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TAP No. 70 November-December 1981 ==================== NAKED CAME THE CROOK ==================== A nude man who came in from the cold to rob a gas station early yesterday had a decided advantage, police said. The attendant was female. She fled, leaving the unarmed man free to empty the cash register, then scroll casually from the scene of the crime. ================== FREEBASING COCAINE ================== By Dr. Atomic Frebasing cocaine is basically a California phenomenon, but it's a practice that is popular with entertainers and with others who can afford to indulge in the pleasures of cocaine. Freebase cocaine is smoked in a special, glass water pipe called a freebase pipe, and after taking a toke the onset of the high is quick; it comes on faster than snorting and almost as quick as an I.V. injection -- it's like injecting cocaine without using a needle. After inhaling the freebase cocaine vapors, your hearing drops, and you get an incredible rush even before enough time passes to exhale the smoke. Unfortunately, the rush and the high don't last long, and the desire to smoke some more coke is compulsive. In fact, it is so impulsive that people who hang around the freebase pip, impatiently waiting to get another toke, are known in the vernacular as "freebase vultures". But, before the cocaine can be smoked, it must first be prepared. The cocaine purchased on the street is usually coaine hydrochloride (HCl), a water soluble salt of cocaine that is suitable for snorting or injecting, but not for smoking. Cocaine HCl burns at a high temperature, about 200oC, an if it's smoked, much of the cocaine gets carbonized, burned up, instead of reaching your lungs as vapors. But, by changing the cocaine HCl to cocaine freebase, you get more of the desired cocaine vapors and less carbon because the freebase vaporizes at a much lower temperature than the cocaine HCl does. All it takes to change the cocaine HCl into cocaine freebase is a little home chemistry. It's easy: if you can bake brownies by following a cook book, you can freebase coke. The only supplies needed are some inexpensive chemicals and equipment that are easily obtainable at your local paraphernalia shop. Equipment and Supplies ---------------------- 1 Freebase water pipe, glass 2 Screens, fine mesh, for pipe 1 Glass freebase vial, 1 oz with top (1) 1 Mirror 1 Single edge razor blade 1 Box baking soda 1 bottle of petroleum ether or ethyl ether (2) 1 book matches or butane lighter NOTE 1: Ethyl ether and petroleum ether will dissolve many plastics, so the tops of freebase vials are specially made of ether resistant plastic. NOTE 2: Use caution when handling ether. The vapors of both ethyl ether and petroleum ether will ignite explosively near an open flame. Make sure that the room is well ventilated when extracting with ether. When freebasing in the kitchen, make sure the pilot lights are out on the stove and the hot water heater if they are nearby. Also, don't smoke or light matches while there are still fumes in the air. The Freebase Process -------------------- 1) To a 1 oz glass freebase vial, add 4ml to 6ml of warm water. Less than 1/4 of the vial is more than sufficient water. 2) Dissolve 1/4 to 1/2 gram of cocaine HCl in the water to make a cocaine solution. Shake or stir if necessary to dissolve the cocaine. 3) Add about 1/4 gram, more or less, of baking soda to the coaine HCl solution. It is better to have an excess of baking soda than not enough. Next shake well. This changes the cocaine HCl to the freebase. 4) Using a glass eyedropper, add 2ml to 3ml of ether. Shake well. The ether extracts the freebase cocaine from the water layer. As a rule of thumb, use half as much ether as water. Since ether and water do not form a solution, the ether will rise to the top and form a distinct layer. ___________ |\ /| | \_______/ | __________ Ether Resistant Cap |___________| | | | | | | | | | | |___________| | | --------- Ether Layer |___________| | | | | --------- Water Layer |___________| Because the cocaine freebase is more soluble in ether than in water, the ether layer will contain most of the freebase; in effect, the ether has extracted the freebase cocaine from the water layer. This first ether extraction is known as the "first wash". The water layer can be washed one or two more times with ether to extract the small amount of freebase remaining after the first wash. 5) Siphon off the ether layer with the eyedropper, making sure not to take any of the water layer. Drop the freebase saturated ether carefully onto a clean mirror or glass surface. When the ether evaporates, a white powder should remain; this is the cocaine freebase, and it's ready to smoke. So what are you waiting for? The freebasing process removes some of the water soluble contaminants (cuts) like mannitol and lactose, so the yield, i.e. the weight of the cocaine freebase obtained will weigh less than the cut-coke that was started with; however, no significant amount of cocaine is lost, only the cut is removed. Thus, a gram of cocaine HCl that is only 25% pure is not a gram of cocaine but a 1/4 gram of cocaine, and the yield of freebase cocaine, for this particular sample, will be slightly less than 1.4 gram. The cocaine freebase, however, is nearly pure, compared to the starting material, and a smaller dose of the freebase will be just as potent as a larger amount of the cut cocaine. So, start with a small hit, a match size line or less (20mg to 50mg). Remember, just like snorting ot injecting, you can consume too much by smoking. Be careful how much you smoke, and be careful, too, for police and informers: cocaine is still illegal. Have fun with your chemistry projects, stay high, and stay free. ========================= MAN NABBED IN PHONE FRAUD ========================= EAST BRUNSWICK - A man who described himself as an electronics engineer has been arrested on charges stemming from the use of a "blue box", a gadget the size of a calculator that emits electronic signals that bypasses regular telephone billing equipment. Tarkeshwar Singh, 50, of 16 Manor Place, was freed on his own recognizance after he was arrested yesterday in a public phone booth at a Route 18 department store, Detective Donald Henschel reported. Singh was charged with possesion of a burglary tool, the "blue box", and theft of $300 of services from New Jersey Bell Telephone Co. police said. Investigator James Witanek of the phone company's security division in Newark said the investigation had been inprogress for several months. During that time, he said, Signh used the device for $300 worth of phone calls to Japan and Hong Kong. In addition to the "Blue Box", investigators confiscated a schematic design of the insturment which they said had been sent to Signh by an aquaintance in West Germany. "These electronic devices are a continuing problem to the telephone company," Witanek said. ======================= THE POSTAL (DIS)SERVICE ======================= The Department of Agriculture recently completed a major survey, packed up its findings in some 1,300 boxes and mailed them off to its Des Moines, Iowa, processing center. While in the fumbling hands of the Postal Service, more than 600 of the parcels were damaged, lost or delivered to the wrong address. We trust that when the Agriculture Department lodged its complaint, it had the good sense to call rather than drop a letter in the mail. ===================================== DO-IT-YOURSELF CALL FORWARDING DEVICE ===================================== Dear TAP: In Response to several pleas from your pub, enclosed is some technical data on the Pacific Telephones in Pasadena. On Hook: 45 VDC Off Hook: 7.5 VDC @ 6ma Phone Input res: 200 ohms Ring: Approx 50 VAC (My cheap multi-meter doesn't read AC mils) T1 (Mic Button) res: 600 ohms U3 (Ear Piece) res: 20 ohms (leads feeding earpiece show 80 ohms across them.) Ringer Coil Res: approx 3K ohms. Only one Coil. Ring Back #6105-6: (Prefix)-1-(Prefix) gets a wierd "ticky-tock" sound; (Prefix)-0002 gets a nice 1000 cps tone; (Prefix)-1118 gets a real LOUD tone; (Prefix)-0000 gets a central office recording which includes the unlisted phone number for the office (in this case, 576-6119); What was supposed to be the verifying number (Prefix)-1111, gets the "Not in service" recording; (Prefix)-0003 gets the referral operator; (Prefix)-0119 is a private party's home fone; I'm trying to come up with a design for a "Dial Through Cheese Box" sort of a gimmick, but it's not what I want. I could do it if we had T-T phone hereabouts, but we're stuck with impulse dials. Drat. Any ideas? MATERIALS: C1- 1.0mfd @ 400 VDC RL1- 4P.DT Relay, 115 vac coil T1- Audio Isolation xformer, approx 600 ohms imped, 100 to 200 ohms DC res. M1- Timer Motor. 115 VAC 60 CPS SW1a- First section of timer switch, set for approx 3min closed, 10 sec open (due to circuit configuration, timer will self index to "open" position of this switch). SW1b- Second section of timer switch. Set for minimum possible duration "on". Indexed to close AFTER SW1A has come OUT of detent. This is the critical factor in choosing the type of timer. "On" duration must be LESS than time required for "name caller" to finish dialing. ADDITIONAL ITEM REQUIRED, BUT NOT SHOWN: 1 ea battery powered "Name Caller" dialing machine or equivalent. NOTE: Over-ride disconnect switch (Tone Send. Relay?) may be connected at point x-x. ================ CALLING HIS BUFF ================ LAS VEGAS (AP) - What do you say to a naked burglar? That's what police were wondering at 5am Sunday when they arrested Karl Hunsaker, 30 of Las Vegas, as he was climbing down a ladder in the buff carrying household goods from an apartment. Hunsaker was booked for investigation of burglary. Officers gave no reason as to why Hunsaker had no clothes on. ==================== JAIL PHONE LINE BUSY ==================== DELAND, Fla. - A defendant usually gets to make one free phone call, but for a few inmates at the Volusia County jail that apparently wasn't enough. Using coin-operated telephones in the jail, at least six inamtes made at least $32,000 worth of illegal telephone calls, according to Assistant State Attorney Horace Smith. The inmated charged the calls to fake credit cards or to telephone numbers of unsuspecting citizens in this central Florida city, he said. Three inmates have been found guilty of charges in connection with the telephone case, and three others are awaiting trial, Smith said. ==================== PHONE CENTER PARADOX ==================== Michigan Bell Telephone Co., the giant corporate institution that touches all of our lives and wallets, gets absolutely giddy whenever we reach for the telephone. Bell spends millions of dollars around the clock and calendar for advertising and public relation to persuade us to reach more often. We are taught, however, obliquely, that we are disadvantaged unless we have telephones handy in every room of the house and office, or if we do not use them to facilitate every communication. Shop by phone; sell aluminum siding by phone; solicit and collect money by phone. Telephone your mother, lover, great uncle and your entire graduating clas at least once a week, just for the kick of it. Get a separate line for the kids! Get a car phone! Give a phone to a poor person! And, do invest in one of those recording devices so you will never, never miss a call, even a wrong number. That way Michigan Bell will never miss collecting for the call. We will all live happily ever after. ONE RINGY-DINGY...... All this, and more, is the implied message of Bell's advertising. I have no argument with it. I would rather write than phone, or recieve a letter than a call. Written words are special to me. Spoke words transmitted by electronic devices may be special to other people. The absurdity that intriges me is not in the advertising or even the concept of the telephone as an extension of the human mouth and ear. Here's the absurdity: In it's ever-dilligent determination to expand service, the telephone company has opened 35 new Phone Centers around the state during the past 18 months or so. These are retail stores, more or less, in which you can purchase telephones (Bell calls them "instruments") and also arrange for installation when necessary, strighten out billing problems and generally do your telephone buisness. These places are designed as walk-in centers, however. Therefore - and here it comes - they are not included in telephone book listings. This is not an oversight. The Phone Centers have unlisted telephone numbers. This is what I call absurd, remembering everything Bell has said about how essential telephone communication is to life itself. I know about this because a fellow named Jerry Moons (I think) telephoned me to tell me about it. He had seen one of these Phone Centers near Telegraph and 13 mile and wanted to dial it up to ask telephonic questions. TWO RINGY-DINGIES.... "I couldn't find a listing," he said, "so I dialed the information operator. It rang 20 times and I hung up. Then, I dialed Bell headquarters, and someone there told me the number is unlisted. The person said Bell doesn't want its people bothered by phone calls. I swear to you that's what I was told." I believe him. I confirmed it with a telephone company spokeman. He said, "The Phone Centers do have telephones, but we discourage telephone contacts. It's supposed to be a face-to-face operation. You know, a retail outlet to shop for phones." He told me a lot of other things. He said Bell workers at the Phone Centers do not have access to central records and are not really set up to help with billing problems or repair problems. He said they have to refer all those things to other departments, that that's a nuisance for them and a hold-up for customers. He said the main job of the phone centers is to sell phones and to arrange for service, and that having an unlisted number helps. All that translates to me as the same thing as "Bell doesn't want it's people bothered by phone calls." I love it. Finding a giant absurdity is as exciting as finding the great pumpkin. Now, it's your turn. ======================== COMPUTER 'ERASES' PHONES ======================== A malfunctioning computer bulletin board almost caused a total communications blackout yesterday at the Union County administrative complex in Elizabeth. All 945 telephones at the County complex went dead shortly before 11:30am. when a memory board in the telephone operations room burned out, according to James Delaney, director of central services. Delaney said critical county operations, such as police and emergency communications, had been carried out over the county's radio system during the nearly four hours it took for the telephone company to restore service. In the meantime, the county's work force either waited until the telephones were operative, or opted to "hoot it" between various floors or buildings in an effort to maintain communications until the system was repaired just after 3pm. ================== WRONG LINE, INDEED ================== TEMPLE, Texas (AP) - If you're one of those people who always seem to be caught in the slowest-moving line at the bank, you might understand the predicament a would-be robber found himself in recently. The fellow stepped up to a teller at the First National Bank of Temple and demanded that she fill his sack with money. "Give me the money, this is a stickup," the unarmed man told Claudine Holder. Holder barely glanced at the canvas bag on her counter. Instead, the teller, whom bank vice-president Sam Farrow described as "feisty and very quick-witted," informed the man that he was in the wrong line. She directed him to stand in a line across the lobby, and while he waited meekly for service, she called police. The suspect was arrested and charged with attempted bank robbery. ======================================= ARMY WANTS TO FIND LONG-DISTANCE CHEATS ======================================= TACOMA - The Army wants to reach out and touch a few individuals who like to make illegal long-distance calls at Fort Lewis. One soldier phoned a number in the Dominican Republic and charged the $1,296 call to the base. Another has been calling from a pay telephone on Fort Lewis to a pay phone outside the Howard Johnson Restaurant in Trenton, NJ and been charging those calls to a number on the post. Worse yet, says Bill Wood, a base spokesman, return calls from Trenton are billed to the same number. Ordinarily, long-distance bills going through the Fort Lewis Communications Center average $2,000 a month. In May, the bills came to $4,500. "Probably half or more of them are fraudulent," Wood says, "but we are checking and we will find those people." Those making such calls could be imprisioned for five years for the offense. ============================== ABUSE OF REMOTE ACCESS SYSTEMS ============================== John Petrie has a problem. Petrie (not his real name) is the communcations manager for a medium size company in the Midwest. His company has installed a long-distance control system to monitor usage and get better utilization of long distance facilities. Because the company has a large number of people traveling, remote access to the company's long distance facilities was installed to reduce the number of credit card calls. A series of inward WATS lines are connected to the long distance control system at headquarters. When traveling, company representatives can simply dial an "800" number and then their personal authorization code to get access to the company's long distance facilities including toll and outward WATS. The remote access system seemed to be working great. Credit card calls had been all but eliminated and the overall cost had been reduced. Then about six months ago, Petrie was in the midst of doing the detailed monthly billing of calls to station users when he noticed that one person had been making a large number of 800 number calls via the remote access. Petrie thought to himself, "This guy's got to be a stupid fool to dial our 800 number to place a free 800 number call!" When questioned about the calls, the man denied making any remote access calls at all that month. Totally confused at this point, Petrie called several of the 800 numbers listed in the billing report. In every case, when the call was answered, the familiar toned indicated entrance to a remote access system were heard. A phone freak was clearly at work! Petrie immediately changed all codes, pauses and methods of gaining access to the company's system. That night, the mysterious caller tried 60 times before he finally figured out the new procedures and codes. Petrie made another major change, but the caller cracked that in about 20 tries, and then placed a call to germany. Petrie removed international dialing from the system and called the telephone company security department. Meanwhile, he decided to have some fun by calling the 800 numbers on the billing report, contacting each company's switchboard operator and asking to be connected to the communications manager. According to Petrie, "The moments of silence were deafening when I told these managers how I had reached them." After about a week, the telephone company security people showed up and after reviewing the documentation were amazed. They traced all of the called numbers, and came up with nothing but remote access numbers, "meet-me" conference numbers and services such as Time and Temperature in upstate Michigan. They did their best to trace calls back to the originating number, and came up with calls from California out of another company's remote access system. Petrie says that to date his company has been hit with about 6,000 fraudulent calls, which cost about $10 an hour. "Even with all this," he says, "I don't feel we look too bad compared to companies I know who have been hit for in excess of $2,500 a month on international calls alone. He seems to take great delight in calling Hertz Rent-A-Car in Guam." John Petrie's problem is not unique. An informal survey by BCR reveals that a number of large companies, although by no means all have had some type of a problem with unauthorized use of remote access facilities. Indeed, at least one large consulting firm has been investigating this problem for several clients. The difficulty in getting access to a companie's long distance facilities via remote access varies considerably. The system used by Petrie's company is one of the more difficult ro crack in that it trquires knowing the proper inward WATS number plus a valid authorization code. The system used in AT&T's Dimension PBX may be less secure in that there is one common access code for eveyone. In some systems, no access of authorization code at all is required. Simply dialing the special local or inward WATS number gives the caller immediate access to the long distance facilities. The communications manager of one large company says that his organization once used inward WATS to access long distance facilities thriugh a Centrex system without any restriction. A caller simply dialed "9" and got access to the world. In one month there was $5,000 to $6,000 in unauthorized calls to destinations such as Israel, Hong Kong and Portugal. Belatedly, the company charged the system to restrict remote access calls to the company's tie line network. A consultant who has studied the problem believes that most abuse of remote access to long distance facilities involves insiders or other persons closely associated with the company. Often, it is a consumer or a supplier who finds out how to use the remote access. Sometimes it is just the difficulty in keeping authorization codes from becoming common knowledge within an organization. One company the consultant recalls was using MCI Execunet service, and the authorization code was supposed to be known by only a small group of persons. Eventually, it came to be known by a very large group. "I don't know how much security you can really put into it," the consultant says, "because once you tell the secretaries and they have to write memos to someone else, it is very hard to clamp down on it." One of the country's largest manafacturing firms uses an operator-controlled system in which someone calling from outside wanting to use the long distance facilities must give the operator a four character code. The communications manager told BCR that while abuse is "not a significant problem for us, we know that there are people using the network who are not authorized to do it. Some of them are retiries from the company who have been around for a while and know the score. With 10,000 authorization codes, it's not too difficult to find a good one." It appears that most cases of abuse are the result of people wanting to make free telephone calls. But there also seems to be an element of pranksterism involved. One company in the East, located near a large university, found they had a lot of outsiders accessing their telephone system. Suspecting university students, they got persmission to install a call data recorder on the main university Centrex system. The data they collected confirmed that the students were, indeed, living up to their reputation for technical wizardry. they had not only found out how to access the company's long distance facilities, but its computer system as well. Fortunately, they had not yet found out how to obtain or manipulate data in the computer. John Petrie says one of the prankster's tricks "is to place a call to Company A's remote access. From Company A's system, they then call Company B's remote access; then call from Company B to Company C; then call from Company C back again to Company A and finally to a non-releasing Time and Temperature number that, of course, will never hang up. By doing this on a Friday evening (none of the companies being aware of it until Monday morning), they can tie up entire systems for many hours of overtime charges." How easy is it to find a remote access number? If you have some association with a company that has one or with the telephone company, the answer is probably: not too hard. But, if you have no inside information, the difficulty is much greater. To find out how hard it might be for an outsider, we decided to beomce a phone freak, and to try to find an inward WATS line connected to a remote access. AT&T says that there are about 40,000 interstate inward WATS lines, of which about one-half have unlisted numbers. Presumably, a small percentage of these unlisted nunbers are for remote access. Our experience suggests that they are not easy to find. Knowing nothing about how the telephone company assigns inward WATS numbers, we began by consulting a readily available directory of listed 800 numbers to see if there was any pattern to how numbers are assigned. Our assumption was that unlisted numbers would follow the same pattern as listed numbers, an assumption that seems to be true. It appears from the directory that 800 numbers do have some pattern; that the digits in the exchange code vary with the geographical area. WATS lines in New York, for example, have exchange codes that begin with a different digit than WATS lines in California. (We deducted the location from the fact that the listing said that the number was good anywhere except New York or except California.) Knowintg that a lot of company headquarters are located in New York, we selected some exchange codes that appear to be used very frequently in New York. We dialed these codes with varying combinations of the last four digits. After gerring three answers and six recorded announcements saying the number was no good on the first ten tries (one answer did not answer), we further analyzed the numbers and dialed 30 good numbers out of the next 40. None of these numbers, however, was connected to remote access. After these 50 unsuccessful attempts, we got bored and gave up, deciding we were not cut out to be a phone freak. But had we more perserverance or an automatic dialer, perhaps eventually we would have found a remote access system. Of course, even if we had, we would be only half-way home if the system required an authorization code. It is this difficulty in getting through the security precautions that makes most observers believe abuse of remote access results generally from inside information. For the user being hit, this distinction might seem academic but it does suggest that a company can cut its losses substantially by concentrating on more internal security. The following are some effective measures: 1. Require a proper authorization code in addition to the access number. 2. Assign remote access authorization codes to a minimum number of people. 3. Provide enough digits in the authorization code so that you need assign only a small percentage of the maximum number of combinations. 4. Change authorization codes frequently. 5. When someone with a code leaves the company, retire the code. 6. If possible, install asystem which tells you if a series of invalid codes had been dialed in. 7. Never give information on remote access to someone you do not know. A while back, an individual posing as an Action Communications Systems employee was calling WATSBOX users and asking for remote access numbers and codes, ostensibly to update Actions's records. The caller was not from action. These precautions should minimalize abuse of romote access, but they will not eliminate it. Ask John Petrie. He knows. ================================== HOW TO CHEAT YOUR ASS OFF IN SKOOL ================================== "I have only learned by copying" - Pablo Picasso MAKING IT: Nice people just don't cheat. This is a fact of life. If you do cheat, you are most likely a rotten no good stinker with commie friends, dirty underwear and a host of social diseases. The REVOLUTIONARY 3 STOOGES try to discourage this type of behaviour. It is both tacky and unsophisticated. We suggest that instead, you foloow the advice of our firends from TAKE OVER, in Madison Wis. by just forgetting the entire mess. Fuck Skool! Forget cheating. Print up your own degree instead and get on with living. (1) Borrow a friend's diploma, put your name in it and make a copy suitable for framing. You can take the signature from the old diploma, and get a fascimile when the new President is named - he will probably have his signature in the papers or on all kinds of documents. (2) If you have a Gemini friend, get the friend's transcript and put your name at the top - if the friend has a degree. Again, make a copy. Or, if you have been here one semester - and don't rush, you have 4 years to graduate the TakeOver way - you can get your own transcript and simply fill it in with courses it might have been nice to take. Reduce-xerox your work to fit the form. Consolidated Company in Chicago, a Saturn (discreet) firm will sell you a seal that works like a notary's seal for the transcript - you must emboss your list of courses and grades to give it that offical look. You design the embossing seal yourself; put your birth sign in the center if you like, some Latin on the outside, with the words "University of Wisconsin." For Latin phrases we suggest a little joking, such as "PECUNIA LOQUIT" (Money talks) or "OSCULA ASCULA" (Kiss my Ass) (3) Two-thirds graduated already, thank your lucky stars and proceed to the next part of your education: references. Choose or aquire three friends who are careful about getting their mail. Appoint them Deans or Faculty members, depending on what stationery you can get or contacts you can aquire, have them write glowing reccomendations for you, and when your file is built, put it in an employment office. Some employment offices, such as the University Placement Bureau, will furnish forms for reccomendations, so you won't have to get the stationery yourself. After your file is put in an employment office, job offers will be sent to you, and, as you apply for them, the companies may contact your references - let them do it by mail and you can write replies yourself. Freed of the ignorance and cruelty of the Capricorns, you will have time to learn instead of just becoming passive. You can make life easier for yourself, too, by following your star on food stamps and welfare, or get a new name by writing for the copy of a birth certificate of someone your own age who died young. With this certificate you're on your way to a social security card, driver's license, phones in other names, bills falling forgotten into abandoned mailboxes, etc. You can have four years of life, not the living death of crawling from class to class. But, some object, "What about knowledge?" The person who has spent time at the university may just turn their eyes up at such a question, hardly able to believe that someone who could think he/she would learn anything of the slightest use while sitting in a lecture hall is not an extraterrestrial alien. The knowledgable believe that Education, under the influence of venus, is not at all lovely, but a sort of venereal disease, a cerebellic gangrene, for which this paper may be used as a condom (more mundane disease prevention may be obtained at the WSA pharmacy or the Blue Bus on Spring St). FAKING IT: It was the morning after. After, that is, dragging myself from the gutter in front of the Moonlight Bar to the back seat of my car. A bristly black hairy tarantula ran screaming from my mouth. Unknown substances mingled with cigarette butts in my hair. I had a mid-term exam in ancient Chinese history in 2 hours. You could say that I was unprepared. I asked myself, "What would a Mao Tse-fly do in a case like this?" But the Red Guards were nowhere in sight. I was on my own. I entered the class, paused and slowly labeled my blue book #2. I took the time writing a single grandiloquent concluding paragraph and handed it in. The professor later apologized for losing my first blue book and gave me a B. A cheat must always be resourceful. 1) Change the answers on graded tests. Bring them back to the prof and say, "Hey, I had this answer right." 2) Carry in completed blue books to the exam. 3) At the end of the quarter professors leave graded tests and term papers in the halls for their students. Take the best ones and save them for future use. 4) Keep all tests and papers to use again and again, use your friends' and visit fraternity files. 5) Remember to never put down what you plagerized from as a source. Use master theses from other colleges, the papers kept by departments at other colleges for the "serious researcher" and obscure books from other libraries. 6) Despite propaganda, term paper companies are OK. TAKING IT: I know of one student who walked into the school print shop as exams were being run off, sat down on an inked gally and walked off with a set of tests on his pants. 1) Bribe or get friends who can get tests, such as janitors and print shop workers. 2) Go through wastepaper cans for copies. CRIBING IT: What I have come to call the "Ethiopian Shuffle" was given to me by a foriegn exchange student and has proven to be one of the best crib notes in the buisness. Taking a long narrow strip of paper that is folded like an accordion into a tiny book, you are able to write 10 times the amount of info that a normal crib sheet holds. It is then manipulated with thumb and forefinger. 1) Magic shops have special pensils which write invisible notes that can only been seen with special glasses. 2) Intelligence is transmitted to several cheaters through an elaborate signal system. Pen point is up, down is false. In multiple choice, fingers at chin level mean number of question - at waist level, number of answer. 3) Put cribs on the seat near your crotch. Open your legs to see it, close them to hide it. 4) Transistorized tape recorders can be camoflauged as hearing aids. 5) Be imagnitive. Hide notes everywhere. On skin and fingernails. As scrolls in objects such as watches and pens. On kleenex, gum and cigarettes. Write on the sole of your shoe for easy reading when crossing legs. On tape in the folds of clothes and behind sheer nylon. Viva Larry, Curly & Moe, Pancho White Villa ===================================== TRANSIT EMPLOYEE SOLVES TOKEN PROBLEM ===================================== A Transit Worker who took it upon himself to tackle the TA's $1-million-a-year problem with slug token has come up with an ingenious $1 solution. Thomas Costa, a 46-year-old turnstile foreman from Astoris, invented what he calls a "roll-pin" device at home. "We were having a problem at the Greenpoint Ave. Station" where thin steel slugs were showing up reguarly in token clerk buckets, he explained. "I came up with it for this one particular slug, but when I brought it in we found out it worked on all kinds." The device works by measuring the width of the phony coins and dropping through those coins that don't fit the dimensions of legitimate tokens. Forty copies of Costa's home invention were tested in several high-volume stations in Manhattan with "excellent success," a Transit Authority spokesman said yesterday. This week, the TA ordered devices for the installation in every turnstile in the system. Slugs and foreign coins, which have plagued the subway system since it was opened nearly 80 years ago, have been used at epidemic proportions since the fare was hiked to 75 cents last month. Nearly 30,000 fare beaters have dropped phony tokens into turnstiles every week according to transit police. A peak in slug use was reached in 1976 when 100,000 phony tokens a week were being used. Costa submitted his invention to the TA through its employee suggestion program, which means he gives up all patent rights to the device. "The TA couldn't pay [employees] for all the stuff they've come up with," Costa laughed. "What did he get for developing this thing?" Costa's boss, Joe Spencer, was asked. "I kissed him twice," Spencer said. ======================================= COMPUTERS MONITOR PHONE LINES FOR FRAUD ======================================= New electronic "watchdogs" are making it increasingly difficult to fool Ma Bell. The watchdogs are computer monitoring systems that have been set up to fight telephone toll fraud, which cost New Jersey Bell Telephone Co. millions of dollars last year through phony credit card numbers, fraudulent third-party billing and the use of eletronic devices to bypass automatic billing equipment. The loss due to electronic fraud only can be guessed at, since the devices work by circumventing company billing, but Bell spokesman Ted Spencer said the company had lost $2.3 million through more conventional fraud-schemes in 1980. The costs eventually are passed on to customers. Company officals say telephone bill cheaters come from all segments of society, including college students, immigrants, middle-class suburbanites, buisnessmen and the poor. * * * For example, a 70-year-old Patterson woman recently was caught charging more than $7,000 in overseas telephone calls to Greece using s "blue box," a device that emits tones reproducing the signals that guide telephone switching equipment. Last week an Israeli couple was charged with making calls to Israel with a blue box from pay telephones throughout Union and Middlesex counties. After in investigation by the telephone company, a computer analyst making $45,000 a year was charged with making fraudulent credit card calls on his lunch hour to Iran. John T. Cox, Bell's district staff manager, said the detection systems for illegal electronic devices were getting better all the time. "If you're using a blue box on a regular basis in New Jersey, you're going to be caught," he said flatly. "I can almost guarantee it." Escorting a visitor through s seldom-seen computer room at Bell, Cox pointed out teletype monitors that can pick up the use of the device and immediately tell investigators where a call is being made from, so that cheaters frequently are arrested by local police while still on the phone. Those found guilty of using a Blue Box can be fined, jailed and forced to make restitution. * * * A blue box is nothing more than a tone generator that gives its user access to the telephone company's long-distance lines by fooling automatic equipment. Users generally dial an 800-toll-free number and send a pulse that allows them to dial anywhere in the world without the calls registering as a toll call. The device was named for the color of the first boxes sold through underground publications, but they have grown in sophistication. Cox displayed several confiscated boxes built into small handheld calculators and boxes the size of a cigarette pack. A young electronis ebgineer from Verona was arrested two years ago with a blue box he built directly into his telphone. "The devices sell for up to $500, but it's not worth it." Cox commented. Bell prosecutes every blue box case it uncovers and works with police departments to move quickly in catching users. Because the Blue Boxes show no record of calls, Bell has run across cases of criminals involved in drugs and prostitution using the devices. Cox said the use of blue boxes was falling off, explaining "People are realizing they're going to get caught." * * * Since January, Bell investigators have come across 32 cases that have resulted in 12 arrests and 11 convictions. Computer monitoring equipment can also pick out the use of other devices, such as black boxes, which avoid charges for incoming calls to a phone, and red boxes, which generate the sound of coins dropping in a pay phone. Cox said new billing control systems would seeon eliminate the electronic boxes. Of more concern is nonelectronic fraud, which Cox said was growing nationwide. It can range from charging a long-distance phone call to a stranger, to using a stolen credit card, but computers are being put to use here. Bell plans to introduce a special billing system that will need personal codes to operate, similat to automatic tellers being used by banks. Customers also will be able to stop anyone from billing a call to their number with an automatic computer block that signals an operator not to accept such calls. However, it is impossible to stop all-fraud. Cox pointed out, "The people who are perpetrating the frauds know our systems."