Hackers Toolkit v2.0/Hackers_Toolkit_v2.0.iso/HTML/archive/Phreaking/Texts/truemyth.txt

Text File | 1999-11-04 | 5KB | 96 lines

BLUE BOXING IS STILL POSSIBLE IN THE USA!

Somewhere along the line I have seen reference to something similar to
"Because of ESS Blue boxing is impossible". This is incorrect.
When I lived in Connecticut I was able to blue box under Step by Step,
#1AESS, and DMS-100. the reason is simple, even though I was initiating
my call to an 800 number from a different exchange (Class 5 office, aka
Central Office) in each case, when the 800 call was routed to the toll
network it would route through the New Haven #5 Crossbar toll Tandem
office. It just so happens that the trunks between the class 5 (CO's)
and the class 4 (toll office, in this case New Haven #5 Xbar), utilized
in-band (MF) signalling, so regardless of what I dialed, as long as it
was an Inter-Lata call, my call would route through this particular set
of trunks, and I could Blue box until I was blue in the face.  The
originating Central Offices switch (SXS/ESS/Etc..) had little effect on
my ability to box at all. While the advent of ESS (and other electronic
switches) has made the blue boxers task a bit more difficult, ESS is not
the reason most of you are unable to blue box. The main culprit is the
"forward audio mute" feature of CCIS (out of band signalling).
Unfortunately for the boxer 99% of the Toll Completion centers
communicate using CCIS links, This spells disaster for the blue boxer
since most of you must dial out of your local area to find trunks that
utilize MF signalling, you inevitably cross a portion of the network
that is CCIS equipped, you find an exchange that you blow 2600hz at, you
are rewarded with a nice "winkstart", and no matter what MF tones you
send at it, you meet with a re-order. This is because as soon as you
seized the trunk (your application of 2600hz), your Originating Toll
Office sees this as a loss of supervision at the destination, and Mutes
any further audio from being passed to the destination (ie: your waiting
trunk!). You meet with a reorder because the waiting trunk never "hears"
any of the MF tones you are sending, and it times out. So for the clever
amongst you, you must somehow get yourself to the 1000's of trunks out
there that still utilize MF signalling but bypass/disable the CCIS audio
mute problem. (Hint: Take a close look at WATS extenders).

Blotto Box - DOES NOT EXIST! , it was a joke, a farce, etc.. there is no
such thing as a blotto box, so please stop attaching some sort of
mystical power to something that never existed., please..

Box that makes all phones in an exchange/NPA ring simultaneously (rose?) -
Simple mathematics involving ring voltages, available interoffice trunks
and CO battery Amperages would render this device a total figment of the
imagination.

Any color box that can trace a call (Gold?) - Even the most rudimentary
understanding of how a call is traced would dispell this myth. There is
NO DEVICE MADE that can trace a call from a customers premise. (Caller
ID boxes are NOT tracing a call, they are displaying CLID information
that is sent to them by the Central Office prior to the call being
answered, this is NOT a trace.) Forget about tracing a call from home,
you cannot do it.

Beige Box - Is simply a linemans handset, period.. (real or homemade).

Lock and Trace - DOES NOT EXIST! - years, and years ago when the
predominate switch was Step X Step, the telco utilized something similar
to this to catch prank callers. They used to refer to it as a "Call
Plug". It would simply prevent the calling party from being able to
close his local loop (hang up his call), by keeping the loop open at the
destination end. (roughly worked like that). Then the Central Office
Craftspersons could manually trace the call back through the Strowger
wipers (manual was the ONLY way!) and determine the originating caller.
ESS (and any other electronic switch for that matter), Has no need for
such crude methods, as there are far easier (via Stored program control)
ways to initiate call tracing, (ie. a Call trace (CT0x)) request on ESS
simply identifies the callers # on a maintenance TTY at the CO whenever
a thusly marked number is called). The days of "Lock and Trace" are long
gone..  (it is interesting to note that on the early versions of Step X
Step. the called party would be unable to get a dialtone until the
calling party hung up the connection, no matter how long the called
party were to leave his switchook closed. People used to go to a remote
coinstation, call their victims and leave the phone off the hook. the
victim was unable to get a dialtone until someone eventually happened
along and hung up the payphone, or via a trouble call to the telco, it
was manually released by a switchroom tech. Eventually the Step offices
installed timers that would auto disconnect after a set period (usually
30 secs or so) to prevent this problem. A "Call Plug" was simply a
reverse of this effect.)

I posted a fairly long winded response related to boxing/Boxes a few
months ago here, since the traffic on this newsgroup is so heavy I'll
repost it after this for anyone who is interested. It re-iterates a bit
of what I said here, and explains a bit on the other (existent!) boxes.


Hopefully this bit of trivia will help to dispell some of the
misconceptions floating about..

August 9, 1993

The Marauder
Legion of Doom!

[e-mail]

EOF