chances are that it will last considerably longer.
Thus, the Bell billing equipment will make a note of
calls to directory assistance that last a long time. A
call to a directory assistant lasting for 4 hours and 17
minutes may appear somewhat suspicious.
o Although the date, time, and length of a DA call do not
appear on the bill, it is recorded on AMA tape and will
trip a trouble report if it were to last too long. This
is how most phreaks were discovered in the old days.
Also, sometimes too many calls lasting too long to one
800 number may raise a few eyebrows at the local security
office.
Assuming you can complete a blue box call, the following are
listed routings for various Bell internal operators. These are
in the format of KP+NPA+ special routing+1X1+ST, which I will
explain later. The 1X1 is the actual operator routing, and NPA
and NPA+ special routing are used for out-of-area code calls
and out-of-area code calls requiring special routing,
respectively.
KP+101+ST Toll test board.
KP+121+ST Inward Operator.
KP+131+ST Directory assistance.
KP+141+ST was rate & route. Now only works in 312, 815,
717, and a few others. It has been replaced
with a universal rate & route number
800+141+1212.
KP+151+ST Overseas completion operator (inbound). Works
only in certain NPAs, such as 303.
KP+181+ST In some areas, toll station for small towns.
Thus, if you seize a trunk in 806 NPA and wanted an inward (in
806), then you would dial KP+121+ST. If you wanted a 312
inward and were dialing on an 806 trunk, an area code would be
required. Thus, you would dial KP+312+121+ST. Finally, some
places in the network require special routing, in addition to
an area code. An example is Franklin Park, Ill. It requires a
special routing of 032. For this, you would dial
KP+312+032+121+ST for a Franklin Park inward operator.
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Special routings are in the format of 0XX. They are used
primarily for load balance, so that traffic flow may be evenly
distributed. About half of the exchanges in the network
require special routing. Note that special routings are NEVER
EVER EVER used to dial normal telephone numbers, only
operators.
Operator functions
Toll Test Board
Generally a cordboard position that assists in trunk testing.
They are not used by operators, only switchmen.
Inward
Assists the normal TSPS (0+) operator in completing calls out
of the TSPS's area. Also, inwards perform emergency interrupts
when the number to be interrupted is out of the area code of
the original (TSPS) operator. For example, a 303 operator has
a customer that needs an emergency interrupt on 215-647-6969.
The 303 operator gets the routing for the inward that covers
215-647, since she cannot do the interrupt herself. The
routing is found to be only 215+ (no special routing
required). So, the 303 operator keys KP+215+121+ST. An inward
answers and the 303 says to her, "Inward, this is Denver. I
need an emergency interrupt on 215-647-6969. My customer's
name is Mark Tabas." The inward will then do the interrupt
(off the line, of course). If the number to be interrupted had
required special routing, such as, say, 312-456-1234 (spec
routing 032), then the 303 operator would dial
KP+312+032+121+ST for the inward to do that interrupt.
Directory Assistance
These are the normal NPA+555+1212 operators that assist
customers with obtaining telefone directory listings. Not much
toll-fraud potential here, except maybe $0.50.
Rate and Route
These operators are reached by dialing KP+800+141+1212+ST.
They assist normal (TSPS) operators with rates and routings
(thus the name). The only uses I typically have for them are
the following:
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1. Routing-Information
In the above example, when the 303 operator needed to
dial an inward that served 215-647, she needed to know if
any special routing was required and, if so, what it was.
Assuming she would use rate and route, she would dial
them and say nicely, "Operator's route, please, for 215-
647." Rate & route would respond with "215 plus." This
means that the operator would dial KP+215+121+ST to reach
the inward that serves 215-647. If there were special
routing required, such as in 312-456, rate & route would
respond with "312 plus 032 plus." In that case, the
operator would dial KP+312+032+ST for the inward that
serves 312-456.
It is good practice to ask for "operator's route"
specifically, as there are also "numbers route" and
"directory routes." If you do not specifically ask for
operator's route, rate & route will generally assume that
is what you want anyway.
"Numbers" route refers to overseas calls. Example, you
want to know how to reach a number in Geneva, Switzerland
(and you already have the number). You would call routing
and say "Numbers route, please, Geneva, Switzerland." The
operator would respond with: "Mark 41+22. 011+041+ST
(plus) 041+22" The "Mark 41+22" has to do with billing,
so disregard it. The 011+041 is access to the overseas
gateway (to be discussed in Part III) and the 041+ 22+ is
the routing for Geneva from the overseas sender.
"Directory" routings are for directory assistance
overseas. Example: you want a DA in Rome, Italy. You
would call rate & route and say, "Directory routing
please, for Rome, Italy." They would respond with
"011+039+ST (plus) 039+1108 STart." As in the previous
example, the 011+039 is access to the overseas gateway.
The 039+1108 is a directory assistant in Rome.
2. Nameplace information
Rate & Route will give you the location of an NPA+
exchange. Example: "Nameplace please, for 215-648." The
operator would respond with "Paoli, Pennsylvania." This
isn't especially useful, since you can get the same
information (legally) by dialing 0, but using rate &
route is often much faster and it avoids having to hang
up when you are already on a trunk.
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Note On Rate & Route: As a blue boxer, always ask for
"IOTC" routings. (e.g., "IOTC operator's route",
"IOTC numbers route", etc.) This tells them that you
want cordboard-type routings, not TSPS, because a
blue boxer is actually just a cordboard position
(that Bell doesn't know about).
Overseas Completion
1. Operator (inbound)
These operators (KP+151+ST) assist in the completion of
calls coming in to the United States from overseas. There
are KP+151+ST operators only in a few NPAs in the country
(namely 303). To use one, you would seize a trunk and
dial KP+303+151+ST. Then you would tell the operator, for
example, "This is Bangladesh calling. I need U.S. number
215-561-0562 please." [in a broken Indian accent]. She
would connect you, and the bill would be sent to
Bangladesh (where I've been billing my KP+151+ST calls
for two years).
2. Other internal Bell Operators.
KP+11501+ST universal operator
KP+11511+ST conference operator
KP+11521+ST mobile operator
KP+11531+ST marine operator
KP+11541+ST long distance terminal
KP+11551+ST time & charges operator
KP+11561+ST hotel/motel operator
KP+11571+ST overseas (outbound) operator
These 115X1 operators are identical in routing to the 1X1
operators listed previously, with one exception. If
special routing is required (0XX), then the trailing 1 is
left off.
Examples
A 312 universal op ... KP+312+11501+ST.
A Franklin Park (312-456) universal op (special routing
032 required).
KP+312+032+1150+ST (The trailing 1 of 11501 is left off).
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Purposes of 115X1 operators
Universal Used for collect/callback calls to coin
stations.
Conference This is a cordboard conference operator
who will set up a conference for a
customer on a manual operation basis.
Mobile Assists in completion of calls to
mobile (IMTS) type telefones.
Marine Assists in completion of calls to ocean
going vessels.
Long Distance
Terminal Now obsolete.Was used for completion of
long distance calls.
Time & Charges Will give exact costs of calls. Used to
time calls and inform customer of
exactly how much it cost.
Hotel/Motel Handles calls to/from hotels and
motels.
3. Overseas Completion (outbound)
Assists in completion of calls to overseas points. Only
works in some, if any NPAs, because overseas assistance
has been centralized to IOCC (covered in Part III).
Note that all KP+1X1+ST and KP+115X1+ST operators
automatically assume that you are a TSPS or cordboard
operator assisting a customer with a call. Do not do
anything to jeopardize this! If you do not know what to
do, don't call these operators! Find out what to do
first.
This concludes Part II. There is one final part in which I
will explain overseas dialing, IOCC (International Overseas
Completion Centre), RQS (Rate/Quote System), and some basic
scanning.
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_______________________________________________________________
Better Homes and Blue Boxing
Part III: Advanced Signalling
_______________________________________________________________
(It is assumed that the reader has read and understood parts I
& II before proceeding to this part).
In Parts I & II, I covered basic theory and domestic
signalling and operators. In this part I will explain overseas
direct boxing, the IOCC, the RQS, and some basic scanning
methods.
Overseas Direct Boxing
Calling outside of the United States and Canada is
accomplished by using an "overseas gateway." There are 7 over-
seas gateways in the Bell System, and each one is designated
to serve a certain region of the world. To initiate an
overseas call, one must first access the gateway that the call
is to be sent on. To do this automatically, decide which
country you are calling and find its country code. Then, pad
it to the left with zeros as required so it is three digits.
[Add 1, 2, or 3 zeros as required].
Examples
Luxembourg (352) is 352 (stays the same)
Spain (34) becomes 034 (1 zero added)
U.S.S.R. (7) becomes 007 (2 zeros added)
Next, seize a trunk and dial KP+011+ CC+ST. Note that CC is
the three digit padded country code that you just determined
by the above method. [For Luxembourg, dial KP+011+352+ST,
Spain KP+011+034+ST, and the U.S.S.R. KP+011+007+ST]. This is
done to route you to the appropriate overseas gateway that
handles the country you are dialing. Even though every gateway
will allow you to dial every dialable country, it is good
practice to use the gateway that is designated for the country
you are calling.
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After dialing KP+011+CC+ST (as CC is defined above) you should
be connected to an overseas gateway. It will acknowledge by
sending a wink (which is audible as a <beep><kerchink> and a
dial tone. Once you receive international dial tone, you may
route your call one of two ways: a) as an operator-originated
call, or b) as a customer-originated call. To go as a
operator-originated call, key KP+ country code (NOT padded
with zeros)+ city code+number+ST. You will then be connected,
providing the country you are calling can receive direct-
dialed calls. The U.S.S.R. is an example of a country that
cannot.
Example of a Boxed International Call
To make a call to the Pope (Rome, Italy), first obtain the
country code, which is 39. Pad it with zeros so that it is
039. Seize a trunk and dial KP+011+039+ST. Wait for sender
dial tone and then dial KP+39+6+6982+ST. 39 is the country
code, 6 is the city code, and 6982 is the Pope's number in
Rome. To go as an operator-originated call, simply place a
zero in front of the country code when dialing on the gateway.
Thus, KP+0+39+6+6982+ST would be dialed at sender dial tone.
Routing your call as operator-originated does not affect much
unless you are dialing an operator in a foreign country
To dial an operator in a foreign country, you must first
obtain the operator routing from rate & route for that
country. Dial rate & route and if you're trying to get an
operator in Yugoslavia, say nicely, "IOTC Operator's route,
please, for Yugoslavia." [In larger countries it may be
necessary to specify a city]. Rate & route will respond with,
"38 plus 11029". So, dial your overseas gateway,
KP+011+038+ST, wait for sender dial tone, and key
KP+0+38+11029+ST. You should then get an operator in
Yugoslavia. Note that you must prefix the country code on the
sender with a 0 because presumably only an operator here can
dial an operator in a foreign country.
When you dial KP+011+CC+ST for an overseas gateway, it is
translated to a 3-digit sender code of the format 18X,
depending on which sender is designated to handle the country
you are dialing. The overseas gateways and their 3-digit codes
are listed below.
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182 White Plains, NY
183 New York, NY
184 Pittsburg, PA
185 Orlando, FL
186 Oakland, CA
187 Denver, CO
188 New York, NY
Dialing KP+182+ST would get you the sender in White Plains,
and KP+183+ST would get the sender in NYC, etc., but the
KP+011+CC+ST is highly suggested (as previously mentioned). To
find out what sender you were routed to after dialing
KP+011+CC+ST, dial (at int'l dial tone): KP+0000000+ST.
If you have difficulty in reaching a sender, call rate and
route and ask for a numbers route for the country you're
dialing. Sometimes, KP+011+ padded country code+ST will not
work. I have found this in many 3-digit country codes.
Luxembourg, country code 352, for example, should be
KP+011+352+ST theoretically. But it is not. In this case, dial
KP+011+ 003+ST for the overseas gateway. If you have trouble,
try dialing KP+00+ first digit of country code+ST, or call
rate The IOCC.
Sometimes when you call rate and route and ask for an "IOTC
numbers route" or "IOTC operators route" for a foreign
country, you will get something like "160+700" (as in the case
of the Soviet Union). This means that the country is not
dialable directly and must be handled through the
International Overseas Completion Centre (IOCC). For an IOCC
routing, pad the country code to the RIGHT with zeros until it
is 3 digits. Then KP+160 is dialed, plus the padded country
code, plus ST.
Examples:
The U.S.S.R. (7) KP+160+700+ST
Japan (81) KP+160+810+ST
Uraguay (598) KP+160+598+ST
You will then be routed to the IOCC in Pittsburg, PA, who will
ask for country, city, and number being dialed. Many times
they will ask for a ringback (thanks to Telenet Bob) so have a
loop ready. They will then place the call and call you back
(or sometimes put you through directly). Some calls, such as
to Moscow, take several hours.
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The Rate Quote System (RQS)
The RQS is the operator's rate/quote system. It is a computer
used by TSPS (0+) operators to get rate and route information
without having to dial the rate and route operator. In Part
II, I discussed getting an inward routing for dialing-
assistance and emergency interrupts from the rate and route
operators (KP+800+141+1212+ST). The same information is
available from RQS. Say you want the inward routing for 305-
994. You would seize a trunk and dial KP+009+ST (to access the
RQS). Sometimes, if you seize a trunk in an NPA not equipped
with RQS, you need to dial an NPA that is equipped with RQS
first, such as 303. Anyway, after you dial KP+009+ST or
KP+303+009+ST, you will receive a wink (<beep><kerchink>) and
then RQS dial tone. At RQS dial tone, for an inward routing
for 305-994 you would dial KP+06+305+994+ST. That is,
KP+06+NPA+exchange+ST. RQS will respond with "305 plus 033
plus". This means you would dial KP+305+033+121+ST for an
inward that services 305-994. If no special routing were
required, RQS would have responded with "305 plus" and you
would simply dial: KP+305+121+ST for an inward.
Another RQS feature is the echo feature. You can use it to
test your blue box. Dial RQS (KP+009+ST) and then key
KP+07+1234567890+ST. RQS will respond with voice
identification of the digits it recognized, between the KP+07
and ST.
RQS can also be used for rates and directory routings, but
those are seldom needed, so they have been omitted here.
Simple Scanning
If you're interested in scanning, try dialing on a trunk,
routings in the format of KP+11XX1+ST. Begin with 11001 and
scan to 11991. There are lots of interesting things to be
found there, as Doctor Who (413 area) can tell you. Those
11XX1 routings can also be prefixed with an NPA, so if you
want to scan area code 212, dial KP+212+ 11XX1+ST.
There, now you know as much about blue boxing as most phreaks.
If you read and understand the material, and put aside
preconceived ideas of what blue boxing is that you may have
acquired from inexperienced people or other bulletin boards,
you should be well on you way to an enlightening career in
blue boxing. If you follow the guidelines in Part I to box,
you should have no problem with the fone company. Comments
made by "phreaks" on bulletin boards that proclaim "tracing"
of blue boxers are nonsense and should be ignored (except for
a passing chuckle).
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Note 1: CCIS and the Downfall of Blue Boxing
CCIS stands for Common Channel Inter-office Signalling. It is
a signalling method used between electronic switching systems
that eminiates the use of 2600Hz and 3700Hz supervisory
signals, and MF pulsing. This is why many places cannot be
boxed off of; they employ CCIS, or out-of-band signalling,
which will not respond to any tones that you generate on the
line. Eventually, all existing toll equipment will be upgraded
or replaced with CCIS or T-carrier. In this case, we'll all be
boxing with microwave dishes. Until then (about 1995 by
current BOC/AT&T estimates), have fun!
If you have ANY questions about this text, please feel free to
drop me a line. I will respond to all mail, messages, etc.
Insults are also welcomed. And if you discover anything
interesting scanning, be sure to let me know.
Mark Tabas
$LOD$
This text was prepared in full by Mark Tabas for:
K.A.O.S.
Philadelphia, PA.
[215-465-3593].
Any sysop may freely download this text and use it on his/her
BBS, provided that none of it be altered in any way.
Technical acknowledgements
Karl Marx, X-Man, High-Rise Joe, Telenet Bob, Lex Luthor, TUC,
John Doe, Doctor Who (413 area), The Tone Sweep, Mr. Silicon,
K00L KAT, The Glump.
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References
1. Notes on the BOC Intra-LATA Networks Bell System
publication, 1983.
2. Notes on the Network Bell System publication, 1983.
3. Engineering and Operations in the Bell System Bell System
publication, 1983.
4. Notes on Distance Dialing Bell System publication, 1968.
5. Early Medieval Architecture.
(c) February 6, 1900
Mark Tabas
By Fred Steinbeck (TAP #88)
It seems that fewer and fewer people have blue boxes these
days, and that is really too bad. Blue boxes, while not all
that great for making free calls (since the tpc can tell when
the call was made, as well as where it was too and from), are
really a lot of fun to play with. Short of becoming a real
live TSPS operator, they are about the only way you can really
play with the network.
For the few of you with blue boxes, here are some phrases
which may make life easier when dealing with the rate & route
(R&R) operators. To get the R&R op, you send a KP + 141 + ST.
In some areas you may need to put another NPA before the 141
(i.e., KP + 213 + 141 + ST), if you have no local R&R ops.
The R&R operator has a myriad of information, and all it takes
to get this data is mumbling cryptic phrases. There are
basically four special phrases to give the R&R ops. They are
numbers route, directory route, operator route, and place
name.
You get an R&R AN area code for a city, one can call the R&R
operator and ask for the numbers route. For example, to find
the area code for Carson City, Nevada, we'd ask the R&R op for
"Carson City, Nevada, numbers route, please." and get the
answer, "Right... 702 plus." meaning that 702 plus 7 digits
gets us there.
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Sometimes directory assistance isn't just NPA + 131. The way
to get these routings is to call R&R and ask for "Anaheim,
California, directory route, please." of course, she'd tell us
it was 714 plus, which means 714 + 131 gets us the D.A. op
there. This is sort of pointless example, but I couldn't come
up with a better one on short notice.
Let's say you wanted to find out how to get to the inward
operator for Sacramento, California. The first six digits of a
number in that city will be required (the NPA and an Nxx). For
example, let us use 916 756. We would call R&R, and when the
operator answered, say, "916 756, operator route, please." The
operator would say, "916 plus 001 plus." this means that 916 +
001 + 121 will get you the inward operator for Sacramento.
Do you know the city which corresponds to 503-640? The R&R
operator does, and will tell you that it is Hillsboro, Oregon,
if you sweetly ask for "place name, 503 640, please."
For example, let's say you need the directory route for Sveg,
Sweden. Simply call R&R, and ask for, "International, Baden,
Switzerland. TSPS directory route, please." in response to
this, you'd get, "Right ... directory to Sveg, Sweden. Country
code 46 plus 1170." so you'd route yourself to an
international sender, and send 46 + 1170 to get the D.A.
operator in Sweden.
Inward operator routings to various countries are obtained the
same way "International, London, england, tsps inward route,
please." and get "Country code 44 plus 121." therefore, 44
plus 121 gets you inward for London.
Inwards can get you language assistance if you don't speak the
language. Tell the foreign inward, "United states calling.
Language assistance in completing a call to (called party) at
(called number)."
R&R operators are people are people too, y'know. So always be
polite, make sure use of 'em, and dial with care.
Note as a result of the break-up, R&R is now
KP+800+141+1212+ST
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_______________________________________________________________
Verification
_______________________________________________________________
From TAP issue # 88, 10-83
There has been a great deal of controversy in the realm of
phreakdom over a mysterious subject known under a number of
different names, including "Verification", "Autoverification",
"Verify", "Autoverify", "Verify Busy", and even "VFY BY". All
of these names basically mean the same thing: the ability to
listen to another person's telephone line from any telephone
in the direct-dialable world.
Needless to say, Bell System is very tight lipped about
knowledge regarding verification. Indeed, the infamous book
'Notes on long distance dialing' ('68 edition) says, "Care
must be taken to insure that the customer never gains
verification capabilities." With a printed policy like that,
you can imagine what their real-world policy is like! Even
their own rate and route operators will not give verification
on routing codes (at least in my experience), one even
responding, "What?! You must be crazy! We don't give those
out!" Before you get too far into this article, I will state
simply: I don't know how to verify. However, I have been
fooling with various things related to it, and collecting
information on it for some time now. Therefore, while I can't
do it (yet), I may be able to point some other bright TAPer on
the right track, and perhaps he or she will show us all how.
If you have knowledge not covered in this article, but don't
want to write an article on your own, please send your ideas,
comments, or information to Project Verify, C/O TAP Verify has
also been called "Autoverify", and I have no idea why. This is
not, to my knowledge, a Bell System term (at least I've never
seen it in any manuals) As far as I know, there is verify,
which means being able to listen to speech (kind of; see
below) on a line, and there is the "Emergency Interrupt which
allows you to take part in the conversation taking place on
the line in question. It has been suggested that "Autoverify"
is the same as an emergency interrupt , but I tend to disagree
with this idea. It should be noted that the verification
circuitry does not actually let an operator listen to a
conversation without making a beep on the line every so often.
Instead, she will hear encrypted speech. However, I believe
with the proper methods, verify can be converted to an
emergency interrupt.
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Verification is normally done either by your normal "0" (TSPS)
operator, if the call is in your home NPA (HNPA), or by an
inward operator (IO). If the call is outside your HNPA, your
normal operator will call the IO for the NPA,and say, "Verify
Busy" or "Emergency Interrupt" please, 555 1212." The IO will
perform whatever magic he or she must, and then report back.
If the call is in your HNPA, though, the "0" operator can do
the verification herself by using the "VFY BY" key on her
keyshelf. However, in some areas, the operator uses a routing
code to accomplish verification, and this the is loop hole we
shall attack.
It follows that if a IO or "0" operator can do it, so can we,
with a blue box Now, courtesy of Robert Allen (who brought it
to my attention) and Susan Thunder (who apparently discovered
it), here is what used to work for getting operators to hook
you into conversations with other people (i.e.,let you listen
to them till you hung up): You'd call the operator and say
"Operator, TSPS Maintenance Engineer Calling. Ring forward to
001 + NPA + 7d, ring back to my number, hit ring forward, no
AMA, and then position release.
This creates some problems, and you must be familiar with the
TSPS console(by dialing "0"), you are on the "back", or
incoming part of a loop. When she places a call for you, the
call goes out on the "forward", or outgoing part of the loop.
If an operator wants to make a call, she punches KP FWD
(keypulse forward), the number, and ST. Ring FWD puts a 90
volt ringing signal across the forward part of the line (and
may dial the number as well). The problem arises from the fact
that I don't know if Ring FWD will actually dial a call, and
if there is some other subtle difference between it an KP FWD.
Let us assume ringing forward makes a call from the TSPS
console to whatever number is given. Ring back causes your
phone to ring (it is assumed you hung up after giving her your
instructions; if you didn't you'd hear an annoying 90 volts
across the earpiece...) "No AMA" means "no automatic message
accounting", so nobody gets billed for the call, although it
will show up on a tape somewhere. "Position Release" removes
the operator from the circuit, and allows her to receive other
calls. This leaves an unaccounted-for ring forward.
The verification circuit, as you know, likes to encrypt
conversation, which is something we don't want. Well, the
second Ring FWD sends another 90 volts crashing against the
verify circuitry, which Juda Gerad thinks removes the voice
encryption from the line, puts the operator (and you) in
circuit, and puts a beep tone on the line every five seconds.
This seems to make sense, and I am inclined to agree with him.
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The bit about "....001 + NPA + 7D" causes the thought "MF
routing code" to spring immediately to mind. Now, the above
trick was supposed to work in the 213 NPA. I have tried both
"KP+001+213+7D+ST", and some other area codes. I generally get
nothing, a reorder signal, or a tandem recording.
Here's some food for thought: On an official Telco sheet I
have, labeled " 213 NPA MF Routing Codes", 001 is listed as
"VFY BY", or verify busy for the 213 NPA. 002 is listed for
the 805 NPA. Ma Bell likes to have standardized routing codes,
such logical, then, that 001 would be a sort of "standard"
verify code, and other prefixes would be tacked on at 002,003,
etc. However, I have heard from a retired operator that
verification codes are different from area to area, and are
not always nice numbers like 001, 002. Ah, well, a guy can
hope, can't he?
Some suggestions for future attacks on this dilemma: Everyone
call your operators and subtly ask questions. I have found the
tend to give information out easier if you ask for something
that you would ordinarily have to be a company employee to
know about, such as rate steps, operator routings, etc.
Casually let slip that you used to be (or still are) an
operator, or that you work for company security. Also, you
might want to blue box some codes like 001 followed by your
NPA and the last 7D of a busy number. If you get a sort of
"whispery noise", try blasting the line with a ringing signal
(you might piggyback another line onto yours and call the
piggyback to generate the 90 volts) and see if that does
anything.
_______________________________________________________________
Equal Access and the American Dream
_______________________________________________________________
By Mark Tabas
P.O. Box 620401
Littleton, CO 80162
July 7, 1985
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The American Dream means many things to many people. To the
small, typical businessman, it means building a good, strong
business based on hard work and perseverance; indeed, with
nothing limiting his potential but he amount of work he is
willing to put into his business. To a large businessman, the
American Dream means living and working in a country where a
single corporation can have a profit exceeding the gross
national product of an entire third world nation.
To the individual, the American Dream is the right to choose -
- everything from one's breakfast cereal to a long-distance
service, as well as the formal right outlined by our founding
fathers: those of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
To the phone phreak, I think the American Dream is, in a sort
of twisted way, the uninhibited pursuit of knowledge. This
quest could scarcely remain unchecked in many other countries.
Analogous to this quest is the thriving of the Bell System,
which until January 1, 1984 consisted of the American
Telephone and Telegraph Company, the largest corporation in
the history of the world. Did the American Dream die on
January first or did the divestiture of AT&T cause a giant
step forward for competition and free enterprise in the United
States? I do not know. I do know that the other nations of the
world were amazed that the United States would dissolve the
entity that brought the finest and most universal telephone
system in the world, and did so at a time when the majority of
the rest of the world was still using two dixie cups and a
string.
The unfairness of the situation is that AT&T built the
telephone system of this nation and is now being bound and
gagged and having its possessions distributed to others, whom
AT&T also wrought. All in the name of fairness, free
competition, and "equal access". Where was was MCI during the
century that AT&T built he communications system of this
nation? Well, I believe in Equal Access, Wholly. And, since I
believe in equal access and its implications for equality for
all so strongly, I feel that MCI, Sprint, and others should
take the same amount of time to build their respective toll
networks: 100 years. Therefore, if the United States Justice
Department were truly the fair and just administrator that it
portrays itself to be, MCI would not have a hand in the long-
distance cache until about 2080. That's only fair.
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There is no doubt that MCI is a sub-standard organization.
They consist of incompetent employees, inferior equipment, and
an inferior marketing strategy. They are mockingly imitative
of AT&T, except in the quality of their service, which is
practically unusable. It is also interesting that with less
than 2% market share, MCI calls itself "the nation's long-
distance company." The point to this diatribe is this. It's
time for these long-distance companies such as MCI and Sprint
to grow up. With Equal Access, they are going to become real
long-distance companies, not the joke organizations they are
now, and I think it may just take them one hundred years to do
so.
Equal Access
Equal Access, as it applies to the telecommunications
industry, is "the requirement that each Bell Operating Company
provide exchange access to all long-distance carriers that is
equal in type and quality to that provided AT&T
communications." This is the official provision set forth by
the United States Justice Department in the Modification of
the Final Judgment, August 24, 1982. All this means is that
each long-distance-distance company will have "equal access"
to all of the same types of services that AT&T currently
enjoys. There are four types of long-distance carrier
services, divided into "feature groups." They follow.
FG A "line side access." This is the standard 7-digit
dialup+code (for billing purposes) +destination
telephone number. It is currently in use by most
long-distance carriers.
FG B "trunk side access." These are the 950 exchange
numbers. They also utilize an authorization code for
billing. As with FG A, automatic number
identification (ANI) (i.e. calling number) is not
provided to the carrier, but will be in the future.
FG C "1+ dialing." Currently, only AT&T is able to get
this type of service. It is 1/0+7 of 10 digit direct
long distance dialing. ANI (for billing) is
provided.
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FG D "equal access." This will allow for 1/0+7 or 10
digit direct long-distance dialing (presubscription
carrier) and 10xxx+1/0+7 or 10 digit long-distance
dialing (alternate carrier). ANI for billing is
provided at the long-distance carrier's option.
Billing may also be handled by the individual long
distance company or the local Bell Operating
Company.
Feature groups C and D are mutually exclusive (i.e. both
cannot exist in a particular area at the same time). Areas
which have Feature Group C (AT&T long-distance only) are non-
Equal Access, and areas which have Feature Group D (multiple
long distance carriers) are Equal Access regions.
Feature Group B, the 950 exchange numbers will be used in
areas in which it is not feasible to provide with Equal
Access, such as step-by-step offices (yes, they CAN have 950
numbers), some crossbar offices, and some independent telcos,
which are not bound by the provisions of Equal Access and may
provide to their customers any type of long-distance
service(s) they wish. The 950 exchange is now active in many
areas. It is mainly used as a universal "roaming" access port
for many long-distance carriers, but when an office is
converted to Equal Access, the 950 capability is removed.
Thus, in an Equal Access region, one cannot complete a call to
a 950 telephone number.
I personally am looking very forward to Equal Access. My area
is not scheduled for full implementation of it until late 1985
or early 1986, and by this time many of the alternate long
distance carriers' networks will be in place (or well under
way). Think about what Equal Access means. Equality for all
long distance carriers. Access to common facilities, such as:
busy-line verification lines, Bell System information,
signalling specifications. etc. After full implementation of
Equal Access, one will be able to take advantage of and
manipulate the services of more than just one carrier. It will
no longer be phreaks vs. AT&T.
When your area is ready to initiate Equal Access, you will
receive a notice in the mail informing you of some of the
details of Equal Access, and will ask you to specify your
choice of "primary carrier." In some cases you will need to
specify both inter-LATA carrier (IC), which handles calls out
of your LATA (Local Access and Transport Area), and an
international carrier (INC), which will handle calls destined
for other countries. Recent market studies have shown that
between 80 and 90 per cent of residential customers will
continue to be served by AT&T for their long-distance service
after Equal Access. So much for competition.
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You will probably be faced with many long-distance companies
to choose from, including but not limited to: AT&T, MCI,
Sprint, ITT, Western Union, Dial U.S., Call America, TMC, and
U.S. Telephone. Whichever you choose will become your "primary
carrier." Your primary carrier will handle your call each time
you pick up you fone and dial 1+7 or 10 digits or 0+7 or 10
digits, inter-LATA only. That is, if you dial a toll call that
is within your LATA, it will be handled by your local
telephone company (Bell), not by your primary carrier, even
though it is a toll call. Let's use an example. The state of
Colorado consists of two LATAs. For this example, I will use
three cities in Colorado:
o Denver (in LATA1)
o Sterling (LATA1 also)
o Colorado Springs (in LATA2).
Note here that even though Denver ad Sterling are in the same
LATA, and Denver and Colorado Springs are not, Sterling is
actually much farther away from Denver than Colorado Springs.
This is because LATA boundaries were designed giving
consideration to high toll-traffic regions, to bring in
revenue. Toll traffic between Denver and Colorado Springs is
very high, so the two cities were placed in separate LATAs
(or, more correctly, they were separated by a LATA boundary).
Toll traffic between Denver and Sterling is very low, of the
two cities were allowed to remain in the same LATA. Now, if
everyone in Colorado Springs were to pack up and move to
Sterling (though who knows what the hell for), the LATA
boundaries in Colorado would be changed so that Denver and
Sterling were in different LATAs. The primary factor in
determining LATAs is money.
If I made a call to Sterling from my home in Denver, the call
would be routed entirely via Mountain Bell long-distance
facilities. No long distance carrier would be involved because
Denver and Sterling are in LATA1. If I made a call to Kelley,
the blonde babe in Colorado Springs, the call would be handled
by a long distance carrier (in this case, AT&T) because Denver
is in LATA1 and Colorado Springs is in LATA2. Here is a table
to simplify this:
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Customer dials LATA Carrier
7 digits same Bell
1+7 digits same Bell
1+7 digits diff LD carrier (currently AT&T)
1+10 digits diff LD carrier (currently AT&T)
Note several things here. First, not all areas need to dial a
1 when dialing any number, local or long distance, but the
central offices will still discern whether the call is in the
same LATA as the customer or a different one and handle the
call appropriately. Secondly, some step-by-step offices
require a 1+NPA to be dialed for calls within the same LATA
and, in fact, all numbers outside of the office itself. But,
for the most part, the above table is standard for common
switching networks.
Alternate Carriers
Your normal long distance carrier will handle all your toll
calls which cross over LATA boundaries when you dial directly,
1+. If you wish to place your call via another carrier's
network, whether for cost, quality, or circuit availability
reasons, you may do so in Equal Access regions. To access an
alternate long distance carrier after Equal Access, a customer
dials 10xxx+1/0+7 or 10 digit telefone number. Note that xxx
is the "carrier access code (CAC)." A few CACs currently in
use are listed below.
220 Western Union 666 Lexitel
222 MCI 777 Sprint
333 US Telefone 888 SBS
444 Allnet
Thus, in an Equal Access region, to dial Fred in Orlando, a
customer would dial 1+305+994+9966 to place his call on his
primary carrier, or to place it on another network, he could
dial: 10222+1+305+994+9966, and the call would go over MCI
facilities (in this case). Eventually, after many more long
distance services get into the act, there will be a directory
of the various long distance companies and their CACs, and
deciding which carrier to use for any particular call to get
the bet rate will be beyond the ability of everyone except
phone phreaks.
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The 950 Exchange
As discussed, the 950 central office exchange is currently a
"roaming" access port for various long distance carriers. In
areas that have 950, the access to carriers is standardized.
Thus, someone travelling to several different areas need only
know the 950 number of the carrier he uses to access it from
any area (provided that it have 950 active). Originally, the
950 exchange was designed to correspond with the 10xx carrier
access code used for Equal Access. For example, 950-1022 would
be the same carrier as 1022 (+telephone number). However, it
was later found that the 100 codes available for use as 10xx
CACs would be insufficient to handle he number of long
distance carriers. So, the common carrier access code was
increased by one digit, to 10xxx, thus increasing the number
of possible CACs to 1000. To keep the 950 exchange consistent
with the non CAC, the Bell Operating Companies have opted to
change the 950-10xx to 950-0xxx. The xxx in the 950-0xxx
remains the same as the xxx in the 10xxx carrier access code.
The new modified 950 numbering pan is now active in
Philadelphia (Bell Atlantic) among other areas.
After Equal Access is well under way, the 950 exchange will be
used in certain areas that cannot be equipped for the standard
Equal Access dialing plans. This includes step-by-step, #1
crossbar, #5 crossbar, #2ESS, and #3ESS offices. Customers in
areas served by these types of switching equipment will dial
950-0xxx, wait for acknowledgement tone from the carrier, and
then dial a "personal identification number" and destination
telefone number,and the call will be completed on the selected
carrier's facilities. Initially, billing will be handled by
the carrier itself, and supervisory information and ANI will
not be provided by the local Bell Operating Company.
There are three main advantages to the 950 central office
exchange and protocol. They are:
a) universal access for all areas
b) 950-exchange numbers are "trunk side access." This means
that the long distance carrier has direct trunks going to
it from a Bell toll office or local central office. These
trunks are interoffice lines, not customer type (POTS)
lines, and supposedly insure higher quality of
connection.
c) 950-exchange numbers are toll and message unit free. On
metered-usage (i.e., not "flat rate") customer lines,
they cost nothing. In most areas they are free from coin
stations, with Colorado as one notable exception.
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Costs
Each long-distance carrier must choose the type(s) of service
it wishes to provide to its customers. These different types
of service were outlined earlier as "Feature Groups." The
costs of these Feature Groups vary directly with the
complexity and quality of the service itself. The following
table outlines the cost to the carrier of each available
Feature Group. It is based on the monthly rate per line for
9000 minutes of circuit use, and assumes the carrier and Bell
switch are 15 miles apart.
FG non-Equal Access Equal Access
A .............. $329.94 ...... $709.20
B ............... 329.94 ....... 721.80
C ............... 752.40 ....... N/A
D .............. N/A ........... 752.40
These figures are a lot more significant than they might
appear. They indicate that after Equal Access, in order to
compete with the giants such as AT&T, MCI, etc., smaller long
distance companies will use Feature Group A or B type service
in order to provide significantly lower rates to their
customers than companies subscribing to Feature Group D
service (like AT&T, MCI, etc). This will cause a unique type
of equilibrium to form. Customers willing to dial an access
number, authorization code, and destination number and put up
with lower quality service will be able to save a lot of
money. This seems faintly reminiscent of pre-Equal Access
times....
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Directory Assistance
Each Bell Operating Company will be responsible for providing
intra-LATA operator services. When a customer dials (1)+411 or
(1)+555+1212 for local directory assistance, he will reach a
Bell operator who will service requests for listed numbers
within the customer's LATA. Requests for numbers in LATAs
other than the calling customer's may be handled at the
discretion of the local operating company. Initially, the Bell
Operating Companies will meet the responsibility for providing
directory assistance services by contracting it to a long
distance carrier or carriers (currently AT&T). All inter-LATA
directory assistance services will be provided by the inter-
LATA carrier (IC). ICs may also provide 800 Enterprise service
or other toll free type directory assistance services. See
table.
Intra-LATA
HNPA 411/555-1212 BOC
*FNPA NPA+555-1212 BOC
HNPA 10xxx+555-1212 intra-LATA carrier
*FNPA 10xxx+NPA+555-1212 intra-LATA carrier
Inter-LATA
HNPA (10xxx)+1+555-1212 IC
FNPA (10xxx)+1+NPA+555-1212 IC
* When LATA boundaries cross NPA boundaries (rare).
FNPA Foreign Numbering Plan Area (area code).
HNPA Home Numbering Plan Area (area code).
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At first glance, the above table appears somewhat complex.
But, if you understand the concept of LATAs and carriers, it
is easily understood. Essentially, all local Bell Operating
Companies will maintain their own directory assistance
services. When a customer dials 411 or 555-1212, he will reach
a BOC directory assistant. Additionally, each long distance
carrier that wishes to provide directory assistance to its
customers will also have DA facilities. And, when a customer
dials a directory assistant (NPA+555-1212) on a carrier, he
will reach an operator of that particular long distance
carrier. The key here is LATAs. If a customer wants to find a
number that is within his LATA, no long distance carrier is
involved. It is handled strictly by the Local Bell Operating
Company. If a customer is seeking a number that is not within
his LATA, he must use the services of an inter-LATA (long-
distance) carrier.
TSPS Operator Services
Traffic Service Position System (TSPS) operator services will
be handled much in the same fashion as directory assistance
services, with a few differences. As with DAs, each Bell
Operating Company and each inter-LATA carrier will maintain
its own TSPS operator facilities (or cordboard I suppose, if
they cannot afford TSPS). When a customer dials simply 0
(operator), he will reach a BOC TSPS operator. The BOC TSPS
will be able to handle all types of intra-LATA operator-
assisted traffic including (but not limited to): collect,
third party billing, Bell credit card, coin, verification and
emergency interrupt, and requests for emergency aid. BOC TSPS
will be unable to complete calls for customers outside of the
customer's LATA.
Thus, inter-LATA operator assistance will be handled by an
inter-LATA carrier TSPS (IC TSPS). An IC TSPS will handle all
previously mentioned types of calls that require inter-LATA
transport (i.e., the call originates and terminates in
different LATAs). When a customer dials 0+NXX-XXXXX or
0+NPA+NXX-XXXX, the central office will determine if the call
is destined for another LATA. If it is not, the call will be
sent to the Bell TSPS for appropriate handling. If the call is
bound for another LATA (and his determination is made based on
the NXX or NPA+NXX), then the call will be sent off to the
customer's primary long-distance carrier (since only 0+ was
dialed). If the customer wishes to use a different carrier's
operator services, he would dial 10xxx+0+number, and the
carrier specified by the 10xxx carrier access code would
receive the call.
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Note If a customer dials 10xxx+0+number, and the call is an
intra-LATA call, he will get a recording, "We're sorry,
the number you dialed cannot be reached with the carrier
access code you dialed. Please check the code and try
again or call your carrier for assistance." (Western
Electric KS-22550 central office tape list no. 46.) Until
the Bell Operating Companies can install their own TSPS
facilities and networks, they will (continue to) lease
capacity from AT&T TSPS. That is, AT&T will handle the
intra-LATA traffic for the BOCs on a contract basis. In
the meantime, AT&T will continue to handle its own long-
distance operator services while the other inter-LATA
carriers will have to implement their own operator
networks from scratch. My estimation is that you won't be
able to dial 10222+0 for an MCI TSPS operator until
sometime around the year 2590. And even then they will
probably be cordboard.
In addition to the changes in TSPS described above, there will
be certain modifications to the software and hardware involved
in the TSPS operator system. Most critical, and of paramount
importance to the telecommunications enthusiast is changes in
circuit associated signalling (CAS). This is signalling to and
from the TSPS facility. When a customer dials 0 (operator) or
10xxx+0 (IC operator), a succession of events occurs. First,
the end office seizes a trunk to the appropriate operator
facility (this assumes that no access tandem is involved). The
operator service facility responds with a wink (proceed
signal) and the end office outpulses the CALLED number (or
KP+ST if 0 only dialed). The operator service (OS) facility
will then come off-hook to signal that it is ready to receive
ANI information. The end office outpulses the ANI information
in the format of KP+II+7 digits+ST (or ST'). If there is ANI
failure, a KP+02+ST (or ST') will be sent. "ST'" stands for
STart "prime", and is indicative of a coin call (i.e., dial 0
from a coin station). A normal ST terminating the ANI sequence
means that the call is originating from a noncoin station. See
table for ultimate description.
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Inter-LATA calls MF-Pulsed
type of call customer dials cld num
ANI
noncoin:
direct dialed 10xxx+1+7/10d KP+7/10d+ST'' KP+II+7d+ST
operator assist 10xxx+0 KP+ST''' KP+II+7d+ST
special toll 10xxx+0+7/10d KP+7/10d+ST''' KP+II+7d+ST
coin:
direct dialed 10xxx+1+7/10d KP+7/10d+ST KP+II+7d+ST
operator assist 10xxx+0 KP+ST' KP+II+7d+ST
special toll 10xxx+0+7/10d KP+7/10d+ST' KP+II+7d+ST
Intra-LATA calls
noncoin:
direct dialed 10xxx+1+7/10d KP+7/10d+ST'' KP+II+7d+ST'
operator assist 10xxx+0 KP+ST''' KP+II+7d+ST'
special toll 10xxx+0+7/10d KP+7/10d+ST''' KP+II+7d+ST'
coin:
direct dialed 10xxx+1+7/10d KP+7/10d+ST KP+II+7d+ST'
operator assist 10xxx+0 KP+ST' KP+II+7d+ST'
special toll 10xxx+0+7/10d KP+7/10d+ST' KP+II+7d+ST'
Note ST Start
ST' STart prime
ST'' Start double prime
ST''' STart triple prime.
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Once again, the above table appears somewhat intimidating in
its complexity. All these STs, ST primes, etc. Actually, the
only purpose of the starts is to distinguish to the TSPS
machine exactly what type of call the customer is placing and
from what type of telefone he is calling. "Special toll" calls
are collect, credit card, and third-party billing type calls.
Here is an example of a complete dialing and outpulsing
sequence for an operator service call:
from a coin fone, a customer dials 0+ (or 10xxx+) 303+979-
9997. The central office would seize a trunk to the operator
service facility and outpulse: KP+303+979-9997+ST'. This
indicates to the operator service facility that the call is a
special toll call originating from a coin telephone. The OS
facility comes off-hook and the central office would then
outpulse KP+00+232+9969+ST. This is he ANI information, and
the ST indicates that the call is inter-LATA (if it were
intra-LATA, the sequence would be terminated with ST'
instead).
Perhaps now I should explain screening. Certain telefones are
"screened" against placing certain types of calls. A screening
code is a two digit information carrier. For instance, 00 is
"identified line" (no special treatment), 01 is multiparty ONI
(operator number identification), 02 is ANI failure, 06 is
hotel/motel, 07 is coinless (hospital/inmate fone), 08 is
inter-LATA restricted, 68 is hotel inter-LATA restricted, 78
is coinless (hospital inmate) inter-LATA restricted, etc. A 98
is an AT&T Charge-A-Call fone (those blue fuckers). More
screening codes are allocated as they are needed. Note that
the original TSPS screening design only allowed for single
digit information digits. They were later found to be
insufficient.
I believe that the operator services have been adequately
covered, so I will now move on to other aspects of Equal
Access.
Routing Codes
The TTC (terminating toll centre) and special routing codes
will continue to be used in inter-LATA networks. These 0xx and
1xx type codes, which sometimes precede operator routing
codes, will be assigned to various ICs on an individual basis.
When 0xx and 1xx codes serve as pseudo-central office code,
they will be coordinated such that it will avoid IC conflicts.
The Numbering/Dialing Planning Group of the Central Services
Organization (sounds like some sort of Communist governing
body) will provide assistance where the assignment of
coordinated codes is necessary.
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Special Area Codes
Special area codes, also called Service Area Codes (SACs)
presented the designers of Equal Access with an interesting
problem. SACs are N00 type area codes, such as 700, 800, and
900. They are used for special services and unlike normal area
codes, are not associated with a particular state or region.
Each long distance carrier will be allocated its own exchanges
in each service area code. Thus, when a customer places a call
to a number in a service area code, the central office will
examine the exchange of the telefone number and route the call
over the proper carrier's facilities. The customer will be
totally oblivious to this process. Current SACs include 700
(teleconferencing), 800 (toll free services), and 900 (dial-it
services). There are currently plans under way to implement
the 600 area code, although its exact uses are not yet clear.
Signalling to IC
Each long distance carrier that wishes to serve a particular
LATA must establish a point of presence (POP) in that LATA. A
carrier's POP is a toll office that receives toll traffic
destined for another LATA. A POP is a centre for inter-LATA
transport of toll traffic. This traffic will be directed to it
from a Bell central office, either an end office or an access
tandem (AT). An access tandem is simply a Bell office which
directs long distance traffic from a number of local end
offices to a number of different inter-LATA carriers. To pass
call details (such as called and calling numbers) from the
Bell local office to the inter-LATA carrier, a signalling
system was designed that employs current multifrequency (MF)
signalling protocol. When a customer dials
10xxx+(1/0)+(NPA)+NXX+, the end office will seize a trunk to
the appropriate IC as determined by the 10xxx CAC (or primary
carrier if no CAC is dialed).
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Note This happens as soon as the customer finishes dialing the
exchange, even though he may still be dialing the last
four digits of he telefone number. After the end office
has seized a trunk to the IC, the IC will return a wink,
which is the signal to proceed. Then, the end office will
send ANI information, in the format of: KP+II+10 digit
ANI+ST. If the carrier is not to receive ANI information
from the Bell Operating Company (i.e., they are not
paying for it), then only KP+ST is sent. Presumably, by
now the customer has completed dialing the last four
digits of the destination telefone number, so the end
office will send: KP+7 or 10 digit CALLED number+ST.
Note several things here:
1. The IC does not send a wink when it is ready to receive
CALLED number information.
2. ANI information is ten digits, plus a two-digit screening
code, and
3. The central office's outpulsing to the IC overlaps the
customer's dialing.
Some ANI screening codes include: 00 (identified POTS), 01
(ONI multiparty), 02 (ANI failure), 06 (hotel without room
identification), 07 (coinless, hospital, inmate, etc.), 08
(inter-LATA restriction), 10 (test call), 20 (AIOD calls,
listed DN sent), 27 (coin call), and 95 (test call). These are
the same or similar as the screening codes used in operator
service signalling.
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In addition to the domestic signalling design outlined above,
a new international signalling system has been designed for
use with Equal Access. It also uses two-stage, overlapping
outpulsing. After a customer has completed dialing
(10xxx)+011+CC (CC is country code), the Bell end office will
seize a trunk to he appropriate IC (or international carrier,
if direct routing is available). The IC/INC will respond with
a wink, and the end office will outpulse: KP+1NX+YXX+CCC+ST.
Each of these three groups of routing information indicate
something different abut the international call being placed.
The 1NX is the "international system routing code, one for
each type of call routing." I have absolutely no idea what
that means, and no one I have talked to at Bell, AT&T, MCI,
CCITT, ITT, the CSO and FCC have any idea either. Next, the
YXX is the carrier routing code. It is actually XXX, Which is
the three digits of the 10xxx CAC for the particular carrier
being accessed. Finally, CCC is the country code, padded with
a zero if necessary.
One may wonder why the CAC is signalled forward when a trunk
is seized directly to the carrier itself. The reason for this
is that in some cases a direct trunk to the carrier is not
available and the call must be routed through an access
tandem, which is responsible for routing calls to a variety of
different long distance carriers.
Switch Compatibility
Full-feature Equal Access will become available first for
Western Electric #1ESS switching systems. It will be available
first in generic 1E8 (1AE8 for #1A ESS). Later, generic 5E2
for #5ESS, generic 2B4 for #2B ESS, generic BCS-16 for
Northern Telecom DMS-100, and generics 209 and 302 for DMS-10
will provide full-feature Equal Access capabilities in those
types of end office switching equipment. The Western Electric
#4ESS, #1 and 1A ESS, #5ESS, and the Northern Telecom DMS-200
machines which serve as toll offices or access tandems will be
capable of receiving the new Equal Access signalling format,
after required generic development. Other switches (such as
all crossbar offices) will not be able to handle the new
signalling format.
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LATAs
LATAs, Local Access and Transport Areas, are the entire key to
the administration of Equal Access. They can be thought of as
miniature area codes. A telefone call can never cross a LATA
boundary except on an inter-LATA carrier. However, there are
certain exceptions to this. For example, in the state of
Colorado, which consists of two LATAs, the local Bell
Operating Company (Mountain Bell), which serves as the intra-
LATA (i.e., calls to/from the same LATA) carrier, may also
serve as inter-LATA (to/from different LATAs) carrier within
Colorado.
There are also exceptions in the corridor region of the New
York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania area.
The forty-eight continental United States consist of 161
LATAs. Some states, such as Deleware, consist of only one
LATA, while others, such as Illinois, can have up to 14 or
more. Each LATA is given a name. For instance, Pennsylvania
consists of six LATAs: Philadelphia, Capital, Northeast,
Altoona, Pittsburgh, and Erie (independent telco).
A Few Thoughts
In 1973, Chrysler, A&P, RCA, Phillips Petroleum, S.S. Kresge,
Boeing Aircraft, International Harvester, Woolworth's,
Greyhound, Firestone, Litton, and General Foods, among others,
each reported annual profits of less than $150 million. In
that same year, the Telephone Company wrote off, as being
uncollectable, debts of $150 million.
In 1974, the Bell System had direct interests in at least 276
organizations, many of them not related to the telefone
industry. Bell also had interlocking financial arrangements
with such corporations as the Chase Manhattan Bank, IBM,
Prudential Insurance, Sears Roebuck, General Motors, U.S.
Steel, and Lever Brothers. Should the need have arisen, the
Bell System in 1974 could have exercised control of 400
billion dollars, fully one-third of that year's gross national
product.
From Hyde, J. Edward, The Phone Book. Henry Regnery Publishing
Company, Chicago Illinois, 1976. ISBN 0-8092-8008-6.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 214
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There are many viewpoints as to the future course of the
telefone industry. The general consensus among most Telco
employees is that the children of AT&T (i.e., the seven
regional holding companies into which the Bell System was
divided) will someday be reassembled into the original Bell
System, and all will be well and good in the world of
telecommunications again. I tend to disagree with this. I
think that within three decades the entire telefone industry
will be consolidated and nationalized. It will be owned and
operated entirely by the United States Federal Government.
This will accomplish several goals of the government. First,
the immense revenue from telefone services will provide great
financial resources for the federal government. Rates for
telefone services will skyrocket far out of the range of
affordability, quality of service will deteriorate to a point
of unusability, and meanwhile politicians will get rich.
Second, once the government controls the telefone system,
monitoring the general public will become infinitely easier.
Big Brother will be able to keep and eye, or rather, an ear on
the general population, and giant step forward in ultimate
government control of peoples' lives will be achieved. Most
people won't know anything about this, and even if they do,
they won't give a shit because by then the fucking government
will have already invaded every remaining private aspect of
the individual's life.
To those who find it utterly unthinkable that the federal
government would ever assume control of the telefone industry,
I would call attention to the situation that existed between
1917 and 1919. During this time the government controlled the
phone system of the United States. J. Edward Hyde sums it up
beautifully:
Between 1917 and 1919, the Federal Government did
control the phone industry. Since then, the most
charitable historians have blamed the subsequent
mess on the First World War. Others blame it on the
democrats. But the fact is that it was a fiasco of
the bureaucracy's own making, combined with
intracompany sabotage.
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Today, in those countries where the phone service is
nationally owned, the service runs from poor to
nonexistent. Would you want the government that gave
you the Russian wheat deals, Defense Department
overruns, Amtrak, and the Postal Service handling
your phone problems?
From Hyde, J. Edward, The Phone Book. Henry Regnery Publishing
Company, Chicago, Illinois, 1976. ISBN 0-8092-8008-6, p.
170.
Technical References
o Notes on the BOC intra-LATA Networks. American Telephone
& Telegraph Company, 1983.
o The Phone Book. J. Edward Hyde, 1976.
o Bell System Technical Journal. Volume 58, Number 5.
o Engineering and Operations in the Bell System. American
Telephone & Telegraph Company, 1983.
Acknowledgements
Karl Marx, Telenet Bob, and the scores of Telco employees in
Denver, White Plains, Omaha, and North Jersey who were very
helpful in patiently answering my many questions about Equal
Access.
Thanks to Mack the Knife for magnetic transfer of this
illustrious file, a tedious task for which I have no time.
Thanks to the following printers for their cooperation and
professional manner in helping me with final production of
this file:
Kinko's Print Shop
7155 West Colfax
Lakewood, CO
Office Products and Printing
5035 S. Kipling Suite B4
Littleton, CO
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 216
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This has been a Mark Tabas Encounter Series production.
Questions, comments, and requests may be addressed to:
Tabas
P.O. Box 620401
Littleton, CO 80162
Requests for copies of this or any other Encounter Series file
are honored for free, but please enclose a self-addressed
medium sized first class mailing envelope with 73 cents
postage.
Special thanks to Steve Reger, who was kind enough to shoot my
neighbor's dog, whose incessant barking constantly distracted
me as I labored to complete this file.
(for Amy) cl/KIABB!/jd
_______________________________________________________________
Equal Access and Modem Autodialers by Shadow 2600
_______________________________________________________________
Now that AT&T is being divested of its local telephone
companies, phone customers across the nation have to choose
their long distance carrier as equal access is phased in.
Advertising campaigns emphasize such aspects as low rates and
operator assistance, but no one mentions a factor that will
affect modem users who use auto dialers for long distance
calls. Not all of the alternate long distance carriers provide
called party answering supervision on all calls. Called party
answering supervision basically has the telephone company
start billing only when the called party answers the
telephone. However, many of the alternate long distance
companies still operate with the "fixed timeout" basis for
charging. That is, if a call is held for a fixed length of
time (usually 30 seconds) the charging starts, whether or not
the call was answered. This could cause modem owners large
bills if they use autodialers to make long distance calls.
Modems are usually set up to wait up to one minute when
attempting to make a call, and thus have to timeout through
busy signals, long call setup sequences, extender waits, and
similar problems. This could result in many billed but never
answered calls.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 217
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Some of the other carriers provide it on calls to some cities,
and others not support it at all. Only AT&T Communications
provides called party answering supervision on all calls to
all points at this time. It is almost impossible to get
information on how a long distance company charges its calls
as as they don't want to reveal how their billing is handled.
The alternate carriers get called party supervision when the
destination location goes equal access. However, there has
been no quick action on the part of the alternate long
distance companies to make use of the supervision data as they
would have to get equipment for passing the information back
to the billing computer at the originating point. Thus called
party answering supervision information often ends up being
ignored by these carriers even when available.
Another point to remember is that called party answering
supervision's availability depends on whether the destination
has equal access, not the originating location. The lower long
distance rates of alternate long distance rates must be
weighed against the time out problem as it affects autodialing
modems. One way to circumvent this is merely to set your modem
to a shorter waiting-for-connect time, but this may not
provide enough time for the call to go through.
For more information on this and other telecommunications
topics call the Private Sector BBS at (201) 366- 4431]
_______________________________________________________________
Toward Universal Information Services Via ISDN
_______________________________________________________________
Phrack Inc.
Volume One, Issue Two, Phile #6 of 9
by Taran King
From PROTO newsletter of AT&T Bell Laboratories
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 218
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Phase One
The Present
The local network of today, although still largely voice-
oriented, is already on the path to Universal Information
Services. Lightguide fiber is dramatically expanding the
capacity of local networks, helping to lower the costs and
increase the demand for high-band width, Information Age
services. And public networks are increasingly digital and
geared for data and special services. For example:
o The AT&T Network Systems 5ESS (TM <riiiight>) switch,
designed by Bell Laboratories, can serve as the hub of a
local deployment of remote modules at locations up to 100
miles from a host central office.
o The Integrated Special Services Network (ISSN) is a
channel network that provides special services, customer
control options and digital private lines rearrangeable
under software control. The ISSN incorporates digital
carrier terminating equipment such as the D4 Channel
Bank, D5 Digital Terminal System and Digital Access and
Cross-connect System (DACS).
o The New Centrex is bringing greater levels of customer
control, improved services and a broad range of data
capabilities to the business customer.
Today's public networks consist of multiple or overlay
networks. The public switched network, or circuit network,
mainly for voice, is the base network. Two kinds of overlay
networks provide special services. Channel networks carry
private lines leased by large customers and transmit much of
today's data and image traffic; they also handle traffic for
network operations support. Packet networks carry data
communications, while packet switching is used internally to
public networks for common channel signaling to set up, route
and take down calls, or to give customers information.
"Overlay networks help telecommunications companies
efficiently meet growing demand for digital transmission and
special services," says Stan Johnston, Market Planning
Manager, Network Systems Evolution, in AT&T Network Systems.
"Their integration into a single network, however, would be
still more effective."
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 219
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Phase Two
The Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN)
The ISDN is a concept to which AT&T is committed - and it's
the foundation for Universal Information Services. The central
idea of ISDN, as AT&T Network Systems sees it, is to provide
an individual user a link to the local central office of
generous band-width - a digital subscriber line that can carry
144,000 bits per second (sure beats 2400 baud!). The band-
width is subdivided into two 64,000-bit channels, which may
carry voice or data or both, and one 16,000-bit channel for
packetized signaling information or data transport. Such a
link provides convenient "integrated" network access by
accommodating voice, data and signaling over a single line.
The ISDN will make it easier for a customer to get varied
services from public and private networks. More bandwidth for
big customers will be available through another ISDN access
standard, the extended digital subscriber line, which provides
1.5 billion bits per second as 24 channels of 64,000 bits
each.
In 1986, new software from Bell Labs will enable the 5ESS
switch to accommodate ISDN-sized 144,000-bit channels that
standardize and simplify subscribers' use of local networks.
AT&T is committed to future products that will also be ISDN-
compatible. Other vendors, too, some of whom already plan to
build premises, terminal, and other equipment to ISDN
standards, will make ISDN a cooperative effort.
By providing integrated digital access to networks, ISDN will
make important progress toward the goal of Universal
Information Services. But overlay networks will continue to
divvy up the transport job. And messages needing less than
144,000 bits per second will not fill their allotted
bandwidth, leaving capacity under utilized.
Phase Three
Universal Information Services
Rooted in the fertile ground of 5ESS switches, ISDN equipment
and technologies such as wideband packet transport, Universal
Information Services will bear fruit during the 1990s. From a
single kind of network will hang services as different as
apples, oranges and pears. Just as network access was
integrated in ISDN, transport functions will increasingly be
integrated by powerful new network equipment evolved from
equipment developed for the ISDN. Where customers once got
standard-sized ISDN channels, they'll get big bandwidth for
large jobs, little bandwidth for small jobs.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 220
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Toward Universal Information Services via ISDN
Phase one, the present. The local network of today, although
still largely voice oriented, is already on the path to
Universal Information Services. Lightguide fiber is
dramatically expanding the capacity of local networks, helping
to lower the costs and increase the demand for high-bandwidth,
Information Age services. And public networks are increasingly
digital and geared for data and special services. For example:
o The AT&T Network Systems 5ESS switch, designed by Bell
Laboratories, can serve as the hub of a local digital
network through deployment of remote modules at locations
up to 100 miles from a host central office.
o The Integrated Special Services Network (ISSN) is a
channel networks that provides special services, customer
control options and digital private lines rearrangeable
under software control. The ISSN incorporates digital
carrier terminating equipment such as the D4 Channel
Bank, D5 Digital Terminal System and Digital Access and
Cross-connect Systems (DACS).
o The New Centrex is bringing greater levels of customer
control, improved services and a broad range of data
capabilities to the business customer.
Todays public networks consist of multiple or overlay
networks. The public switched network, or circuit network, is
the base network. Two kinds of overlay networks provide
special services. Channel networks carry private lines leased
by large customers and transmit much of today's data and image
traffic; they also handle traffic for network operations
support. Packet networks carry data communications, while
packet switching is used internal to public networks for
common channel signaling to set up, route and take down calls,
or to give customers information.
"Overlay networks help telecommunications companies
efficiently meet growing demand for digital transmission and
special services," says Stan Johnston, Market Planning
Manager, Network Systems Evolution, in AT&T Network Systems.
"Their integration into a signal network, however, would be
still more effective."
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Phase two, the Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). The
ISDN is a concept to which AT&T is commited--and it's the
foundation for Universal Information Services. The central
idea of ISDN, as AT&T Network Systems sees it, is to provide
an individual user a link to the local central office of
generous bandwidth--a digital subscriber line that can carry
144,000 bits per second. The bandwidth is subdivided into two
64,000-bit channels, which may carry voice or data or both,
and one 16,000-bit channel for packetized signaling
information or data transport. Such a link provides convenient
"integrated" network access by accommodating voice, data and
signaling over a single line.
The ISDN will make it easier for a customer to get varied
services from public and private networks. More bandwidth for
big customers will be available through another ISDN access
standard, the extended digital subscriber line, which provides
1.5 million bit per second as 24 channels of 64,000 bits each.
In 1986, new software from Bell Labs will enable the 5ESS
switch to accommodate ISDN-sized 144,000-bit channels that
standardize and simplify subscribers' use of local networks.
AT&T is committed to future products that will also be ISDN-
compatible. Other vendors, too, some of whom already plan to
build premises, terminal and other equipment to ISDN
standards, will make ISDN a cooperative effort.
By providing integrated digital access to networks, ISDN will
make important progress toward the goal of Universal
Information Services. But overlay networks will continue to
divvy up the transport job. And messages needing less than
144,000 bits per second will not fill their allotted
bandwidth, leaving capacity underutilized.
Phase three, Universal Information Services. Rooted in the
fertile ground of 5ESS switches, ISDN equipment and
technologies such as wideband packet transport, Universal
Information Services will bear fruit during the 1990s. From a
single kind of network will hang services as different as
apples, oranges and pears. Just as network access was
integrated in ISDN, transport functions will increasingly be
integrated by powerful new equipment evolved from equipment
developed for the ISDN. Where customers once got standard-
sized ISDN channels, they'll get big bandwidth for large jobs,
little bandwidth for small jobs.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 222
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*** retyped from PROTO, AT&T Bell Laboratories report to
executives on new technologies, without written
permission from the editors. (heh, heh.)
Subscriptions: $15.00 per year, published bi-monthly.
Send check payable to "Bell Laboratories PROTO," to
PROTO Circulation Manager, Room 3E-230, 150 John F.
Kennedy Parkway, Short Hills, N.J. 07078.
:LIQUID:CRYSTAL:
wisdom is safety
_______________________________________________________________
MCI Overview
_______________________________________________________________
Metal Shop
Headquarters of Phrack Newsletter
(314) 432-0756
Written on 11/16/85 by Knight Lightning & Taran King
MCI Communications Corporation, headquartered in Washington,
D.C., provides a full range of domestic and international
telecommunications services, including voice and data, telex
and cable, paging and mobile telephone, and time sensitive
message delivery.
Since its founding in 1968, MCI has grown to more than $1.6
billion in annual sales and serves more than 1.9 million
business, residential and government customers through its
four major business units:
o MCI Telecommunications
o MCI Airsignal
o MCI International
o MCI Digital Information Services
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MCI Telecommunications
MCI Telecommunications provides domestic interstate long
distance service throughout all 50 states, plus Puerto Rico,
the U.S. Virgin Islands, and major calling areas of Canada. It
is also authorized to provide varying degrees of intrastate
long distance service in some states.
MCI also is the first long distance carrier other than AT&T to
offer direct dial service overseas. International telephone
service is available to all residential and commercial
customers (with the exception of Private Line customers). In
October, 1984 the first international service agreements were
announced with the following countries: Argentina, Belgium,
Brazil, East Germany, Greece, United Arab Emirates, and the
United Kingdom.
Total capital investment in MCI's long distance network is
approximately $2 billion. MCI's network, the second largest in
the U.S., employs microwave optical fiber, satellite and
various digital transmission technologies.
Subscribers Domestic Long Distance
(as of 10/84)
Residential 1.4 million
Commercial .3 million
Total 1.7 million
Operations (as of 10/84)
Network Miles 20,543 (microwave, optical fiber, satellite)
Circuits 238,000
Employees 9,500 (full-time, approx.)
MCI Airsignal
MCI Airsignal provides personal message delivery and car
telephone services. MCI Message Service is offered in more
than 50 metropolitan areas. In 1984, service will commence in
New York City, Baltimore-Washington, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
MCI car telephone service is offered in 20 markets.
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Personal Message Delivery Services:
Alphanumeric Message Service
Displays up to 40-character message using letters and/or
numbers. Memory and recall ability. Alerts subscriber
with a silent visual alert or a soft tone.
Display Message Service
Displays up to 24-digit message (e.g., phone number,
stock quotes, sales figures, coded messages). Memory and
recall capability. Alerts customer to message with a
silent visual alert or a soft tone.
Tone Message Service
Notifies customer of a message with a soft tone.
Voice Message Service
Receives message in actual voice of caller.
Express Message Service
Receives and stores messages. Instantly alerts subscriber
via pager when a message is received.
Car Telephone Service
Enables customers to place calls to or receive calls from
anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day, as they travel in
their cars. With the advent of new cellular technology,
both the quality and the accessibility of car telephone
service will vastly improve.
MCI has thus far obtained franchises to operate a new
kind of mobile phone service, cellular telephone, in
Minneapolis and Pittsburgh, and has received favorable
decisions from FCC administration law judges authorizing
service in Los Angeles, Denver-Boulder, and Kansas City.
MCI has applied for licenses to provide cellular service
in 81 metropolitan areas.
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 225
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MCI Airsignal Branch Sales Offices
Personal Message Service/Conventional Mobile Phone
Service
Birmingham ........................ (205) 942-2924
Sacramento ........................ (916) 444-2350
Memphis ........................... (901) 682-9658
Cleveland ......................... (216) 464-7311
Dallas ............................ (214) 788-5111
Fresno ............................ (209) 486-7410
Las Vegas ......................... (702) 382-7461
Denver ............................ (303) 778-7878
Portland .......................... (503) 227-2556
Philadelphia ...................... (215) 677-9845
Atlanta ........................... (404) 252-2114
West Florida ...................... (813) 875-3404
Minneapolis ....................... (612) 544-8175
Kansas City ....................... (913) 648-8090
Miami ............................. (305) 491-0122
Pittsburgh ........................ (412) 343-1611
Houston ........................... (713) 464-2516
Bakersfield ....................... (805) 832-2346
Cellular Telephone Offices
Minneapolis-St. Paul .............. (612) 544-3312
Los Angeles ....................... (714) 527-0385
Elsewhere in California ........... (800) 344-3455
Headquarters - Washington, D.C. ... (202) 429-9660
MCI International
MCI International provides private-line voice service to
several overseas countries, and data and message services,
including telex, cablegram, leased channel, and packet
switching communications, to more than 200 overseas points.
MCI has moved into two new areas of service: International
direct-dial telephone service and international electronic
mail and hard-copy delivery services.
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... International Record Services
Telex Service
(domestic and international) Permits instantaneous, two-
way, written communications with other subscribers
worldwide. Customers can send messages at any time, even
though the receiving terminal may be unattended. MCI
International offers access to its telex service from a
variety of terminals and networks; not only subscribers
with telex terminals but also those with communicating
word processors, data terminals or computers that
communicate over telephone lines can take advantage of
MCI International telex service. To subscribers connected
to its own telex network, MCI International offers World
Message Services--a package of communications offerings
including telex, cablegram and MCI Mail services. Various
service enhancements are available to save time, improve
operating efficiency and simplify records keeping for
telex users.
Cablegram Service
The traditional means of international written
communications, offers flexibility in delivery and
economical rates for shorter messages. Cablegrams can be
delivered to virtually any overseas point.Subscribers
with telex terminals or various other types of equipment
can access and TELUS cablegram switch and take advantage
of such service enhancements as abbreviated addressing
and departmental billing.
Leased Channel Service
Provides an exclusive line between a U.S. firm and it's
overseas office for private communications 24 hours a
day. Each MCI International leased channel is tailored to
meet the needs of a specific customer for teleprinter,
facsimile, voice and/or data traffic. For subscribers
with several offices requiring private communications
with each other, MCI International offers a versatile
message-switching service. Voice/data leases can be
configured to meet a whole array of communicating needs;
for example, one channel might carry data traffic from a
computer at night, voice communications during office
hours, and simultaneous teleprinter messages at any time.
Data channels can handle requirements for traffic at any
speed from 1200 bits per second to 1.544 megabits per
second.
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IMPACS Service
Uses packet-switching technology to provide international
communications service between data terminals and
computers. Impacs offers on-line, real-time connections
and enables many types of incompatible systems to
communicate. Impacs service offers virtually error-free
transmission because of the error-detection and
retransmission capability of the network.
Instalink Service
Allows businesses overseas to use regular telex equipment
to access remote computing systems and databases in the
U.S. Subscribers can retrieve data from a computer-based
information service or use a computing system connecting
to a packet-switching network in the U.S.
International Facsimile Service
Enables subscribers to send duplicates of original
documents overseas quickly and efficiently, even when
neither the sender or the receiver has facsimile
transmission equipment, or when the sender and receiver
have incompatible equipment.
DATEL Service
Provides automatic or voice-coordinated data transmission
at speeds up to 2400 bits per second. Either digital or
analog facsimile traffic can be transmitted via Datel.
Datel facilities are conditioned to ensure high-quality
transmission. The MCI International switching center
allows communications between incompatible terminals.
Maritime Services
Provide instant, high--quality contact between ships at
sea or offshore rigs, and between these vessels and land-
based subscribers worldwide.
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... International Voice Services
Private Line Service
Provides, fast, easy access to a single overseas location
at an economical monthly rate. This technically efficient
system maximizes the use of line capacity by recognizing
idle time and assigning a speaker to a transmission path
only when the path is needed. Users can dial a four-digit
extension from a regular business phone to reach a key
overseas location.
International Mail Services
World Message Service
Subscribers can access the domestic electronic mail and
hard-copy delivery offerings of MCI Mail. In addition,
MCI International is developing fast, low-cost services
that will deliver electronic messages and high-quality
printed documents worldwide.
... Customer Service
The Customer Trouble Reporting Assistance Center
At MCI International Addresses
Customer concerns such as equipment maintenance and
service performance questions. Customer service
specialists, on duty 24 hours a day on business days,
answer questions and electronically route service
requests to technicians nationwide.
MCI Digital Information Services Corp.
MCI Digital Information Services, MCI's newest unit,
provides high-speed, low-cost, time-sensitive message
delivery (MCI Mail), either electronically or via hard
copy.
MCI Mail
Provides time-sensitive document delivery to anyone,
anywhere vial MCI's long-distance telephone network. MCI
Mail can reach a recipient instantly, in four hours or
less, or overnight by noon the next day. Prices are as
much as 90 percent lower than comparable time-sensitive
mail delivery services. MCI Mail can be delivered
electronically, terminal to terminal, or laser printed on
letterhead stationery with the customer's signature.
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MCI Mail customers can even order gifts and services
direct through MCI Mail, ranging from software and paper
for personal computers to investment advisory services to
travel specials.
There are no sign-up, monthly service charges or "connect
time" charges for MCI Mail. MCI Mail can be used by
virtually any personal computer, word processor,
electronic typewriter, data terminal, telex, or other
digital communications device. The service is accessed by
a local telephone call or 800 number.
... MCI Mail
Instant
Delivery to an "electronic" mailbox.
Four-Hour
Paper delivery by courier to 17 major metropolitan
areas regardless of point of origin.
Overnight
paper delivery by courier by noon the next day in
20,000 continental U.S. cities.
MCI Letter
Transmitted electronically to the MCI digital postal
center nearest its destination, then delivered
locally by the U.S. Postal Service.
Telex Dispatch
Enables MCI Mail subscribers to transmit messages to
the more than 1.6 million telex subscribers
worldwide.
Volume Mail
Enables customers to send large mailings in a
variety of letter formats, at substantial savings in
delivery time and expense.
Look for more MCI Files coming to Metal Shop soon!
This has been a Knight Lightning Presentation
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_______________________________________________________________
Reference Tables
_______________________________________________________________
Just some notes that you will always try to find but can
never!
_______________________________________________________________
Using MCI Calling Cards
_______________________________________________________________
By Knight Lightning of the 2600 Club!
Volume One, Issue One, Phile #5 of 8
Phrack Inc.
How to dial international calls on MCI
"Its easy to use MCI for international calling."
1. Dial your MCI access number and authorization code (code
= 14 digit number, however the first 10 digits are the
card holders NPA+PRE+SUFF).
2. Dial 011
3. Dial the country code
4. Dial the city code and the PRE+SUFF that you want.
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Countries served by MCI
Country code Country code
Algeria .................. 213 New Zealand ........... 064
Argentina ................ 054 Northern Ireland ...... 044
Australia ................ 061 Oman .................. 968
Belgium .................. 032 Papua New Guinea ...... 675
Brazil ................... 055 Qatar ................. 974
Canada ........ Use Area Codes Saudi Arabia .......... 966
Cyprus ................... 357 Scotland .............. 044
Denmark .................. 045 Senegal ............... 221
Egypt .................... 020 South Africa .......... 027
England .................. 044 Sri Lanka ............. 094
German Democratic Rep. ... 037 Sweden ................ 046
Greece ................... 030 Taiwan ................ 886
Jordan ................... 962 Tanzania .............. 255
Kenya .................... 254 Tunisa ................ 216
Kuwait ................... 965 United Arab Emirates .. 971
Malawi ................... 265 Wales ................. 044
Thats 33 countries in all. To get the extender for these calls
dial 950-1022 or 1-800-624-1022.
For local calling
1. Dial 950-10222 or 1-800-624-1022
2. Wait for tone
3. Dial "0", the area code, the phone number, and the 14
digit authorization code. You will hear 2 more tones that
let you know you are connected.
Knight Lightning
The 2600 Club!
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_______________________________________________________________
AT&T International Dialing Country Codes as of 85/2/17
_______________________________________________________________
File by: Lock Lifter
United Kingdom/Ireland
Ireland ....................... 353
United Kingdom ................. 44
Europe
Andorra ........................ 33
Austria ........................ 43
Belgium ........................ 32
Cyprus ........................ 357
Czecholslovakia ................ 42
Denmark ........................ 45
Finland ....................... 358
France ......................... 33
German Democratic Republic ..... 37
Germany, Federal Republic of ... 49
Gibraltar ..................... 350
Greece ......................... 30
Hungary ........................ 36
Iceland ....................... 354
Italy .......................... 39
Liechtenstein .................. 41
Luxembourg .................... 352
Monaco ......................... 33
Netherlands .................... 31
Norway ......................... 47
Poland ......................... 48
Portugal ...................... 351
Romania ........................ 40
San Marino ..................... 39
Spain .......................... 34
Sweden ......................... 46
Switzerland .................... 41
Turkey ......................... 90
Vatican City ................... 39
Yugoslavia ..................... 38
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Central America
Belize ........................ 501
Costa Rica .................... 506
El Salvador ................... 503
Guatemala ..................... 502
Honduras ...................... 504
Nicaragua ..................... 505
Panama ........................ 507
Africa
Algeria ....................... 213
Cameroon ...................... 237
Egypt .......................... 20
Ethiopia ...................... 251
Gabon ......................... 241
Ivory Coast ................... 225
Kenya ......................... 254
Lesotho ....................... 266
Liberia ....................... 231
Libya ......................... 218
Malawi ........................ 265
Morocco ....................... 212
Namibia ....................... 264
Nigeria ....................... 234
Senegal ....................... 221
South Africa ................... 27
Swaziland ..................... 268
Tanzania ...................... 255
Tunisia ....................... 216
Uganda ........................ 256
Zambia ........................ 260
Zimbabwe ...................... 263
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Pacific
American Samoa ................ 684
Austrailia ..................... 61
Brunei ........................ 673
Fiji .......................... 679
French Polynesia .............. 689
Guam .......................... 671
Hong Kong ..................... 852
Indonesia ...................... 62
Japan .......................... 81
Korea, Republic of ............. 82
Malaysia ....................... 60
New Caledonia ................. 687
New Zealand .................... 64
Papua New Guinea .............. 675
Philippines .................... 63
Saipan ........................ 670
Singapore ...................... 65
Taiwan ........................ 886
Thailand ....................... 66
Indian Ocean
Pakistan ....................... 92
Sri Lanka ...................... 94
South America
Argentina ...................... 54
Bolivia ....................... 591
Brazil ......................... 55
Chile .......................... 56
Colombia ....................... 57
Ecuador ....................... 593
Guyana ........................ 592
Paraguay ...................... 595
Peru ........................... 51
Suriname ...................... 597
Uruguay ....................... 598
Venezuela ...................... 58
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Near East
Bahrain ....................... 973
Iran ........................... 98
Iraq .......................... 964
Israel ........................ 972
Jordan ........................ 962
Kuwait ........................ 965
Oman .......................... 968
Qatar ......................... 974
Saudi Arabia .................. 966
United Arab Emirates .......... 971
Yemen Arab Republic ........... 967
Caribbean/Atlantic
French Antilles ............... 596
Guantanamo Bay (US Navy Base) .. 53
Haiti ......................... 509
Netherlands Antilles .......... 599
St. Pierre and Miquelon ....... 508
India
India .......................... 91
Canada
To call canada, dial 1 + area code + local number.
Mexico
To call mexico, dial 011 + 52 + city code+ local number.
Note Do not forget about the time difference when calling
outside of your time zone. Calling cards can be used over
seas to call back into the u.s. For further information
call toll-free 1-800-874-0000. Dial '#' after the
complete number to make the call go through faster.
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_______________________________________________________________
International Dialing Codes
Country + Routing
_______________________________________________________________
Typed by The Dagda Mor
Edited by The Jammer
To dial international calls
International Access Code + Country code + Routing code
Example
To call Frankfurt, Germany, you would do the following:
011 + 49 + 611 + (# wanted) + # sign(octothrope)
The # sign at the end is to tell Bell that you are done
entering in all the needed info. Here is the list of Country
Codes, listed next to the country, and the routing codes
listed next to the city.
Andorra 33 Argentina 54
all points 078 Buenos Aires 1
Australia 61 Austria 43
Melbourne 3 Innsbruck 5222
Sydney 2 Vienna 222
Bahrain 973 Belgium 32
no routing needed Antwerp 31
Brussels 2
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Belize 501 Bolivia 591
no routing needed La Paz 2
Brazil 591 Chile 56
Brasilia 61 Santiago 2
Rio de Janeiro 21 Valparaiso 31
Sao Paulo 11
China 86 Colombia 56
Tainan 62 none needed
Taipei 2
Costa Rica 506 Cyprus 357
no routing needed Nicosia 21
Denmark 45 Ecuador 593
Aalborg 8 Cuenca 4
Copenhagen 1 or 2 Quito 2
El Salvador 503 Fiji 679
no routing needed none needed
France 33 Germany 49
Bordeaux 56 Berlin 30
Marseille 91 Bonn 228
Nice 93 Frankfurt 661
Paris 1 Munich 89
German Republic 37 Greece 30
Berlin 2 Athens 1
Rhodes 241
Guam 671 Guatamala 502
no routing needed Guatemala City 2
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Guyana 592 Haiti 509
Georgetown 02 Port Au Prince 1
Hoduras 504 Hong Kong 852
no routing needed Hong Kong 5
Kowloon 3
Indonesia 62 Iran 98
Jakarta 21 Teheran 21
Iraq 964 Ireland 353
Baghdad 1 Dublin 1
Galway 91
Israel 978 Italy 39
Haifa 4 Florence 55
Jerusalem 2 Naples 81
Tel Aviv 3 Rome 6
Venice 41
Ivory Coast 225 Japan 81
no routing needed Hiroshima 822
Tokyo 3
Yokohama 45
Kenya 254 Korea 82
Nairobi 2 Pusan 51
Seoul 2
Kuwait 965 Liberia 231
no routing needed none needed
Libya 218 Lechtenstein 4
Tripoli 21 All points 75
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Luxembourg 352 Malaysia 60
no routing needed Kuala Lumpur 3
Monaco 33 Netherlands 31
All points 93 Amsterdam 20
Rotterdam 10
The Hague 70
New Caledonia 687 New Zealand 64
no routing needed Auckland 9
Wellinton 4
Nicaragua 505 Nigeria 234
Managua 2 Lagos 1
Norway 47 Panama 507
Bergen 5 none needed
Oslo 2
Papua New Guinea 675 Paraguay 595
no routing needed Asuncion 21
Peru 51 Phillippines 63
Arequipa 542 Manila 2
Lima 14
Portugal 351 Romania 40
Lisbon 19 Bucuresti 0
San Marino 39 Saudi Arabia 966
All points 541 Riyadh 1
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G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Senegal 221 South Africa 27
no routing needed Cape Town 21
Pretoria 12
Spain 34 Sri Lanka 94
Barcelona 3 Colombo 1
Canary Islands 28
Madrid 1
Seville 54
Suriname 597 Sweden 46
no routing needed Goteborg 31
Stockholm 8
Switzerland 41 Tahiti 689
Berne 31 none needed
Geneva 22
Lucerne 41
Zurich 1
Thailand 66 Tunisia 216
Bangkok 2 Tunis 1
Turkey 90 United Arab Emirates 971
Istanbul 11 Abu Dhabi 2
Ajman 6
Al Ain 3
Aweir 49
Dubai 4
Fujairah 91
Jebel Dhana 5
Sharjah 6
Umm-Al-Quwain 6
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United Kingdom 44 USSR 7
Belfast 232 Kiev 044
Cardiff 222 Leningrad 812
Edinburgh 31 Minsk 017
Glasgow 41 Moscow 095
Liverpool 51 Tallinn 0142
London 1
Vatican City 39 Venezuela 58
All points 6 Caracas 2
Maracaibo 61
Yugoslavia 38
Belgrade 11
Zagreb 41
_______________________________________________________________
MAX Access Ports
Lexitel Corporation
_______________________________________________________________
Adrian, Mi ...... 313-263-0191 Livonia, Mi .. 313-261-6970
Akron, Oh ....... 216-275-9814 Los Angeles .. 213-624-9041
Ann Arbor, Mi ... 313-451-2121 Louisvilley .. 502-568-6204
Atlanta, Ga ..... 404-525-1769 Marion, Oh ... 614-387-1011
Avon Lake, Oh ... 216-933-2823 Mckeesport ... 412-664-4870
Baden, Pa ....... 412-869-1360 Mentor, Oh ... 216-255-1645
Baltimore, Md ... 301-444-7280 Middletown.... 513-423-1066
Beaver Fallsa ... 412-847-3640 Milwaukee .... 414-933-1880
Birmingham, Mi .. 313-649-0730 Minneapolis .. 612-375-0280
Boston, Ma ...... 617-267-9134 Monessen, Pa . 412-684-8710
Buffalo, Ny ..... 716-854-0802 Morton Grove . 312-950-1066
Butler, Pa ...... 412-285-9081 Newark, Nj ... 201-624-5040
Canton, Oh ...... 216-455-1425 Newark, Oh ... 614-349-8754
Chicago, Il ..... 312-950-1066 New Castle ... 412-656-9420
Chillicothe, Oh . 614-772-1066 New York, Ny . 212-950-1066
Cincinnati, Oh .. 513-421-1880 Oak Lawn, Il . 312-950-1066
Cleveland, Oh ... 216-771-6614 Philadelphia . 215-751-9711
Columbus, Oh .... 614-950-1066 Pittsburg .... 412-391-9532
Dallas, Tx ...... 214-653-1047 Plymouth, Mi . 313-451-2121
Dayton, Oh ...... 513-223-0366 Pontiac, Mi .. 313-332-0500
Detroit, Mi ..... 313-950-1066 Port Huron ... 313-982-7115
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 242
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Elk Grove, Il ... 312-950-1066 Phoenix, Az .. 602-242-0252
Elyria, Oh ...... 419-323-4431 Queens, Ny ... 718-204-7330
Findlay, Oh ..... 419-424-5934 Sandusky, Oh . 419-625-1289
Gleenshaw, Pa ... 412-486-7394 Sharon, Pa ... 412-983-0100
Grand Rapids .... 616-456-7925 Springfield .. 513-950-1066
Greensburg, Pa .. 412-836-8110 Steubenville . 614-283-1756
Hackensack, Nj .. 201-342-2815 St. Louis .... 314-289-9100
Houston, Tx ..... 713-224-0982 St. Paul, Wi . 612-375-0280
Indiana, Pa ..... 412-349-8760 Toledo, Oh ... 419-255-1316
Indianapolis .... 317-638-4442 Troy, Oh ..... 513-335-2303
Kalamazoo, Mi ... 616-342-0266 Turtle Creek . 412-823-1500
Kansas City, Mo . 816-474-6193 Washington ... 202-479-4411
Kokomo, In ...... 317-453-9932 Washington ... 412-225-1800
La Grange, Il ... 312-950-1066 Warren, Mi ... 313-268-9120
Lancaster, Oh ... 614-687-0159 Xenia, Oh .... 513-376-2991
Lansing, Mi ..... 517-950-1066 Youngstown ... 216-746-2021
Lafayette, In ... 317-423-5492 Zanesville ... 614-454-6815
Metrofone Access Numbers
Anaheim, Ca ..... 714-527-7055 Los Angeles .. 213-992-8282
Atlanta, Ga ..... 404-223-1000 Los Angeles .. 213-202-6117
Austin, Tx ...... 512-474-6057 Miami, Fl .... 305-326-3300
Baltimore, Md ... 301-659-7700 Milwaukee .... 414-277-1805
Beaumont, Tx .... 713-833-9331 Minneapolis .. 612-370-9000
Boston, Ma ...... 617-482-3222 New Orleans .. 504-566-8500
Buffalo, Ny ..... 716-852-9200 New York, Ny . 212-732-7430
Chicago, Il ..... 312-853-4700 Newark, Nj ... 201-645-9220
Cincinnati, Oh .. 513-241-1747 Oakland, Ca .. 415-836-6900
Cleveland, Oh ... 216-861-5163 Oklahoma Cty . 405-232-9011
Columbus, Oh .... 614-224-0577 Omaha, Ne .... 402-422-1120
Culver City, Ca . 213-410-0078 Philadelphia . 215-351-0100
Dallas, Tx ...... 214-742-4500 Pittsburgh ... 412-261-5720
Dayton, Oh ...... 513-228-1576 Reno, Nv ..... 702-329-1025
Denver, Co ...... 303-623-5326 Richmond, Va . 804-225-1920
Detroit, Mi ..... 313-963-4847 St. Louis .... 314-342-1130
El Monte, Ca .... 213-350-1028 Sacramento ... 916-443-6921
Elk Grove, Il ... 312-981-8870 San Antonio .. 512-224-9600
Ft. Lauderdale .. 305-462-3530 San Diego .... 714-233-0327
Ft. Worth, Tx ... 817-338-1639 San Frncisco . 415-956-0162
Hackensack, Nj .. 201-487-3155 San Jose, Ca . 408-947-7606
Hartford, Ct .... 203-522-0003 San Mateo .... 415-579-6001
Hawthorne, Nj ... 201-427-1100 Santa Ana .... 714-972-9515
Hinsdale, Il .... 312-986-0566 Seattle, Wa .. 206-382-0910
Houston, Tx ..... 713-224-9417 Skokie, Il ... 312-679-8120
Huntington Bch .. 714-972-8515 Syracuse, Ny . 315-474-3911
Indianapolis .... 317-635-6284 Toledo, Oh ... 419-243-1046
Kansas City, Ks . 913-621-3186 Washington ... 202-737-2051
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 243
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Long Island, Ny . 516-443-5402
Los Angeles, Ca . 213-629-1026
_______________________________________________________________
Area Codes In Numerical Order
_______________________________________________________________
By The Jammer
201 Newark, New Jersey 519 London, Ontario
202 Washington D.C, (all) 601 Mississippi, (all)
203 Connecticut, (all) 602 Arizona, (all)
205 Alabama, (all) 603 New Hampshire, (all)
206 Seattle, Washington 605 South Dakota, (all)
207 Maine, (all) 606 Winchester, Kentucky
208 Idaho, (all) 607 Binghamton, New York
212 Bronx, Nyc, New York 608 Madison, Wisconsin
212 Manhattan, Nyc, New York 609 Trenton, New Jersey
213 Los Angeles, California 612 St. Paul, Minnesota
214 Dallas, Texas 613 Ottawa, Ontario
215 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 614 Columbus, Ohio
216 Cleveland, Ohio 615 Nashville, Tennessee
217 Springfield, Illinois 616 Grand Rapids, Michigan
218 Duluth, Minnesota 617 Boston, Massachusetts
219 Gary, Indiana 618 Alton, Illinois
301 Maryland, (all) 619 San Diego, California
303 Colorado, (all) 700 Teleconference, (all)
304 West Virginia, (all) 701 North Dakota, (all)
305 Miami, Florida 702 Nevada, (all)
305 Orlando, Florida 703 Alexandria, Virginia
307 Wyoming, (all) 704 Charlotte, N. Carolina
308 Abott, Nebraska 705 North Bay, Ontario
309 Peoria, Illinois 712 Councilbluffs, Iowa
312 Chicago, Illinois 713 Houston, Texas
313 Detroit, Michigan 714 Anaheim, California
314 St. Louis, Missouri 715 Bay City, Wisconsin
315 Syracuse, New York 716 Buffalo, New York
316 Wichita, Kansas 716 Rochester, New York
317 Indinapolis, Illinois 717 Harrisburg, Pnsylvnia
318 Lake charles, Lousiana 800 Toll Free, (all)
319 Davenport, Iowa 801 Utah, (all)
401 Rhode Island, (all) 802 Vermont, (all)
402 Omaha, Nebraska 803 South Carolina, (all)
404 Atlanta, Georgia 804 Richmond, Virgina
405 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 805 Bakersfield, Calif.
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406 Montana, (all) 806 Amarillo, Texas
408 San Jose, California 807 Thunder Bay, Ontario
412 Pittsburg, Pennsylvania 808 Hawaii, (all)
413 Springfield, Massachusetts 809 Bermuda, (all)
414 Milwaukee, Wisconsin 809 Bahamas, (all)
415 San Francisco, California 809 Puerto Rico, (all)
416 Toronto, Ontario 809 Virgin Islands, (all)
417 Joplin, Missouri 812 Evansville, Indiana
418 Quebec, Quebec 812 Dade park, Kentucky
419 Toledo, Ohio 814 Johnston, Pennsylvania
501 Arkansas, (all) 815 Rockford, Illinois
502 Frankfort, Kentucky 816 Independence, Missouri
503 Oregon, (all) 817 Fort Worth, Texas
504 New Orleans, Louisiana 818 Burbank, California
504 Baton Rouge, Louisiana 819 Trois Riv., Quebec
505 New Mexico, (all) 900 Dial-it, (all)
507 Rochester, Minnesota 901 Memphis, Tennessee
509 Pullman, Washington 904 Talahassee, Florida
512 Austin, Texas 906 Escanaba, Michigan
513 Cincinnati, Ohio 907 Alaska, (all)
514 Montreal, Quebec 912 Savannah, Georgia
515 Des Moines, Iowa 913 Kansas City, Kansas
516 Hempstead, New York 915 El Paso, Texas
517 Lansing, Michigan 916 Sacramento, California
518 Albany, New York 918 Tulsa, Oklahoma
919 Raleigh, N. Carolina
_______________________________________________________________
TAC Dialups Sorted by Location 85/11/26
_______________________________________________________________
Volume One, Issue Two, Phile #5 of 9
Phrack Inc.
Updated from November 26, 1985
Tac Dialups taken from Arpanet by Phantom Phreaker
State/Country 300 Baud, 300 Type, 1200 Baud, 1200 Type
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 245
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Alabama
Anniston Army Depot [M]
(ANNIS-MIL-TAC) 205-235-6285, (R4), 205-235-7650,, B/V
205-237-5731, (R8), 205-237-5731, (R8), B/V
205-237-5770, (R8), 205-237-5779, (R8), B/V
205-237-5805, (R8), 205-237-5805, (R8), B/V
Note When accessing the Anniston TAC you must first enter
a <RETURN>, then enter DDN <RETURN>. After you
receive CLASS DDN START, proceed as normal.
Gunter AFS [M]
(GUNTER-TAC) 205-279-3576
205-279-4682
Redstone Arsenal [M]
(MICOM-TAC) [none known]
Arizona
Ft. Huachuca [M]
(HUAC-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Yuma [M]
(YUMA-TAC) 602-328-2186,, 602-328-2186,, B/V
602-328-2187,, 602-328-2187,, B/V
602-328-2188,, 602-328-2188,, B/V
California, Northern
Alameda [M]
(ALAMEDA-MIL-TAC) [none known]
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Menlo Park [M]
(SRI-MIL-TAC) 415-327-5440, (R3), 415-327-5440, (R3), B
(USGS3-TAC) [M] [no dialups]
Moffett Field [M]
(AMES-TAC) [no dialups; contact NSC for access]
William Jones, 415-694-6482
, FTS-494-6482
, AV-359-6482
Monterey [M]
(NPS-TAC) [none known]
Sacsamento [M]
(MCCLELLAN1-MIL-TAC)
[none known]
(MCCLELLAN2-MIL-TAC)
[none known]
Stanford [A]
(SU-TAC) 415-327-5220
California, Southern
China Lake [M]
(NWC-TAC) [none known]
Edwards AFB [M]
(EDWARD-MIL-TAC) [none known]
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El Segundo [M]
(AFSC-SD-TAC) 213-643-9204,, 213-643-9204,, B/V
Los Angeles [A]
(USC-TAC) 213-749-5436
Los Angeles [A]
(USC-ARPA-TAC) [none known]
San Diego [M]
(ACCAT-TAC) 619-225-1641, (R4), 619-225-6903,, V
619-225-6946 (R3)
,, 619-223-2148,, V
619-226-7884, (R2)
Santa Monica
(RAND-ARPA-TAC) [A]
213-393-9230
213-393-9237
213-393-9238
213-393-9239
(RAND2-MIL-TAC) [M]
[none known]
Colorado
Denver Fed Ctr [M]
(USGS2-TAC) 303-232-0206,, 303-232-0206,, B/V
Lowry Air Force Base [M]
(LOWRY-MIL-TAC) [none known]
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G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
D.C. Washington
Andrews AFB [M]
(AFSC-HQ-TAC) 301-967-7930, (R16), 301-967-7930, (R16), B
301-736-2990, (R4), 301-736-2990, (R4), B
301-736-2998, (R2), 301-736-2998, (R2), B
(PENTAGON-TAC) 202-553-0229, (R14), 202-553-0229, (R14), B
Florida
Eglin AFB [M]
(AFSC-AD-TAC) 904-882-8202,, 904-882-8202,, B/V
904-882-8201,, 904-882-8201,, V
MacDill AFB [M]
(MACDILL-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Naval Air Station - Jacksonville [M]
(JAX1-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Naval Air Station - Orlando [M]
(ORLANDO-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Georgia
Robins AFB [M]
(ROBINS-TAC) 912-926-2725,, 912-926-2725,, B/V
912-926-2726
912-926-3231
912-926-3232
912-926-2204,, 912-926-2204,, B/V
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Hawaii
Camp H.M. Smith [M]
(HAWAII2-TAC) 808-487-5545,, 808-487-5545,, B
Illinois
Scott AFB [M]
(SCOTT-TAC) [none known]
(SCOTT2-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Kansas
Ft. Leavenworth [M]
(LVN-MIL-TAC) 913-651-7041, (R8), 913-651-7041, (R8), B
Louisiana
Navy Regional Data Automation Center [M]
(NORL-MIL-TAC) 504-944-7940,, 504-944-7940,, B
504-944-7948, (R2), 504-944-7948, (R2), B
504-944-7951, (R5), 504-944-7951, (R5), B
504-944-8702, (R8), 504-944-8702, (R8), B
Maryland
Aberdeen Proving Ground [M]
(BRL-TAC) 301-278-6916, (R4), 301-278-6916, (R4), B/V
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Bethesda [M]
(DAVID-TAC) 202-227-3526, R16, 202-227-3526, R16, B/V
Patuxent River [M]
(PAX-RV-TAC) 301-863-4815,, 301-863-4815,, B/V
301-863-4816,, 301-863-4816,, B/V
301-863-5750, (R6), 301-863-5750, (R6), B/V
Silver Spring [M]
(WHITEOAK-MIL-TAC)
301-572-5960, R10, 301-572-5960, R10, B
301-572-5970, (R10), 301-572-5970, (R10), B
Massachuesetts
Hanscom AFB [M]
(AFGL-TAC) 617-861-3000, (R8), 617-861-3000, (R8), B
617-861-4965, (R8), 617-861-4965, (R8)
Cambridge
(BBN-MIL-TAC) [M]
[none known]
(BBN-ARPA-TAC) [A]
[no dialup capability]
(CCA-ARP-TAC) [A]
[none known]
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(MIT-TAC) [A] (617) 491-5669,, (617) 258-6224,, V
(617) 491-5708,, (617) 258-6225,, V
(617) 491-5734,, (617) 258-6227,, V
(617) 491-5819,, (617) 258-6248,, V
,, (617) 491-5826
,, (617) 491-5841
,, (617) 491-5849
,, (617) 491-6769
,, (617) 491-6772
,, (617) 491-6937
,, (617) 258-6241
,, (617) 258-6242
,, (617) 258-6243
Michigan
U.S. Army Tank Automotive Command (TACOM) - Warren [M]
(TACOM-TAC) [none known]
Missouri
St. Louis [M]
(STLA-TAC) [none known]
Nebraska
Offutt AFB [M]
(SAC1-MIL-TAC) [none known]
(SAC2-MIL-TAC) 402-292-4638, (R10), 402-292-4638, (R10), B
(SAC-ARPA-TAC) [A]
402-294-2398,, 402-294-2398,, B
402-291-2018,, 402-291-2018,, B
402-292-7054,, 402-292-7054,, B
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 252
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
New Jersey
Dover [M]
(ARDC-TAC) 201-724-6731,, 201-724-6731,, B/V
201-724-6732,, 201-724-6732,, B/V
201-724-6733,, 201-724-6733,, B/V
201-724-6734,, 201-724-6734,, B/V
Fort Monmouth [M]
(FTMONMOUTH1-MIL-TAC)
201-544-2052,, 201-544-2052,, B/V
201-544-2062,, 201-544-2062,, B/V
201-544-2072,, 201-544-2072,, B/V
201-544-2396,, 201-544-2396,, B/V
201-544-2430,, 201-544-2430,, B/V
(FTMONMOUTH2-MIL-TAC)
201-544-4254, (R3), 201-544-2430,, B
,, 201-544-2636,, B
,, 201-544-2638,, B
201-544-2777,,,, B
New Mexico
Albuquerque [M]
(AFWL-TAC) [none known]
White Sands [M]
(WSMR-TAC) [no dialups; contact NSC for access]
Claude (Skeet) Steffey
,, 505-678-1271
,, FTS-898-1271
,, AV-258-1271
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 253
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
New York
Griffiss AFB
(RADC-ARPA-TAC) [A]
[no dialup capability]
(RADC-TAC) [M] 315-339-4913, (R5)
315-337-2004,, 315-337-2004,, B/V
315-337-2005,, 315-337-2005,, B/V
315-330-2294 315-330-2294, (FTS), 952,, B/V
315-330-3587 315-330-3587, (FTS), 952,, B/V
North Carolina
Ft. Bragg [A]
(BRAGG-ARPA-TAC) 919-396-1131, (R10), 919-396-1426, (R5), B/V
,, 919-396-1491, (R8), B/V
Ft. Bragg [M]
(BRAGG-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Ohio
Wright-Patterson AFB [M]
(WPAFB-TAC) 513-258-4218
513-258-4219
513-258-4987
513-258-4988
513-258-4989
513-258-4990
(WPAFB2-MIL-TAC) 513-257-2172, (R8), 513-257-2172, (R8), B
513-257-2690, (R8), 513-257-2690, (R8), B
513-257-3625, (R8), 513-257-3625, (R8), B
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 254
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Oklahoma
Tinker AFB [M]
(TINKER-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Pennsylvania
New Cumberland Army Depot [M]
(NCAD-MIL-TAC) [none known]
(NCAD2-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Texas
Brooks AFB [M]
(BROOKS-AFB-TAC) 512-536-3081, (R6), 512-536-3081, (R6), B/V
Richardson [A]
(COLLINS-TAC) 214-235-2131,, 214-235-2131,, B
214-235-2143,, 214-235-2143,, B
214-235-2178,, 214-235-2178,, B
214-235-2204,, 214-235-2204,, B
214-235-2251,, 214-235-2251,, B
214-235-2278,, 214-235-2278,, B
Utah
Dugway Proving Ground [M]
(DUGWAY-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Salt Lake City (University of Utah) [A]
(UTAH-TAC) 801-581-3486, 801-581-3486,, B/V
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 255
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Virginia
Alexandria [M]
(DARCOM-TAC) 202-274-5300,, 202-274-5300,, B
202-274-5320, (R6), 202-274-5320, (R6), B
Arlington
(ARPA1-MIL-TAC) [M]
[none known]
(ARPA2-MIL-TAC) [M]
[none known]
(ARPA3-TAC) [A] [no dialup capability]
Dahlgren [M]
(NSWC-TAC) 703-663-2162, (R8), 703-663-2162, (R8), B
Langley Air Force Base [M]
(LANGLEY-MIL-TAC)
[none known]
McLean [M]
(DDN-PMO-MIL-TAC)
[none known]
(MITRE-TAC) [M] 703-442-8020, (R15)
703-893-0330, R10, 703-893-0330, R10, B/V
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 256
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Norfolk [M]
(NORFOLK-MILTAC) 804-423-0241, (R2), 804-423-0241, (R2), B
804-423-0247, (R2), 804-423-0247, (R2), B
804-423-0346, (R4), 804-423-0346, (R4), B
804-423-0480,, 804-423-0480,, B
804-423-0486, (R2), 804-423-0486, (R2), B
804-423-0489,, 804-423-0489,, B
804-423-0570,, 804-423-0570,, B
804-423-0572, (R2), 804-423-0572, (R2), B
804-423-0577, (R2), 804-423-0577, (R2), B
804-423-0651,, 804-423-0651,, B
804-423-0654, (R3), 804-423-0654, (R3), B
804-423-0841, (R2), 804-423-0841, (R2), B
804-423-0845,, 804-423-0845,, B
804-423-0849,, 804-423-0849,, B
804-423-0858,, 804-423-0858,, B
804-423-0950,, 804-423-0950,, B
804-423-0952,, 804-423-0952,, B
804-423-0955, (R3), 804-423-0955, (R3), B
804-423-0959,, 804-423-0959,, B
Reston
(DCEC-ARPA-TAC) [A]
[no dialups available]
(DCEC-MIL-TAC) [M]
703-437-2892, (R5), 703-437-2928,, B
703-437-2925,, 703-437-2929,, B
703-437-2926
703-437-2927
Washington
Seattle [A]
(WASHINGTON-TAC) [no dialup capability]
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 257
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Foreign
England [M]
(CROUGHTON-MIL-TAC)
[none known]
Germany [M]
(FRANKFURT-MIL-TAC) (M)
2311-5641, (R8), B
(RAMSTEIN2-MIL-TAC)
[none known]
Italy [M]
(AGNANO-MIL-TAC)
Japan [M]
(BUCKNER-MIL-TAC)
(ZAMA-MIL-TAC)
Korea [M]
(KOREA-TAC) (M) 264-4951, (R8),,,, B
Philippines [M]
(CLARK-MIL-TAC)
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 258
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
Spain [M]
(MILNET-TJN-TAC) [none known]
(ROTA-MIL-TAC) [none known]
Notes
1. "(R10)" following phone number indicates a rotary with 10
lines.
2. For alternate phone numbers, FTS=Federal Telephone
System.
3. (M)=Military DoD Telephone System.
4. [M] denotes a MILNET TAC and [A] denotes an ARPANET TAC.
5. "1200 Type" refers to the modem compatibility for 1200
baud only:
B/V Bell and Vadic
B Bell 212A only
V Vadic 3400 only
6. This list is contained in the file
NETINFO:TAC-PHONES.LIST at SRI-NIC.
_______________________________________________________________
Telco Test Numbers as of 5/16/85
_______________________________________________________________
Compiled and Updated by Shadow 2600
011-44-61-2468011 US dial tone then "When this system
changes, this is the new dial tone you
hear" (UK is changing dialtone)
201-226-0709 alternating tones, then "warble"
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 259
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201-267-9922 sweep tone
201-267-9966 600 ohm termination
201-232-9924 (tone 1,2,5-beep, bleep; 9,#- 1200 baud
static, beep, bleep; 6-tone, higher tone,
bleep)
201-232-9959 tone 11 sec. silence, repeats...
201-233-9972 multitude of clicks
201-233-9974 busy 15 sec. then tone w/ clicks
201-241-9916 hissing with clicks
201-328-9971 1000 hrtz tone
201-376-9907 "is being checked for trouble. Please try
again later"
201-464-9915 low tone 15 sec, silence
201-464-9916 low tone 2 sec, silence
201-464-9963 buzz
201-464-9974 busy 15 sec, low tone
201-543-9902 "If you'd like to make a call, hang up and
try it again."
201-543-9903 "We're sorry, your call did not go
through."
201-543-9904 "the number you have dialed requires a .20
cents deposit."
201-655-9900 "cannot be completed as dialed from the
phone you are using"
201-769-0205 People's Express Reservation system
203-771-4920 telephone company employee newsline
207-866-4411 1000 hrtz tone
212-233-9980 (tone 1,2,3,*-tone, higher tone, bloop; 5-
tone, bloop; 9,#-static,beep,bloop)
212-369-7003 "you have reached 212-369-7003 in zone 3"
(?)
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 260
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212-799-5017 ABC New York feed line
213-621-4141 telephone employee newsline
213-935-1111 sweep tone with echo at top of range (?)
215-489-0036 tone, bloop (1,2,5-tone bloop, 3,6,9-tone,
higher tone,tone)
215-489-0040 "please check your instruction manual or
call repair service for assistance"
215-489-0042 "if you like to make a call please hang up
and try again"
215-489-0043 "We're sorry, your call did not go
through."
215-489-0044 "The call you have made requires a 25 cent
deposit"
215-489-0045 "You must first dial a 1 when dialing this
number."
215-489-0074 LOUD tone, stops, repeats
215-489-0075 600 ohm termination (silence)
215-489-0078 tone, silence
215-489-0080 600 ohm termination
215-489-0097 tone, (lower pitched than -0078) silence
(also at -0098)
215-489-0104 1000 hrtz tone
216-861-8300 tone, then higher tone
301-256-9987 1000 hertz
301-546-7777 "Due to Telephone Company facility trouble
your call cannot be completed at this
time"
301-725-9904 "deposit .20"
305-263-0000 repeating bloop (keypress 2 : slow reorder
w/ bloops, clicks)
305-994-9963 pay fone instructions
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 261
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305-994-9966 "telephone you are calling from is not in
service"
312-222-9948 tone (keypress 1,2,3,6,7,*-tone, high
tone, bleep, 4-tone,bloop,9, #-
static,beep,bloop)
312-222-9954 "Test Center"
312-222-9990 clicks, ticking like
312-222-9996 LOUD tone, repeats
312-368-8000 Illinois Bell Communicator (employee
newsline)
312-592-0000 tone (keypress 2222, then other digits, at
re-order type * to restart) (?)
313-223-7223 telephone employee newsline
313-333-9981 LOUD tone, silence
313-333-9989 high tone (enter touchtones for a while,
eventually get "metallic" echo, then 5-
high pitched tone, random re-orders)
313-333-9990 beep, click repeats, with "winks"
313-333-9994 tone bloop (keypress in 2-tone,bloop, 3-
tone, higher tone,tone, 9-static,
beep,bloop)
313-333-9995 600 ohm termination (silence)
313-333-9996 weird siren/sweep tone, multi-frequency
313-430-4300 beep, beep, beep, then reorder
313-698-9998 sweep tone
314-247-5511 Southwestern Bell Telenews (employee
newsline)
315-471-9934 "deposit 5 cents for next five minutes"
408-255-0081 (any two 2,4,8,0-tone)
408-294-6969 beep, click, computer voice repeats number
408-395-1110 (tone 2-bleep,glitch; 3-beep,higher
beep;#then number-loud tone,bleep)
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 262
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
408-738-8190 (tone 1,3,6,7,*-tone, high tone, tone;2-
beep,cluck;9,#-static,tone,beep)
408-745-6060 high pitched tone, low tone then repeats
408-994-0044 tone end of loop
412-633-3333 telephone company employee newsline
414-628-0001 continuous tone
414-628-0002 continuous tone (higher pitched, sounds
like muted dial)
414-628-0004 high pitched tone, bloop, silence
414-628-0006 brief very high tone (also -0007)
(multiple keypresses of 2,5,8,0 tone
repeats)
414-628-0010 loud tone, stops, repeats...
414-628-0011 loud tone, stops
414-628-0013 600 ohm termination (silence) (also -0017,
two in an exchange?)
414-628-0014 continuous tone (sounds like weird dial),
eventually stops
414-628-0015 LOUD tone, repeats
414-628-0028 "Your call cannot be completed as dialed
414-678-3511 Wisconsin Bell Newsline
414-781-0004 high tone, silence (keypress 2,5-
beep,bleep, 3,6-beep,longbeep, bloop, 9-
static,bloop)
415-284-1111 one sweep, then silence
415-327-0046 sweep tone
415-388-0037 tone,bloop (keypress 2-tone,bloop, 3-
tone,high tone,tone, 9-static,beep,bloop)
415-472-0046 sweep w/ glitch at top
415-545-8800 Pacific Bell Newsline
415-467-0097 fast DTMF tones, keypress to repeat
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 263
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
415-777-0020 1000 hrtz tone
415-777-0037 tone, bloop (keypress 2-beep,bloop, 3,6-
tone,higher tone, 9-static,beep,bloop)
415-777-0046 sweep tone with echo
415-777-0105 tone,bloop (keypress 2-beep,bleep, 3,6-
tone, higher tone, tone,9-
static,beep,bloop
415-826-0022 tone, click, tone (sounds like a busy)
415-994-0710 multitude of clicks
512-472-2181 "if you would like to make a call, please
hang up and try again"
512-472-4263 garbled recording (?)
512-472-9833 "you must first dial a 1 or 0 before
calling this number"
512-472-9936 "please check your instructions or call
your business office for assistance"
512-472-9941 "insert 25 cents"
516-222-3825 LOUD tone
516-234-9914 New York Telephone Newsline
518-471-2272 New York Telephone Newsline
518-789-3299 weird busy, multitude of clicks
609-267-9966 busy with clicks in background
609-267-9967 600 ohm termination (silence)
609-267-9968 1000 hrtz tone
609-267-9971 LOUD tone, stops, repeats
609-267-9972 rings with clicks in background (also -
9973 and -9974)
609-877-9924 high tone (tone in 1,2,5-tone, bloop;
3,6,*-tone, higher tone, bleep; #-static,
beep, bleep)
609-877-9929 1000 hrz tone
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 264
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
617-553-9953 tone end of loop
617-890-9900 sweep tone
617-955-1111 telephone company employee newsline
619-748-0002 tone increases in pitch, silence, repeats
in monotone
619-748-0003 sweep, repeat, hangs up
702-789-6711 Nevada Bell Newsline
713-354-0000 touch tone in #, then new #, then 5 -
listed, 9 - unlisted)
713-482-3199 "We're sorry, all circuit are busy now."
713-652-5111 touch tones echo back "metallic",
something about "drivers licence number"
replys in a female recorded voice
717-255-5555 Bell of Pennsylvania "Inside Line"
(employee newsline)
718-429-9900 "Please slide a valid credit card through
the slot now"
800-221-5959 tone (# makes it ring)
800-228-8466 Sensaphone (tm) demo (time etc. (EST)
(wait 7+ rings))
800-321-3048 non-connecting loop with 800-321-3049
800-321-3052 loop (don't know where other end is)
800-321-6366 Centagram's Voice Memo System (extension
100 for demo)
800-323-6321 tone, stops, bloop repeats
800-327-0000 "Announcement three, Dallas" (changes
sometimes)
800-344-4001 non-connecting loop with 800-344-4002
800-524-0000 "Announcement 1 Atlanta"
800-554-5924 Cable News Network audio feed
800-824-8274 "Enter your password service code"
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 265
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802-955-1111 telephone company newsline
808-533-4426 Hawaiian Telephone Newsline
816-391-1122 recorder (keypress 1-toggle on/off, 3-
rewind, 4-stop, 7-play)
907-269-0955 tone (sounds like extender, doesn't take
touch tone (?))
914-232-9901 "Daytona, New York DMS-100 verification"
914-268-9901 "Congers DMS 100 Verification"
914-268-9903 "your call cannot be completed as dialed"
914-268-9968 (keypress 2-high tone, 3-high, higher
tone, 6,0-click, 7- hangs up, sometimes
0,#,*-harmony)
914-359-9901 repeats the number dialed ("914-359-9901")
914-359-9960 weird tone, stops, clicks, repeats
914-623-9968 (keypress 2,5-beep glitch, 3,6-tone
highertone)
916-480-8000 Pacific Bell Newsline
_______________________________________________________________
What a TSPS Console Looks Like
_______________________________________________________________
---------- non/coin ---------- ------ coin ----- -- hotel --
┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐
│vfy ││over││scrn││inwd││emer││sta ││0+ ││dial││sta ││0+ │
│dial││post││tone││sta ││0+ ││dial││qst ││ ││ ││ │
└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 266
G_PHREAK.WPS 11/20/90 11:52 AM
-------------- outgoing trunks - ring release --------------
┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐
│da ││r&r ││swb ││ogt ││back││fwd ││call││t&c ││nfy ││chg │
│ ││ ││ ││ ││ ││ ││ ││ ││ ││due │
└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘
┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐
│key ││back││fwd ││sr ││make││mtce││pos ││back││ ││ │
│clg ││ ││ ││ ││busy││trfr││ ││ ││ ││ │
└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘
---------------- ama -----------------
┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐
station <-> │paid││col ││spl ││spl ││auto││ddd │
│ ││ ││clg ││cld ││col ││ │
└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘
┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐┌----┐ ┌----┐
person <--> │paid││col ││spl ││spl │ │no │
│ ││ ││clg ││cld │ │ama │
└----┘└----┘└----┘└----┘ └----┘
┌----┐ ┌----┐ ┌----┐
│clg │ │clg │ │clg │
│ │ │ │ │ │
└----┘ └----┘ └----┘
_______________________________________________________________
Box Plans
_______________________________________________________________
Hmm... I wonder! This is still under construction (Ha Ha).
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 267
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_______________________________________________________________
The Infinity Transmitter
_______________________________________________________________
Typed by the Ghost Wind
From the book Build Your Own Laser, Phaser, Ion Ray Gun &
Other Working Space-Age Projects by Robert Iannini (Tab Books,
Inc.)
Description
Briefly, the Infinity Transmitter is a device which activates
a microphone via a phone call. It is plugged into the phone
line, and when the phone rings, it will immediately intercept
the ring and broadcast into the phone any sound that is in the
room. This device was originally made by Information
Unlimited, and had a touch tone decoder to prevent all who did
not know the code from being able to use the phone in its
normal way. This version, however, will activate the
microphone for anyone who calls while it is in operation.
Note It is illegal to use this device to try to bug someone.
It is also pretty stupid because they are fairly
noticeable.
Parts List
Pretend that uF means micro Farad, cap= capacitor
Part # Description
R1,4,8 3 390 k 1/4 watt resistor
R2 1 5.6 M 1/4 watt resistor
R3,5,6 3 6.8 k 1/4 watt resistor
R7/S1 1 5 k pot/switch
R9,16 2 100 k 1/4 watt resistor
R10 1 2.2 k 1/4 watt resistor
R13,18 2 1 k 1/4 watt resistor
R14 1 470 ohm 1/4 watt resistor
R15 1 10 k 1/4 watt resistor
R17 1 1 M 1/4 watt resistor
C1 1 .05 uF/25 V disc cap
<<> G-File: The Official Phreakers Manual: PHREAK*.DOC 268
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C2,3,5,6,7 5 1 uF 50 V electrolytic cap or tant **
C4,11,12 3 .01 uF/50 V disc cap
C8,10 2 100 uF @ 25 V electrolytic cap
C9 1 5 uF @ 150 V electrolytic cap
C13 1 10 uF @ 25 V electrolytic cap
TM1 1 555 timer dip
A1 1 CA3018 amp array in can
Q1,2 2 PN2222 npn sil transistor
Q3 1 D4OD5 npn pwr tab transistor
D1,2 2 50 V 1 amp react. 1N4002
T1 1 1.5 k/500 matching transformer
M1 1 large crystal microphone
J1 1 Phono jack optional for sense output
WR3 24" #24 red and black hook up wire
WR4 24" #24 black hook up wire
CL3,4 2 Alligator clips
CL1,2 2 6" battery snap clips
PB1 1 1 3/4x4 1/2x.1 perfboard
CA1 1 5 1/4x3x2 1/8 grey enclosure fab
WR15 12" #24 buss wire
KN1 1 small plastic knob
BU1 1 small clamp bushing
B1,2 2 9 volt transistor battery or 9V ni-cad
** (preferably non-polarized)
Circuit Operation
Not being the most technical guy in the world, and not being
very good at electronics (yet), I'm just repeating what Mr.
Iannini's said about the circuit operation. The Transmitter
consists of a high grain amplifier fed into the telephone
lines via transformer. The circuit is initiated by the action
of a voltage transient pulse occurring across the phone line
at the instant the telephone circuit is made (the ring, in
other words). This transient immediately triggers a timer
whose output pin 3 goes positive, turning on transistors Q2
and Q3. Timer TM1 now remains in this state for a period
depending on the values of R17 and C13 (usually about 10
seconds for the values shown). When Q3 is turned on by the
timer, a simulated "off hook" condition is created by the
switching action of Q3 connecting the 500 ohm winding of the
transformer directly across the phone lines.
Simultaneously, Q2 clamps the ground of A1, amplifier, and Q1,
output transistor, to the negative return of B1,B2, therefore
enabling this amplifier section. Note that B2 is always
required by supplying quiescent power to TM1 during normal
conditions. System is off/on controlled by S1 (switch).
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A crystal mike picks up the sounds that are fed to the first
two transistors of the A1 array connected as an emitter
follower driving the remaining two transistors as cascaded
common emitters. Output of the array now drives Q1
capacitively coupled to the 1500 ohm winding of T1. R7
controls the pick up sensitivity of the system.
Diode D1 is forward biased at the instant of connection and
essentially applies a negative pulse at pin 2 of TM1,
initiating the cycle. D2 clamps any high positive pulses. C9
DC-isolates and desensitizes the circuit. The system described
should operate when any incoming call is made without ringing
the phone.
Schematic Diagram
Because this is text, this doesn't look too hot. Please use a
little imagination! I will hopefully get a graphics drawing of
this out as soon as I can on a Fontrix graffile.
To be able to see what everything is, this character: | should
appear as a horizontal bar. I did this on a ][e using a ][e 80
column card, so I'm sorry if it looks kinda weird to you.
Symbols
-/\/\/ resistor _/ _ switch
-|!|!- battery -|(- capacitor (electrolytic)
-||- capacitor (disc) |< diode
_ _
(c) > (e) transistor )||( transformer
\_/ )||(
|(b) _)||(_
._____. chip
!_____! (chips are easy to recognize!)
Dots imply a connection between wires. No dot, no connection.
ie.: _!_ means a connection while _|_ means no connection.
.________________________to GREEN wire phone line
|
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| .______________________to RED wire phone line
| |
| | ._________(M1)___________.
| | | |
| | | R1 |
| | !__________/\/\/_________!
| | | _!_ C1
| | |this wire is the amp ___
| | |<=ground | R2
| | | !____________/\/\/_________.
| | | .____!____. |
| | !___________________!4 9 11!_____________________!
| | | | | |
| | !___________________!7 12._____________________!
| | | | A1 | R3 |
| | !___________________!10 _*8!___.____/\/\/________! ^
| | | | / | | | |
| | | C4 | < | \ |2ma
| | !____||______. | | | /R4 B1 +
| | | || | | | | \ |!|!
| | | R7 | C2 | > | / |
| | !____/\/\/___!__)|__!8*_/ | | S1 |
| | | ^ | 6!___! neg<__/.__!
| | | | C3 | | | C5 return |
| | | !_____|(___.__!3 | '-|(-| |
| | | | | 5 1!________! |
| | | \ !____.____! | B2|!|!
| | !________. R8 / | | +
| | | \ | | R6 |3ma
| | | !_______!_____________|____/\/\/___! |
| | | R5 | | | v
| | !__/\/\/________|_____________! |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | C6 | |
| | | |-)|-' R9 |
| | | !__________/\/\/_______. |
| | | | | |
| | | Q1 _!_ | R10 |
| | !_________/ \_____________________!_/\/\/__!
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | C8 | |
| | !_______)|________________________|________!
| | ! | |
| | _/ | |
| | ----| | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | !_______. | |
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| | | | | |
| | !____. | | |
| | | | | |
| !____. | | .___________! |
| | | | | |
| | | | | |
| | | | | C7 |
| | | | '-|(-| |
| |___|______!______.T1.___________| |
| | | 1500 )||( 500 |
| | | ohm )||( ohm |
| | !_____.)||(.__. |
| | | | |
| | | .__! |
| | | > |
| | | |/ |
| | | +---| Q3 |
| | | | |\ |
!__________|______|____|_____!__. D1 C9 |
| | | '-|<---|(-------| |
.____! | | | |
| | | | |
| ._________! | | |
| | | | |
\ | .______! C11 | |
/ | | .___||__________! |
R13 \ | | | || | |
/ | | | | |
\ !___.___|_______________! | |
| | | | | R16 | R15 |
| v | | !___/\/\/\______!_/\/\/_!
| neg | | | D2 | |
| ret | | !_____|<________! |
| B1 | \ | | |
| B2 | / | .__________!_. |
| | \R14 |C12 | TM1 2 | |
| | / !_||_!5 4!_____!
| | \ | || | | |
| | | !____!1 8!_____!
| | | | | 7 6 3 | |
| | | | !_____._.__._! |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | C13 | | | R17 |
| | | !___)|_____!_!__|_/\/\/_!
| | | | | |
!_____|___!_______________|_______________! |
| | | |
| \ | C10 |
| /R18 !__________)|___________!
| \
| /
| |
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!___O J1
sense output
Construction Notes
Because the damned book just gave a picture instead of step by
step instructions, and I'll try to give you as much help as
possible. Note that all the parts that you will be using are
clearly labeled in the schematic. The perfboard, knobs, 'gator
clips, etc are optional. I do strongly suggest that you do use
the board! It will make wiring the components up much much
easier than if you don't use it.
The knob you can use to control the pot (R7). R7 is used to
tune the IT so that is sounds ok over the phone. (You get to
determine what sounds good) By changing the value of C13, you
can change the amount of time that the circuit will stay open
(it cannot detect a hang up, so it works on a timer.) A value
of 100 micro Farads will increase the time by about 10 times.
The switch (S1) determines whether or not the unit is
operational. Closed is on. Open is off. The negative return is
the negative terminals of the battery! The batteries will look
something like this when hooked up:
<-v_____. .______. ._____. .____->
| | | | | |
__!___!__ | | __!___!__
| + - | !_/ _! | + - |
| | switch ^ | |
| 9volts| | | 9volts|
!_______! neg return !_______!
To hook this up to the phone line, there are three ways,
depending upon what type of jack you have. If it is the old
type (non modular) then you can just open up the wall plate
and connect the wires from the transmitter directly to the
terminals of the phone.
If you have a modular jack with four prongs, attach the red to
the negative prong (don't ask me which is which! I don't have
that type of jack... I've only seen them in stores), and the
green to the positive prong, and plug in. Try not to shock
yourself...
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If you have the clip-in type jack, get double male extension
cord (one with a clip on each end), and chop off one clip. Get
a sharp knife and splice off the grey protective material. You
should see four wires, including one green and one red. You
attach the appropriate wires from the IT to these two, and
plug the other end into the wall.
Getting the IT to Work
If you happen to have a problem, you should attempt to do the
following (these are common sense rules!) Make sure that you
have the polarity of all the capacitors right (if you used
polarized capacitors, that is). Make sure that all the
soldering is done well and has not short circuited something
accidently (like if you have a glob touching two wires which
should not be touching.) Check for other short circuits. Check
to see if the battery is in right. Check to make sure the
switch is closed.
If it still doesn't work, drop me a line on one of the
Maryland or Virginia BBSs and I'll try to help you out.
The Sense Output
Somehow or other, it is possible to hook something else up to
this and activate it by phone (like an alarm, flashing lights,
etc.)
As of this writing, I have not tried to make one of these, but
I will. If you actually get it working, leave me a note
somewhere.
I sure hope all you people appreciate this.
The Ghost Wind
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_______________________________________________________________
Silver Box
An Alternate Method of Construction
_______________________________________________________________
By the Lock Lifter
85/1/25
Parts & Equipment
1. Pocket tone dialer (radio shack cat. No. 43-138)
2. Single pole double throw switch (toggle, the smaller the
better)
3. Soldering iron
This modification will allow the production of a,b,c,&d tones.
When you flip the switch the 3,6,9, keys will become
a,b,c,&d respectively. The ic inside the dialer is capable of
making these tones already, all we must do is connect it
fully. This mod can also be made to many electronic fones that
contain a dtmf tone encoding ic. This chip can be identified
by the number 5089 or s2559 or mk5380 or tcm5087n. Pin 9 of
these chips is the fourth column keypad input while pin 5 is
the third column. Now on with the construction.
1. Remove the battery cover, batteries, and the small screw.
The case should now pop open with a little pressure.
2. Open the case so that the half containing the speaker and
the batteries is on your left with the batteries on the
bottom. You should now be looking at the back of 2
printed circuit boards.
3. Find the two rows of solder beads where the ic is
connected. The upper left pin of the 2 rows should have
no solder on it. This is pin 9 of the ic.
4. Attach a short wire to pin 9.
5. See the 8 gold wires going to the key pad? Unsolder the
one 4th from the left and connect it to a short wire.
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6. Solder a short wire into the now vacant hole in the
keypad pcb.
7. Melt or drill a round hole in the plastic case for the
switch. The best place for this is opposite the small pcb
containing the l.e.d.
8. Insert the switch and screw it in place.
9. Attach the wire from the keypad pcb to the center of the
switch. Attach the other two wires to the other two poles
of the switch. Just close the case, put back in the screw
and batteries.
The switch will now allow the 3rd column keys to produce both
3rd and fourth column tones. Have phun.
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