Power Hacker 2003

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Power Hacker 2003 / Power_Hacker_2003.iso / E-zine / Magazines / system-failure / sysf03.txt < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 2002-05-27 | 79.8 KB | 1,378 lines

.,xxx, ,x$$$x, ,$$$' `$$, x$$ `$$, $$$' ,$$' , $$$ `P' `?$b, ,x ,$ `?$b, .xox. '`, ,. `?$, $$ $$ `$$b, ,$$'`'$$ $, $$x, ,$$' $$ $$ ,. `$$P $$' `$ | $$ `?$$$$P' `$ $$ $x`',$$' $$ ; -- + -- $$ , `x$' `$$$$P' $$ ,' | $$ `$.d$P' .,x$$x,. ,$$$$$x, ,x$ $$ $$ `' `$$$ $$ $$ s y s t e m f a i l u r e $$ ,x$$,$$$ $$ $$ $$ $$' $$$ $$ ,$$, $$x, `$$$'$$$x,,x$$x. x[td]x `' ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ System Failure: Issue #3 │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Welcome to our special ultra-spiffy con issue!@#$ I've been really lazy since we got back from DefCon, and I haven't done one thing to the SysFail page since then. I suck. Really, I do. This issue was really really late, but it's all Darkcactus's fault cause he's the one who wanted to wait 3 weeks before he wrote his DefCon review. :) Expect a major update to the page soon, and look for System Failure #4 to be out within a couple weeks. Thanks to Toilet Duk for the opening ASCII. --Logic Box [8/25/97] ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ http://www.penguinpalace.com/sysfail/ │ │ [system.failure@usa.net] │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ │ CONTENTS │ │ │ │ DefCon 5 Review by Logic Box │ │ DefCon 5 Review by Darkcactus │ │ DefCon 5 Review by Pinguino │ │ DefCon 5 Review by Colleen Card │ │ No Hope Con Review by Pinguino, Alatar, P3nny, and Polymorf │ │ The Nature of Magnetic Strips by Toilet Duk │ │ Department Store Phones by RedBoxChiliPepper │ │ Rights of Minors by Pinguino │ │ A COCOT That Talks Back by Justine │ └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- DefCon 5 Review by Logic Box (logic@linux.slackware.org) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ah, DefCon. Darkcactus and I left for the hell-scorched land of Las Vegas early in the morning on July 10th. We arrived at our destination, the Excalibur hotel, at around 6 PM. After checking in, being really annoying at hotel employees and guests, walking around the strip for a couple hours, and ordering Beavis & Butt-head Do America on the hotel's pay-per-view service (we were bored, ok?), we went to sleep and prepared for DefCon. Day 1: Friday, July 11th ------------------------ After waking up and getting ready, Darkcactus and I headed down to the Aladdin hotel and waited in a big long line along with the rest of the crazy people waiting to get into the con. They let everybody into the convention hall and told us to go buy our ID badges, then we sat around for awhile and waited for the 303 crew to arrive. We sat around for a few minutes, and were soon greeted by the ever-hyper Pinguino. She took us over to where they were setting up the System Failure table, and we met Gersh, Maq702, EightBall, and DisordeR. Pinguino filled us in on the nifty SysFail Scavenger Hunt that was to take place, and we stole somebody's table and set our stuff up. After buying our ID badges and hanging up our spiffy System Failure tablecloth on the wall behind our table, we set out the merchandise: System Failure stickers, Penguin Palace comics, a portfolio of Pinguino's artwork, and a large assortment of security books that we were selling for DisordeR (we got to keep some of the money that we made off the books, which paid for our table space). We also did the System Failure Scavenger Hunt. A couple days before the con, Pinguino wrote up a large list of elusive items for people to find (such as security cameras, a security guard's badge and radio, and of course... Andy Scott's finger). These items could be shown to us for points, and whichever person or team reached 100 points first won. We managed to get some SysFail articles out of it, plus this issue's cool opening ascii by Toilet Duk, who ended up winning the Scavenger Hunt. Early on, DisordeR concocted an evil plan to contact Telecon, who was still in 303, and have him ship all the stuff on the Scavenger Hunt list to the con overnight so Dis could win. He decided not to do that though. Throughout the day, we met lots of cool people, many of whom were Pinguino's friends from DefCon 4. Among them were Steagen (I forgot how to spell that, dammit), Impy (he's got a thing for tying people up), Holy Cow, Mr. YoYo, Joker, Green Eyes, Teklord, Lefty, and the TDYC guys. We were also greeted early on by the 303 crew, which consisted of el_jefe, Zens, Shaedow, Wedz, Pill, Paradox, Wraith, and Demonika. Later on we met Fonephuk (of Undernet #phreak fame). After meeting people for awhile, we watched as the infamous Carolyn Meinel--the Happy Hacker--arrived. She runs the Happy Hacker mailing list at shellonly.com, and pretty much everybody thinks she's a total idiot (which she is). For some reason Pinguino had a sticker that said "Monitor port hacking is really cool, thanks Carolyn. --SysFail" (Carolyn thinks looking over someone's shoulder as they type is called "monitor port hackng"), and Darkcactus thought it would be pretty funny if he stuck it on her back, so he did. Everyone was taking pictures of her, and it took her a long time to figure out why. After sitting through a rather boring talk on 'Hacking Vegas,' we met up with Colleen Card and Sc0rp, and we all sat around and talked for a long time. me, Darkcactus, Pinguino, Fonephuk, Steagen, Joker, Holy Cow, and Mr. YoYo decided to go out and eat, and we roamed around for awhile before finally ending up at the Luxor, where we proceeded to make a big mess and annoy just about everyone at the restaurant. The waiter thought we were weird for writing "PHEAR" on a dinner roll with a permanent marker. Oh well. We all went back to the Aladdin and spent a couple hours getting kicked out of multiple parties and being harassed by security. We ran into XBS while roaming around the Aladdin, then everybody decided to split up and go back to their hotel rooms. Me, Darkcactus, Pinguino, and XBS went to the Excalibur. After dropping off Pinguino and XBS's stuff in our hotel room, we found a soda machine on the same floor as my room. Since our feet hurt like hell from walking all day, we filled a bunch of ziploc bags with ice and put them on our feet. We got pretty comfortable sitting there in the hallway, and we pulled up a bunch of chairs and sat around and talked about Penguin Palace stuff for awhile. After stealing all the "Do Not Disturb/No Moleste" signs off all the doors in our immediate vicinity, we suddenly decided it would be a good idea to sleep in the hallway. We all pulled a bunch of cushions off the chairs and laid down on the floor and went to sleep (except for Darkcactus, who didn't sleep at all during the con). Day 2: Saturday, July 12th -------------------------- Darkcactus left us to go get food at about 7:00 AM, and about 15 minutes later, we were awakened by a security guard. After showing him my room key, convincing him that I was a guest of the Excalibur, and being escorted back to my room, we headed out to find Darkcactus. After roaming around for awhile, we found him, and Pinguino and XBS left to go change clothes. Me and Darkcactus did the same, then headed back to the Aladdin for day two of DefCon. When we got to the convention hall, we found Colleen Card and Sc0rp at our table, selling PLA hats and tapes. I bought a hat and tape, then we were forced to move our table into another convention room. Pinguino arrived after a little while, and we all sat around. Colleen held a raffle for the last PLA t-shirt on the planet, which XBS won. We also met B187, who we knew from #rock. At around 1:00, we were approached by a newspaper photographer from the San Jose Mercury News. He wanted some pictures of us doing cool stuff, so he agreed to take me, Pinguino, Impy, and Mr. YoYo trashing. We didn't get much, but he got his pictures dammit. We got back to the con, and we were then approached by the Voice of Mercury, a pirate radio station from New York (I think), who were gonna be broadcasting in a few hours from the Aladdin. We went to their hotel room and did a nifty interview. After roaming around with Pinguino and Gersh for a long time, we wound up outside the Aladdin again (with a bunch of other people too, I think), and we were interviewed by a guy who was doing a documentary on cyberspace for TV. Pinguino rambled on and on and on a lot, cuz she was pretty tired. Afterwards, the four of us went to eat dinner, the me and Darkcactus went back to our hotel room, and I slept. On the way back, we met a guy named Flex, who was also in town for the con. He was pretty cool. Day 3: Sunday, July 13th ------------------------ I overslept, and Darkcactus woke me up and told me to get ready or else. We rushed off to the Aladdin once again, and got there at 12:30. When we arrived at the con, we witnessed THE event of DefCon 5: the Happy Hacker panel. The Happy Hacker panel was a discussion panel regulated by Carolyn Meinel (at least she THOUGHT she was gonna regulate it... heh heh heh). Its purpose was to discuss whether newbies should have help handed to them, and so on. There were several people on the panel, but the only two I can remember are Carolyn and DisordeR. Carolyn kept trying to tell us that we should ask for someone's permission before hacking root on their machine ("excuse me, sir, can I hack you?"), and that we should always ask stupid questions ("how do I hack webpage?"). Dis ran the show, humiliating Carolyn several times and making her look stupid no matter what she said. After daring her to give out her root password in exchange for the root password to sekurity.org (Dis's domain), Dis publicly challenged Carolyn to hack his system. As the panel went on, a copy of "Secrets of a Super Hacker" was passed around the room and signed by everyone. It was presented to Carolyn at the end of the panel. After watching Dis make fun of Carolyn for 2 hours, we all had lunch at the buffet. We went back to the con, and we were bored for the next several hours, then we all started roaming around the Aladdin and taking lots and lots of pictures. After saying bye to Colleen and Sc0rp, a bunch of us went wandering around for a while... we rode on a roller coaster and made lots of fraudulent phone calls, then later that night we went to room 308 (Mr. YoYo's room) for a couple hours. Joker kept trying to order a stripper, but Mr. YoYo decided that was just plain wrong, so we didn't get to order a stripper. A bunch of us got bored, and we decided to go watch Men in Black. Pinguino's car was scheduled to leave soon, so we said goodbye to her, as well as XBS, Steagen, and Holy Cow, and made our way to the movie theater. After watching Men in Black, we all ate at Denny's and met a really cool waitress named Lenore. She was really nice, and let us take some pictures of her holding one of our stolen security radios. Darkcactus, delirious from lack of sleep, left her a $20 tip, and we went on our merry way. We ran into Pinguino as we left Denny's. Her car was delayed till the next day, so we all decided to go back to Mr. YoYo's room and waste more time staring at the walls. We were stopped by a really dickfaced security guard on our way in, who refused to let all 10 of us go to Mr. YoYo's room for some reason. After making sure Mr. YoYo was a registered guest, the guard let Mr. YoYo, Green Eyes, and Pinguino go to the room, while the rest of us waited on the bottom floor and annoyed the security guard alot. He called another security guard to escort us to Mr. YoYo's room so we could "get our stuff that we left there" (i.e. sit around and talk to everybody). This security guard turned out to be pretty cool, and he let us take some pictures of him. We all got together for a few final group pics, then me and Darkcactus said goodbye to everyone and went back to our hotel room to sleep. Woohoo. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- DefCon 5 Review by Darkcactus (darkcactus@hotmail.com) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ok all you shiny happy people, here's what Darkcactus did at DefCon 5. Me and Logic Box got to Las Vegas Thursday after 10 hours and a couple hundred miles on the road. We basically wandered around aimlessly for a while before going to sleep. I will add right now that was the last time I slept for the rest of DefCon. Friday, lets see... When we got to the Aladdin, there was a long line to get a pass. We stood there, and we waited, and waited, and finally we all were let into the convention hall. We eventually met up with Pinguino and Maq702 and some others at about 10:30 or 11:00. We set up our table for System Failure. I met some more random people, including Gersh, Steagen, Holy Cow, CancerBoy(Swick), Fonephuk, Bob/Adam Weishaupt and a whole array of others. I'm sure you have either heard about this from people who were at DefCon, orabout it wherever, but I am going to tell you about the "Carolyn Sticker" incident. Pinguino made up this sticker saying "Monitor port hacking is really cool. Thanx Carolyn. -SysFail". Well, I took it upon myself to place the sticker on her person. When she was engrossed in a random conversation with some people, I walked up to her and placed it on her back. I would have placed it on her ass, but I didn't want to touch her in that of all places. I walked back to the SysFail table and just smiled. Everyone was suprised i could do it with out her noticing. Some people start taking pictures, including me, and everyone that notices has a laugh at her expense. Oh, Carolyn, if you are reading this, How's it going sweetie baybie?!?!? The rest of the day was pretty boring. I went into the woman's bathroom with Pinguino, and she told a perplexed woman that I was her son and that she needed to help me go pee. Oh yeah, when I was away from the booth for a few minutes, I got into a conversation with a person that had just gotten to Vegas. He still had his suitcase. He eventually left to go to his hotel, and he told me to tell someone that he was pissed at him for something. Hey! It's been a month, so sue me for not remembering either person's name or the message I was supposed to convey. Oh well, better late then never, right? That evening, I left to drop some stuff off at the hotel right at the start of the TCP/IP drinking game. I was told later that I didn't miss anything. When I got back,was the heated competition of Hacker Jeoprady that was keeping everybody entertained. Well, at least all the people who were drunk. A bunch of us decided we were hungry, so me, Logic Box, Pinguino, Fonephuk, Joker, Holy Cow, and CancerBoy (Swick) all went out for a late dinner. We went to New York, New York. Damn that place is annoying. It is all cluttered to make it look like New York and it is really easy to get lost in that. We eventually ended up in the Luxor, and we caused utter havoc there, from harassing the waiter and other customers to writing PHEAR on a dinner roll to spilling hot water on my shirt (thanks Steagen). I even kept my menu. I "absentmindedly" put it under my flannel. I later used that and a pickle that Logic didn't eat to threaten people all the way back to the Excalibur, where me and Logic were staying. I was shouting at the top of my lungs at random people, "This is my pickle, and this is my shield! I will slay thee now!" while holding the pickle as menacingly as possible and protecting myself from whatever may attack with my menu. I dropped off the menu back at the Excalibur. As for the pickle, Joker took a big bite, so I threw it into oncoming traffic when we got outside. After that, me, Logic Box, Pinguino, Fonephuk, and Joker met XBS, who had just gotten to Vegas. We wandered around the Aladdin looking for parties. Fonephuk left us to go back to his hotel, and the rest of us eventually ended up at 7-11. We stayed there and babbled about nothing in particular. We headed back to the Aladdin and I somehow got seperated from the others. I don't know how, I just did. One minute they are right behind me, then I turn around, and they are gone. Well, eventually found them, minus Joker, as they are walking out. They didn't think it was at all curious that I wasn't with them for a little while. We went back to the Excalibur. We stayed up for a couple of hours and talked about whatever came to mind. XBS was the first to doze off. Then Pinguino fell asleep, and Logic dropped. I stayed up and wandered around for a while. Tried to get on the roof, knocked on doors, took some Do Not Disturb signs off doors, caused chaos with those white phones you can call rooms with. It was 5 or so when I did this. "Hello, sir, this is your morning wake up call." "I did not order a wake up call this early in the morning you damn idiot." "I do not appreciate your rudeness sir, yes, you did order one for this early." "Ok, what is my name and room number?" "Um... that isn't relevant to this conversation, sir. I say your ordered one for this and this is when you are waking up, so deal with it." *click* I ended up in my hotel room. After a shower and a change of clothes, I told the rest of the group I was gonna get something to eat. When I got back to the elevators, they were waiting for me on the ground floor. Apparently, a security found them after I left for breakfast. Lucky me, huh? We then went to Broadway so they could eat breakfast and so that Pinguino and XBS could change. Me and Logic left for the Aladdin without those two. Pinguino and I had the idea to change an electrical sign to say "SysFail Owns Vegas," or something to that effect. Well, I took it upon myself to find out how. I heard from some people that the controls for the Monte Carlo sign was on the roof of the hotel, so me and Bob/Adam Weishaupt did some reconnaissance, but didn't get on the roof because we saw a sign on that said something about the door setting off security alarms. So we went back to DefCon. When we got back, a whole bunch of peopl were telling us how to get into the system to change what the sign said. When we left, all of about 10 people knew what we were planning to do, and when we got back about 2 hours later, about a quarter of the people there knew. We also heard some people who attended previous DefCons that they went on the roof of the Monte Carlo without security giving them problems. Well, a little while after I got back from the Monte Carlo, I met these radio people who do a show called "The Voice of Mercury" that wanted to interview me and the rest of SysFail. So I brought them over to Pinguino and we set up a time of 7:00 at the Broadway. Maybe it was 8:00, I can't remember. During the interview, I said all of two things, "Darkcactus" when we were doing a roll call, and "anarchy" when we were asked about aspects of the zine. Oh well, at least I can say I was on the radio. We were supposed to do a TV interview at 9:00 back at the Aladdin, but I guess it fell through because we didn't see any camera crew by 10:00 or 11:00, so we left. While Adam and I were out at the Monte Carlo, Logic, Pinguino, Impy, and Mr. YoYo went trashing with a photographer for the San Jose Mercury. Well, we were supposed to go again that night, but that fell through too. It ended up with me, Gersh, Pinguino, and Logic going out to eat. We ended up at the Monte Carlo. I wasn't that hungry and apparently Gersh doesn't eat on a daily basis, so we only wanted something small, whereas Pinguino and Logic were in the mood for something more to digest, so when we got to the food court, me and Gersh went to get ice cream, and Pinguino and Logic went to go get pizza. They were all out of frozen yogurt, so after ranting at them for a couple seconds about hot chocolate frozen yogurt, I settled on vanilla, which was what Gersh also had. We sat around and slowly ingested our food while talking about nothing in particular, and Logic got all bent out of shape about making a call. I finally gave him the last cc # I had and told him to make the call short. Well, thirty or so minutes later, he came back and just sat back down. When Pinguino went to use the bathroom, I once again followed her in, but this time I just waited inside the doorway. While Logic was away, I told Gersh and Pinguino that we should go on the roof. They too liked the idea. When Logic got back, we all went up to the door to the roof, and I opened the door. No alarms, nothing. Pinguino and Gersh stepped through, Logic started whining about needing sleep and how he will probably fall off it because it was so dark. I found out later from somebody that there is a retaining. So we went back to the 32nd floor and opened the door to get back inside. Well, we saw a security guard at the far end of the hall coming our way, so we ended up sprinting down 6 floors. We opened the door on the 26th floor and went to the elevators after we made sure there are no security guards around. When we got outside of the Monte Carlo, we seperated from Pinguino and Gersh. It was about 1:00am and we headed back to the Excalibur when we met Flex. I don't know what compelled me to started talking to some random guy walking near us, but I did anyways. He was someone from DefCon, but I didn't know that so I started talking to him. He was headed to the Luxor. Logic wanted to sleep in, so he slept until about 11:00, whereas I stayed up and watched TV. When we got to the Aladdin at 1:00pm, we didn't do much. I said bye to Adam because he was leaving early, and I signed a book that was eventually given to Carolyn Meinel. I wrote something like, "How did you like the sticker on your back? --Darkcactus". Then we met up with Pinguino and Gersh and we all watched DisordeR bash Carolyn during their panel discussion on whether people who hacked should be given help in starting out, or whether they should just have to fend for themselves. That was fun to watch. We had lunch at about 4:00 or so in the buffet at the Aladdin. It was me, Maq702, el_jefe, Lefty, Pinguino, Logic and some random person that went. When we were getting our food, Gersh saw me and just walked in without paying. I don't think he intended on eating, but he ended up eating a plate of fish crackers. What happened until about midnight is sort of a blur. I remember wandering around with Toilet Duk, Logic, Mr. YoYo, Lefty, Pinguino, Phreak of Nature, Joker, and I think's all, but if I forgot anyone, I'm sorry. We ended up at New York, New York and thought about whether we should ride the roller coaster. It ended up being everyone but me and Toilet Duk going on it, so we had a little fun while they were in line for an hour. We were tired and wanted to sit down, so we just sat in stools at a stupid contest booth where you win a piece of crap prize, but the attendant told us that the seats were for paying customers only, so we harassed him for a few minutes. I had found a ticket on the ground next to me, so I picked it up and handed it to the attendant and said that I had proof of purchase, and that I was able to sit on the stool, but he didn't buy it. Then I got a picture of Toilet Duk "assaulting" a change machine (if you wanna call it that). They finally came out and we went to the phones because Nature and some others wanted to make calls. Pinguino went to the bathroom, so I of course followed her, but this time, as we were leaving, a female security guard came in. I just looked at her and smiled as I walked through the door. I heard her say into her radio, "Some guy just left the ladies' restroom." I didn't stay any longer than that, apparently she had called for backup, or whatever, because we saw some more guards in the area as we were leaving. We went back to Mr. YoYo's room in the Aladdin and hung out there for a while. It was about 10:30 or 11:00pm and we basically messed around. Everything from making a hole in the wall of the room to me being led around by Pinguino with a leather belt like a dog on a leash to everyone throwing a bunch of ice on me when I came back into the room for leaving for some unapperant reason. Nature had some liquor and was making fireballs by holding a lighter to his alcohol and spitting it out. I decided, what the hell, might as well give it a try. I took a small swig and innediately spit it at the wall. Damn that stuff burned. After going to use the sink in the bathroom and getting a drink of water, I tried again. I had the lighter to my mouth and I spit, but somehow, I missed the flame that was in front me. The stuff went on the floor and over my backpack and flannel. My backpack still smells of liquor. We decided to go see Men in Black at at midnight at the movie theater down the street, so me, Logic Toilet Duk, Phreak of Nature, Mr. YoYo, Green Eyes, and Joker walked there. On the way there, guess who we met? Flex! So I grabbed him and said, "You're coming with us. We're gonna see Men in Black." So he came along too. The movie ruled. It had the coolest special effects. After the movie, we went to Denny's to have a late dinner, or an early breakfast, whatever you wanna call it. We got a waitress named Lenore. She was cool. We got lots of cool pictures of her. I was hitting on her almost the whole time. Hey, I hadn't slept in days and had stayed awake the whole time by keeping myself full of caffeine, I think it's understandable why I tried to hit on an attractive waitress. When we were paying our checks, Logic had no money, as per usual, so I had to pay for him. All I had was 20s, so I gave her a 20 and said keep the change. I basically gave her an $11 dollar tip. Someone had a problem with their check, so me, being Mr. Nice Guy and all out of it from lack of sleep, decided to pay for that check with another 20 dollar bill. That was a tip of about $15 dollars. Lenore was more than happy to take my money. As we are leaving, Pinguino mysteriously appeared at the door. I don't know why she knew we were there, but oh well. We headed back to the Aladdin to go back to YoYo's room, but were stopped by some security guard. Pinguino, YoYo, and Green Eyes were allowed in, because they had keys, but the rest of us had to be escorted in by another security guard. As we were waiting for that guy, we harassed the guard that stopped us. We asked stupid questions, and basically got him all pissed at us. We were supposed to be in the room just a few minutes, but it ended up being twenty minures or so. The security guard that was sent with us was all right, for an old person. He was patient with us when we wanted to take pictures of him and have him take pictures of the whole bunch of us. We finally left and got back to our hotel room at about 5:30am, and we were leaving at 6:00, so we just slept all the way home. And that's what I did at DefCon. Some parts may seem farfetched, but I assure you, none of it is made up. If you don't believe me, you can contact anybody I mentioned to confirm what I said is true. You will have to find a way to contact these people on your own, because I don't wanna make your life easy. So there! Well, that's about all... bye, see ya, praise Allah, and all that kind of jazz. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- DefCon 5 Review by Pinguino (pinguino@connectnet.com) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Idlers and IRC kiddies alike meet once a year at a convention that hotels have come to fear: DefCon. Where else might a girl be duct taped and led around by an operator's headset? Only in Vegas, in 113 degree heat, where the DefCon attendees come out at night and wreak havoc upon the strip. This year's victim was the Aladdin hotel, who was tricked into letting the con happen. Shaedow, el_jefe, Wedz, and I left 303 on Wednesday in Shaedow's car, caravanning with Pill, Demonika, Dox, and Wraith. Stopping first at Denny's and 7-11 (JOLT!), we loaded up with an aerodynamic arsenal for the trip (phear the peanuts scattered in Pill's car). Nothing really interesting happened on the way there. We stopped in Utah to look at the sky.. it was incredible. You have never seen so many stars. There was no moon, and the Milky Way streaked boldy across the sky, smattered with shooting stars every other minute. Thursday morning we stumbled into the Boardwalk hotel. Wedz checked in and we tried to sleep. After a 30-minute gigglefest, I left to explore the area and attempted to call a buncha people to find Logic Box and Darkcactus. I wanted the System Failure crew to get together before DefCon. A few hours later I wandered upstairs and slept for like 2 hours. We then went on a pizza hunt and ended up in the Monte Carlo food court. We met Maq702 and Sc0rp there.. Maq702 seriously looks like el_jefe. It's weird and cool and stuff. We beat up Sc0rp and he liked it, and then I got yelled at by an attendant at a gas station for flinging water at people. Our next stop was the Aladdin. I met a goth guy named Bret who seemed really cool, and searched for Logic Box and Darkcactus again. EightBall ran into us there. Me and el_jefe went to page them on the intercom, but to no avail. Then, we looked for our crew and figured out that we were lost. Not a good feeling, but since we were "arrRRrrr"ing all day, we decided to trek down to Treasure Island. The 303 crew was there gambling. Sc0rp gave me money to gamble with, so if I turn into a compulsive gambler at age 21, it's all his fault. ;) We found a place called Captain Morgan's lounge, and el_jefe made someone walk the Plank. Arrr~!@# We went back to the Monte Carlo for fewd, and me and EightBall went to the 26th floor. Remember how easy it was to break into the maid's room last year? They installed card key locks on all doors leading in. Grrr. Me and 8 snagged a dining tablecloth instead from a cart in the hall. I really needed a sheet to use as a backdrop for the booth, and the tablecloth was smaller and worked a lot better. The food stains on it weren't even noticeable a day later. ;) Maq702 took me, Sc0rp, and EightBall to his house. I proceeded to smear glowing alien spew across my arms and then we fell asleep (4:30am) only to awaken at 9:45 to get to DefCon for setup. It was Friday and DefCon was in chaos. Our tables weren't even there. We waited forever for that, then set up. I was given books to sell from a friend, and those went immediatly (1/2 off the cover price). Logic Box and Darkcactus were there, then my friends from DefCon IV showed up; Steagen and Holy Cow. Teklord wandered in with Plucky, and tons of people dropped by: AcidJazz, The Dawg, people from mtn-raves, D1s, Rage, Gersh, The Public, Zens, Skinflower, Lefty, Knarf, AychBee.. it totally ruled. The scavenger hunt started. The scavenger hunt was a System Failure thing. I wanted me and Maq702 to make novelty and fake IDs, but nobody would lend me a color quickcam or digicam. In desperation, I thought of a game so we wouldn't be bored. I made a list of a ton of weird stuff that people could get usually by trashing or networking, and some of the wall filler items. Each item was assigned a # of points and your group of 5 or less needed 100 points to win. People were going for the weird stuff, like the 60-point security camera, or the 20-point live duck. The guy who won the contest, Toilet Duk, actually counted as a live duck. He won that same night. TDYC entered and ripped out their hotel room wall to get free long distance. ;) They brought me up to another room and showed me a bathtub with shit in it.. I was like "Umm.. okay, gross, what is that?" Then they pulled the curtain back and "quack" there was a duckling. They won second place (you might want to think of it as 1st place of the second game). BTW, System Failure will be at CuervoCon, with a new contest and a new item list. ;) I met Carolyn Meinel from the Happy Hacker mailing list and pointed her out to my crew. A few days before, I had a sticker made that said `"Thanks for the Monitor Port Hacking Info Carolyn" -SysFail' with wishes to put it on her car. Darkcactus grabs it, flys by her and slaps it on her back. She doesn't notice. AychBee nabs my camera and takes pictures of her back, and other people start doing the same. She didn't notice for like 3 hours. heheh =) At 3pm, I had a business lunch scheduled with uix.com (Centronix). We went to the Round Table Buffet at the Excalibur.. awesome fewd. Check them out next year. Anyways, it was me, Centronix, Teeleton, and another guy (a DJ but I can't remember his name right now but he was cool). We talked about like raves and stuff, contract graphic work, Xcon news, and I learned about some busts that happened to 817 to some of mrmadness's friends. We watched some of the TCP/IP drinking game, and I got bored with shining a laser pointer all over the place. By this time I'd met Green Eyes, Mr. YoYo, XBS, and Impy. We decided to throw a mini-rave in Green Eyes' room, #308. Our table had some music and a CD player that Darkcactus had brought. We invited everyone and left. Around this time, AychBee gives me the key to the TDYC suite as part of the scavenger hunt. Me and Lefty go to the Aladdin to get showered and stuff, and played with ham radios. We made obnoxious screeching noises at people and confused them. Me, Logic Box, Darkcactus, and XBS wandered around for a while hitting various parties. 30 minutes before our party was gonna start, I really felt like getting a Dr. Pepper. We hiked to 7-11 and ended up kicking it there for a really long time cuz we were tired and my feet were all beat up. We cruised by the Aladdin and someone told us about a party going on in room 308 so we're like, "Hey that's our party." We went in and a few minutes later so did Mr. Sekurity Guard. Impy was going outta his mind trying to get people to quiet down, but the room was mainly 30 drunk hackers so that was pointless. The System Failure crew left and went to the Excalibur. We went to Logic's floor and drank sodas all night, and put ice on our feet. We snagged cushions from the chairs and talked about Penguin Palace and System Failure all night. Somehow we fell asleep, and a security guard found us. We got escorted to Logic's room and followed to the entryway elevators. Deciding it was a good time to leave, we walked down to the Boardwalk for breakfast. It was like 7am. We called OCI (1-800-288-2880) and harassed them for 30 minutes. Me and XBS went upstairs to shower, and then we traded clothes. We ended up at DefCon and met Colleen. Since we were outta material and were waiting on stuff from Gersh (who slept all day), Colleen got to sell PLA hats and tapes. She held a raffle for a shirt she brought, which XBS won. This time our table was moved to a smaller room. Saturday was cool because System Failure got a lot of publicity. There was a photographer from San Jose Mercury News who wanted pictures of people doing stuff for the scavenger hunt (Toilet Duk had won the day before), so he took me, Logic Box, Impy, and Mr. YoYo trashing at Lucent. We got into a truck and stole a trash bag outta there, and found some k0des, cabling, invoices, and other stuff. A big group of us went to eat at the Luxor, then we came back and me, Logic, and Cactus got interviewed by the Voice of Mercury. The Voice of Mercury is a pirate radio station from Long Beach. They're highly involved with the California Car Caravan and broadcasted at DefCon. The interview went smoothly, despite my exhaustion. We got interviewed by some guy putting together a documentary on cyberculture and hacking, but by then I was completely wasted and just rambled incoherently. I couldn't find anyone from 303, and I was exhausted, so me and Gersh went with Logic and Cactus to eat at the Monte Carlo. We wanted to sleep on the roof, or at least chill there, but right after we made it up and checked the entrance to the roof, we saw a security guard coming. We RAN down 5 flights of stairs and got outta that hotel real fast. Logic and Cactus parted our company and Gersh and I went to the Boardwalk. I figured someone would prolly stop by the hotel room for something, so we sat down on the floor and waited. Unfortunatly we fell asleep and a security guard woke us. I had meant to wait 15 minutes and then knock on Lefty's door, but it was too late for that. The guard told us not to come back, and then like 2 other guards followed us out all the way to the street. We walked to the Aladdin and nobody was in room 308 or the TDYC room. I walked by room 206 and Zero and Bret recognized me. I got invited in and Zero gave me his room key and said I could sleep there. We started talking about comics, then XBS and Mr. YoYo came and got me. We went to a quiet-room party in room 323 where they had drug-ABC going (name drugs from every letter of the alphabet). Mr. YoYo did my nails (green with sparkles) which was really cool of him. We wandered to room 308 and I fell asleep on Impy while getting a foot and face massage. Sunday I woke up and Gersh was next to me (scared me, cuz I thought Impy was sleeping there). It was 1:30 so we dashed downstairs to hear the Happy Hacker panel. If there was any reason to pay to get into DefCon, it would be to hear this panel. It was about newbies, and if they should be taught or be left to fend for themselves. Even though other people were there, it was mainly D1s vs Carolyn, the person who runs the Happy Hacker mailing list. Carolyn is dumb. She has some weird concepts, like you should ask someone first if you're gonna hack them to learn new systems, and she's the one that says you can hack a monitor port (found out later she meant shoulder surfing). She thinks she's such a cool hacker or something. DisordeR (D1s) is from 303, so EVERYONE from 303 was there supporting them and laughing at Carolyn. His zine is Fucked Up College Kids (FUCK). He runs sekurity.org and has a lot of respect in the scene. He pretty much took over the panel. El_jefe and Zens started asking her questions and getting her riled up, then The Public stands up and totally goes off on her about something. It was really entertaining. D1s told Carolyn that if she gave him her root password, he would give her the one to sekurity. Rage-303 did NOT look happy about that one. She gave us the pwd, "photon," which is to her personal home computer not on the net. (She has www.shellonly.com). D1s is making her a mail account on sekurity.org and dared her to hack him and edit his i.hacked.sekurity.org. and add her name to it. At the end, Shaedow presented her with a gift from everyone, a signed copy of "Secrets of a Superhacker." It was a copy that D1s underlined a bunch of stuff in, and everyone in 303 and in the room got to sign. I was the second person to sign it (the picture of the Grand Nigger thanking her for Monitor Port Hacking Infoz, and the silver sig of Pinguino on the back). Her daughter Val was given "Computer Security for Dummies." After the panel, we cleared out the booth and went to dinner at the Aladdin buffet. Lefty wanted to know if he could leave and come back real quick, and the waiter said "Gimmie 20 pushups and you can." Lefty held up his arm and the waiter was like, "Oh, alright, 10." This was also the same time that Gersh paid $7 for a plate of goldfish crackers. Um okay. We wandered around and said our goodbyes, and took a lot of photos. We then headed over to the New York, New York. I went on the rollercoaster with Lefty, and Darkcactus went into the girls' bathroom with me, then we headed back to the Boardwalk. Apparently The Public and Nekid Amy left without Zens and Skinflower, so that confused a buncha people. We went back to the Aladdin and said goodbye to Lefty, then chilled in 308. There was an ice-fight and Cactus stuck ice down the front of his pants (umm you worry us sometimes), then wanted to strip for us while wearing his belt around his neck. Everyone then went to see MIB and I checked back over at the Boardwalk. I found out that my car wasn't leaving til noon, so I went to hunt for Mr. YoYo and some other people. I found them at Denny's as I was walking past, so we went back to 308. On the way the security guard stopped us and would only let me, Green Eyes, and Mr. YoYo into the hotel (we had a pack of like 10 people, as usual). We went to sleep right away and got up at 11:30. I stumbled to the Boardwalk and we went to Denny's for a few hours. We drove back to Colorado, stopping in Beaver, Utah. We also saw a sign for Penguitch, Utah. A billboard had a big snake and "Pornography is just as deadly." This inspired a wish to put a billboard up behind it with a naked chick and "Snakes are just as deadly" and to fly over the Mormon church with a buncha Vegas p0rn. To top that off, we saw a sign that said Brian Head. It was for a resort. Shaedow wanted to write "give" over it and watch for a line of people at the border with shirts that said "Hi, My name is.." ;) As we were leaving Vegas, here's a quote from el_jefe: "If a bag of ice asked me to marry it, I'd say yes." =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- DefCon 5 Review by Colleen Card (colleencard@kracked.com) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- I really don't know if DefCon itself was any good but Las Vegas was pretty cool. There was more boobs in that city than in all of AOL! I spent most of my time being a tourist and doing very touristy things with Sc0rp who was very gentlemenly and opened all the doors for me and lugged my 30 pound PLA back pack with him. Sc0rp didn't want to do touristy things, but he didn't have a choice because I 0wn him. During the first day I was was met by Maq702 & Sc0rp at the airport. Maq drove us around for a little while and we needed to wear our seat belts because I thought we were going to die. I guess they don't make you take tests to get your driver's license in Nevada. That evening for dinner, Sc0rp & I went out to Chineese food which was very yummy but they gave us too much food. So we had them put the extra food into containers which we brought back to the hotel for Maq702 & El_jefe. Too bad nobody ever showed el_jefe how to eat because he spilled sweet & sour pork all over the front of his shirt. So for the rest of the evening he was taunted by drunken DefCon people asking what the hell he did to his shirt which made him pretty mad. On Saturday I got up early, took over System Failure's table since Pinguino wasn't there yet, and sold almost all of the PLA merchandise I had brought with me. I then raffled off the shirt that I'd promised to give to IAmOne in Chicago. Too bad he forgot to meet me at the airport. After that Sc0rp and I went to see a movie and left Logic Box in charge of my goods, too bad he left also and our my absence Mr. YoYo decided to take money from me. Only problem is he also forgot to tell me he took it but at least the movie was cool. During the brief time I'd spent at DefCon so far, I'd been trying to track down the elusive Major (CoTNo) who owed us a DefCon 4 t-shirt that we'd arranged to trade him for a PLA t-shirt over a year ago. I did find him later that evening at the bar two seats away from the legendary t-shirt salesman, erikb himself! Major had to tell el_jefe to shut the hell up because he kept saying, "G-G-G-G-G-Gogggggganzzzz..." But no t-shirt from major, dammit. Sunday finished raffling off the very last PLA shirt in existance which was won by XBS who only entered the raffle one time as opposed to Logic Box's 200 entries. (I'm exaggerating.) During raffle time I was also joined by Agent Zero, Grifter and some other guys. I don't know who they were but they were pretty cute so I let them stay. I took off at noon after giving Dark Tangent a PLA hat and did even more touristy stuff. During the day, I called home to RBCP to laugh at him for being stuck at the house with Emily all weekend. I met alot of neat people who I still don't know who the hell they are like Lefty, Cancerboy, Darkcactus, AdamW, Fonephuck and some guy with a third eye in his forehead. I also met the cool B187 (from V_P) who stole the door off of a GTE van but I already knew him from IRC. All in all I had a great time because Dark Tangent ruled so much and I cried on the airplane because I never got to ask erikb about his LOD-MOD t-shirts and I didn't get my picture taken with him. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- No Hope Con Review by Pinguino (pinguino@connectnet.com) Alatar (alatar@leper.org) P3nny (lamer@tacd.com) Polymorf (polymorf@hotmail.com) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- "In the woods, no one can hear you scream..." -P3nny ..xXx.. Darkness engulfed our senses as we stood in the moist chilled air. Sparks flew past our eyes as Pill sparked a lighter for his cigarette. A flashlight bopped around in the corner of our eyes. We froze, then screamed, "Ka0!!! We're saved!!!~@#" No Hope Con was definitely an experience unlike any other convention. Booze, caves, booze, hackers, booze, no computers, booze, fire, booze, guns, booze, naked chicks, booze, out of town hackers, booze, and the Captain were all involved. So were the cops, innocent christian 11-year old girls, mooning ministers, and bombs. Can DefCon really compare?? And what about all these reports that HOPE was totally and completely boring? People went halfway across the country to some crappy con when they coulda waited a week later and chilled in 303 (Denver, CO) to have an experience they would live with forever (when they see scars across their arms and legs). Pinguino, Polymorf, Gersh, Alatar, and Nate (also known as "the hippie") all rode up a day later (after the guns and bombs took place). We were cruising on I70 when we saw two white buses. We first thought, "Werd, it's a few short buses full of people just like us." It turned out to be a youth group van full of small girls who we all decided to corrupt with our gang signs, middle fingers, tongues, and asses. Actually there was one little boy in the girl's van, so he must've been a fag or something. Poly jumped over everyone in the back seat and mooned the van. I'm sure these kids are all gonna go home and try to find elite Poly pr0n now cuz they got to glimpse some skin. Then, we got to the campsite. We didn't really get lost; Alatar was reading the map upside-down. Hey Ka0, thanks for the directions. I heard Apok's car died cuz of them not being able to find the campground in time, plus P3nny, Apok, and $400 worth of booze were all at stake. What's up with that? Firewood was called for, so we started up a new sport called Log Hacking. Poly had problems chopping, then he pretended the logs were Z3ns and then there was just sawdust all over the place. Oh yeah, the main concept of No Hope Con was to make us get away from the computer all weekend, so we couldn't bring any tech-related stuff with us, or really talk about computers, TV, toasters, or hacking. This was violated a few times. Gersh Tossing was another pre-planned event that happened. It was so popular that there was a party here last night and we tossed people all over the place. Shaedow and Apok did the tossing at No Hope, and Gersh flew into a small creek with a buncha rocks in it. He prolly still has a purple knee from hitting rocks. Apok let Gersh piggy back ride up to the campsite after the tossing. Next, there was Wetback Riding. P3nny actually picked up Apok and carried him on his back across the campsite. Everyone was shocked into silence for a while from that. Sack the Mac was out cuz we didn't break into orci.com to get Gersh's mac, so the next event was "Beat Ruth." Since Gersh was tossed, he was supposed to beat Ruth, but he declined. Like 6 people all jumped Ruth, who was screaming, "Not the Face, Not the Face!!@$" As the sun went down, so did Pill's chair when el_jefe sat on it. Apok took the cue to redesign Vampy and Maq's cooler with his ass. Food was cooked and booze was drunk, then 14 people decided to drive to the cave. Most of these people were drunk. Pinguino, Alatar, P3nny, Polymorf, Rage, D1s, Ka0, Pill, Shaedow, Wedz, Nate, el_jefe, Ruth, and Maq702 all walked two miles straight up a mountain to the cave entrance. About eight people actually made it inside the cave. Ka0, Pill, Pinguino, Alatar, Rage, Poly, Ruth, and P3nny went inside the cave to explore. When you think cave, you usually think of some dry hole in the side of a mountain with some bones and indian paintings. This cave had a long, metal, super-narrow tunnel about 40 feet down, with a slippery ladder. Next, you had to hold onto a rope and slide another 40 feet to the rocky landscape below. Flashlights started dying at that point (we weren't smart enough to bring extra batteries on the hike; they were in the cars). We hiked through the ledges and tight crevices of the slimy finger numbing caverns, then halted at a natural mineral waterfall. Drinking the water was unforgettable. It was the coldest, best-tasting water ever imaginable. Pill and Pinguino had their feet in it while everyone but Ruth turned back to the entrance. Ka0 and Rage had to lead. In that time span, they nearly drove themselves insane by singing every obnoxious song known to man. Lights started flashing both from above and below, increasing the intensity of the experience. Ka0 and Rage came through and we took a different route back. We prolly scared a second group of cave explorers as we slipped and slid in the near darkness. We went every other person with a light, since most of the flashlights went dead. At one point there was a section of rock where it was just easier to slide down mud to reach the bottom. Did I mention that Pinguino was wearing a completely white Jedi-looking karate outfit through the caves? It was a scary-looking grey after that slide. We met up with Alatar and climbed back up the tubing. The hike down the mountain wasn't that bad, since it was almost all downhill. We had to stop and look at the landscape, which was intensly luminated by the full moon. Imagine a valley, green with pines and shrubbery, highlighted by a dull yellow tint exposing every leaf.. you can't really record moments like that with cameras. The caving experience was the best part of the con.. especially the stop halfway down the mountain. That's what made it worth however many miles you drove to get there. After caving, there was more booze and marshmallows and other stuff, then one by one people passed out. It started raining; poor TP (The Public) was sleeping outside by the fire in a sleeping bag.. In the morning, Pinguino and Alatar decided to sacrifice her karate uniform to Eris (see the Book of Ruth). Flames lept towards the sky as the uniform crumbled into flying ash. Lights flashed, and the cops surrounded the campfire, asking about gunfire. "Guns? We shot some cans with a BB gun, that's all, officer.." 90% of the crew was fully armed. The cops told us to clean the place up, so we did, filling two hefty bags with bottles and melted marshmallow chunks. Don't miss the next No Hope Con! Everyone who comes will move to 303 and be assimilated! It happened to Alatar, Polymorf, Maq702, and Vamprella; just ask them. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- The Nature of Magnetic Strips by Toilet Duk (mongoose@wired2.net) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Most metropolitan areas have some form of rapid transit, usually a rail system or subway-type system. Some of them use paper or cardboard tickets, with cheap magnetic strips on them. If it's a good system, the magnetic strip data will be coded redundantly, vertically. So, if the contents of the card were "2.45" then the card would be encoded like: ,'````````````', | 22222| | .....| | 44444| | 55555| | 00000| | 00000| | 00000| `,............,' So if you sliced the magnetic strip down the center, you could have two strips that were both worth $2.45 because of the redundancy in the encoding. This method only works to duplicate one strip, but certain public transport systems contain the required mechanisms to add fare to a cut ticket, and issue a new ticket, which can then be duplicated using the previously described method. Using this technique you can travel anywhere locally for little or no money. Of course, if you wanna shell out the extra bucks, you can get a magnetic strip encoder/decoder and just make them by the dozen, but this method requires no overhead. And besides, it's more fun this way. :) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Department Store Phones by RedBoxChiliPepper (bac@bright.net) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Department Store Phones. They're everywhere. Well, okay, not everywhere but they're in department stores like K-Mart, Target, Venture, Wal-Mart, Fred Meyers and they're even popping up in grocery stores now. These phones can provide an individual with hours upon hours of good clean-cut entertainment and the only draw back is that in the end it usually ends up making alot of other people extremely miserable. This shouldn't concern you, though. Choosing Your Phone: ------------------- The phone you choose should be in the most secluded place in the store you can possibly find. Preferably in an isle that very few store employees go to and a phone that doesn't have a security dome on the ceiling staring down at you. In some stores, such as Target, they encourage their guests to use the courtesy phones so you don't even have to hide yourself so well. Alot of employees that see some kid using one of their phones will think nothing of it but other employees like to pretend that they're important and will ask you what the hell you're doing to which you should reply with a swift kick in thier groin. Free Calls: ---------- Of course you can almost always get free phone calls from these phones. In most cases you merely have to punch "9" to get an outside dial tone and from there you can place local calls and 800 toll-free calls. Sometimes you have to dial "0" and ask the store's operator to give you an outside line or dial an outside number. If they ask who you are, just say you're the new guy. At most stores, the operators will connect you with their store in another state if you have a need to talk to them. Let's say you want to call the DefCon Voice Bridge in Utah. All you have to do is ask the store operator to connect you to a ficticious city in Utah. YOU: Yes, I need to be connected to the Wal-Mart in ChiliPepper, Utah. HER: Okay, and who am I speaking with? YOU: My name's Chris. The employee here in sporting goods said I could have you call this store because I need to talk to them about delivering an item to that store for my parent's birthday. HER: Okay...Hmmm, I don't see a ChiliPepper, Utah listed here in my directory. Are you sure we have a store there? YOU: Yeah, positive, I used to work there. Actually, I know the phone number there. Want it? HER: Sure. YOU: Okay, it's 801-855-3326. HER: I'll go ahead and write that in here. Hold on and I'll connect you. The protection against long distance calls on these phones suck. The store owners try to instruct their phones to disallow all customer accessable phones from dialing anything that will cost, but unfortuantely for the store owners, they don't read underground publications. Most of your average store owners have never heard of an AT&T Alliance Teleconference. When you get an outside dialtone, just dial 0-700-456-1002, enter in the size of your "conference" and then dial the first number you'd like to have on your conference. Then hit "#" a couple times to talk to whoever you just called. You can dial any number in the world through Alliance. If you want to be really brave, start an actual teleconference from the store and stay on for a few hours. You can also sometimes dial long distance by dialing "9" then "0" and asking the Bell operator to give you AT&T and ask AT&T to call the Netherlands for you. Also, on some phones, the LD protection is actually in the phone you're using, meaning you can bypass it just by using a Radio Shack tone dialer. Employee Pagers: --------------- In some stores, the employees will carry a beeper or a walkie talkie around with them. I've seen them wearing beepers at both Target and Fred Meyers and at Target, you can use any of the red store phones to talk to an employee on one of these beepers. The employee will hear a beeping noise, then your voice will come out of the beeper very loudly. At Target, all you had to dial was "4" and then the three digit beeper number. After that, you'd hear a steady tone, then silence where you'd leave your 10 second message to them. To find out the employee's beeper number, you can either ask the employee or ask the operator OR try to look at the employee's beeper. With a little imagination, you can have alot of fun sending obscene messages to everyones' beepers to the horror of nearby customers. All-Store Paging: ---------------- In most stores, the "all store page" button is marked clearly on the phone because store managers know that nobody in their right mind would pick up a store phone and say anything rude for the whole store to hear. Or would they? This is actually a useful thing to know because if you're with a friend and you get separated, you just pick up a store phone, hit "PAGE" and say, "Attention K-Mart Shoppers, would Chris Tomkinson please return to infants." Anyway, here's a few announcements you might wanna make once you've figured out how to get on the intercom. You shouldn't do more than a few each day because after awhile, they're going to come looking for you. Always be as rude and obnoxious as possible when doing this and try to offend as many people as you can. "Attention K-Mart shoppers! HA! I always wanted to say that!" "Customer service to anal lubrications..." (repeat a few times...) "Pop quiz asshole...A local Wal-Mart with approximately 85 shoppers and 21 employees has armed the building. If the amount of people in the building drops below 100,the building will go off. What do you do? What. Do. You. DO?" "Attention K-Mart shoppers - we have a blue light special in the women's clothing. Everything in women's clothing is 95% off!" "(hushed voice) Just listen to me, Joel, when you turn on the store's music, you turn on this subliminal advertising machine that will trick all the shoppers into buying into our rip-off sales. Now I'm the manager and you need to- shit! You left the goddamned intercom on again! ...(click)" All-Store Paging From Home: -------------------------- Some systems will allow you to phone the store from your home and ask the operator or an employee to transfer you to the all-store page or just an extension that is the all-store page and they don't realize what they've done until it's too late. This used to be most common at Fred Meyer but for some reason they've began closing that little loophole. But see if you can figure out a way to be transferred to the all-store paging from your home. It's been done many times before... Answering Calls: --------------- This is one of the funnest and least-riskiest pranks to pull on a store. Find a phone and look at the display. If it's a modern store phone, you'll see a row of about five buttons, each numbered and each having a light over it. These are the store's separate lines. If the light is on, that line is in use and if the light is steadily blinking, that line is on hold. If the light blinks rapidly for 2 seconds at a time, that line is ringing. Pick up the phone and press a button of either a call on hold or a line that's ringing. If you've picked up a ringing line, answer with the store's greeting such as "Thank you for calling Fred Meyer, how can I help you? .... You want the hardware department? Well, this is hardware..." And if you've picked up a line on hold, just say, "Who are you holding for? Oh toys? This is toys..." If the phone doesn't have any fancy modern lights & buttons on it, you'll have to learn how to answer a line. At Target, you'd pick up the phone and dial either "35" or "36." At other stores, you'd simply dial "1" or "2" and at other stores, you have to dial a three or four digit code. If all else fails, call up the store operator and ask how to pick up a line. You can also listen to the overhead paging. When you hear the store operator say, "Housewares, you have a call on 173..." run over to a phone and dial 173. Here are a few examples of some of the fun we've had answering calls in the past few years: ME: Who are you holding for? XX: Electronics. ME: Oh, that's me. What do you need? XX: I just need to see if my film is ready. The last name is- ME: Uh, listen, I'm really swamped back here right now so you're just going to have to wait. Can I put you on hold for about 20 minutes? XX: Welllll, I could just call back I suppose. ME: (acting pissed) Well, you don't have to be a fucking smartass about it. All I said was that I'm in the middle of playing Super Mario Karts and I don't have time to walk across the fucking counter and check on your film so just deal with it, you stupid bitch. Okay? (slam down the phone.) An interesting phenomenon here is that as soon as you hang up, about two seconds later another line will light up... Weird. So you pick up the phone. ME: (in a different voice) K-Mart, this is Big Bob. XX: (very irritated) Yes, I just called Electronics at your store there and the boy who answered the phone was extrememly rude to me and I'd like to talk to the manager there. ME: Well, I'm Bob the assistant manager. The real manager is asleep right now. Would you like me to go to his office and wake him up? XX: Well, I think somebody needs to talk to the person in electronics. I asked if my film was there and he started screaming at me and using foul language. ME: Ma'am, that's just the way our employees are. In order to cut down on stress in the workplace, we encourage them to releive their frustrations on the customers. If you don't like it, you can take your fucking film somewhere else. (slam) The trick is never to let them have the last word. You'd probably have a good laugh now by going to the Service Desk or operator's desk (aka fitting rooms) and listening to her call back and yell at the operator for a bit. ME: Thanks for calling Wal-Mart, how can I help you? XX: I need the toy department. ME: Hold on... (different voice) ...Toys. XX: Do you guys carry the new Christmas Barbie? ME: Which one? There's two of them. One of them she's got a Christmas wreath stuck up her butt and the other one she's holding a penis in one hand and a whip in the other hand. Anyway, yeah, we got 'em both but they're going quick. They're both $17.99 apiece. XX: Uhhhh... ME: Would you like me to hold one for you? I can take your name and hold it for 24 hours. XX: (click) ME: How rude... ME: Hardware, how can I help you? XX: I need the housewares department. ME: Well, you got hardware. So how can I help you? XX: Well, I doubt that you can help me because I asked for housewares. ME: WELL, obviously the lady at the service desk is hard of hearing because you've been transferred to the hardware department so how can I help you? XX: ...Okay. I need to know if you have any of those blenders left that were advertised in Sunday's paper. ME: How the hell should I know anything about blenders. You've got hardware here. XX: Could you please transfer me to housewares? ME: No, I can't. Maybe instead of a blender you'd like to buy a nice circular saw or some acrylic paint. ME: Garden Center. XX: Yes, do you have any of tho- ME: No, we don't. XX: You didn't let me fini- ME: (click) Secret Departments: ------------------ If you have the time, you can sit at a store's phone and manually scan for other "departments" that aren't listed on the phone or even known to most employees and managers. In the past, I've found the extensions to different phones in store rooms and offices around the store, I've been magically transferred to other offices in different states (speed dial?) and I've gotten lots of weird sounding noises and computer carriers and fax tones. I've also been thrown out of alot of stores. Figure out what the extensions are for most of the departments in the store. Most stores have them written on the phone or next to the phone. If not, just call the operator and ask for the extensions. Using all the extensions you've gathered as sort of a template, start making up similar extensions and see what you can find. Then start dialing totally random numbers and see what you get. Continue to do this until you see an angry store manager standing behind you. In some stores, the operator will notice that the phone you're using keeps going on and off. This will either make her suspicious or drive her crazy and in both cases, she'll send someone over to investigate. Really, though, the worst thing that could happen is that you'll get kicked out of the store. Oh darn. But even that's pretty unlikely. Just tell them you were trying to figure out how to get some help in that department, then ask if they have any Tickle Me Elmo dolls left. LRT Guns: -------- Okay, so this is totally unrelated to courtesy phones, but this is still a cool way to spend an evening in a store after you've been kicked off all of the phones. Sometimes you'll see employees running around with little lazer guns with a 5x20 display and a keyboard. Usually they'll set these down while they go to help a customer which is when you snatch it up and run off to a different department with it. The employees use these guns to * Scan UPC bar codes which gives them a product description and price * Inventory items on the shelves and maintain a list of items to be taken out from the storeroom * Print price labels to stick on the shelves. * Do credit checks on instant credit applications. (only the service desk usually knows how to do this) At Target, they have a "gift list" program where you come into the store and take one of these LRT guns around the store and scan the bar codes of things you want for your wedding or baby shower. When you're doing this, the LRT is in a different mode, but it can be reset to normal mode by resetting the gun. This is usually done by holding down the "FUNCTION" key while pressing "ENTER." When you take one of thse guns, they want you to leave a driver's license as collateral. You could easily give them someone else's driver's license and walk out of the store with their LRT. It probably wouldn't work too far from the store, though, since it's controlled by the store's computer. If you borrow an LRT from an employee, just get far away from them, then either take the gun into the bathroom and play with it, or set it on a shelf by alot of other stuff so you can type on it without looking too conspicuous. If a little kid stands next to you to see what you're doing, growl at them. While in normal operation mode, you can actually get a DOS prompt on these things by pressing CONTROL-C. I've only been able to play around on the D: drive, making directories, deleting directories and stashing dumb text files all over for them to find. Even though it seems to accept all normal DOS commands, I never could figure out where the ":" key was. Since the keyboard is compact, each key has several different characters on it, depending whether you press a "control" or "function" or "shift" along with it. I tried every possible combination and couldn't find the : key which is what I needed to get to the C: drive. You cannot surf the web on these terminals. Oh darn. If you just want to feel cool and go around scanning bar codes, from the > prompt type "UPC" and ENTER. While in this mode, if an employee approaches you and says, "Hey, give me back my thingie." you can point the lazer at them and blind them for life. (Well, not really but it sure pisses them off.) The only other command I can think of is "DPCI" which isn't very interesting. A bit of playing around with their menu should yeild some interesting results. K-Mart is the store who used one of these guns to do an instant credit check on me. She entered in all the information from my application into the gun which took about 3 hours at her speedy 13 WPM. The result is not an entire credit report flashing across the screen, but simply a "approved" or "denied" answer. (In my case, "denied.") Do You Work Here?: ----------------- Ever walk into a K-Mart and accidentally wear a pinstripe shirt and a red vest with ivory pants and light colored shoes only to find every other customer asking, "Do you work here?" Well, uh, neither have I. I would never wear my red vest with my ivory pants. That's tackey. But it can be alot of fun to dress very similar to employees and go around answering dumb questions for the customers. You can even slap on your McDonald's name badge and the customer will never notice the difference. It's best to do this on a really busy day because the understaffed employees won't even notice an imposter running around, misdirecting their customers. If you're not afraid of getting punched in the mouth by some customers, you can be just as rude as you were to them on the phone. But if you're a wimp like me, just lie to them alot, point them in the totally wrong direction, make up information about how great a product is and send all the customers to Lane Seven for whatever they're looking for. Whoever is working at Lane Seven will get very irritated. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Rights of Minors by Pinguino (pinguino@connectnet.com) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Every kid dreams of turning 18 to "become an adult." They wanna be able to tell their parents, "Yeah? Yeah? Fuck you, I'm moving out, bitch!" They want to buy cigarettes and pr0n mags without getting carded. There are certain advantages to being a minor that can be exploited and used to your advantage. Minors can't sign valid contracts. Apparently some guy in Congress thought kids were too stupid to think for themselves, and that can be used to your advantage. This is called the "incapacity to contract" and affects minors, people who are retarded, and people who are drunk. This was created to protect minors from older, smarter, and more experienced individuals. On the flip side, minors have the right to disaffirm their contracts, or cancel them. Only the minor may disaffirm the contract; adults involved will screw the process up since they are supposed to watch over the kid. Think of the possibilities. I've heard of gangsters who've managed to scam cars using this law to their advantage. Most dealerships won't sell to a minor though, and most minors can't afford a car right off the lot. It works easiest with rental leases and other intangible goods. It's important to disaffirm as soon as possible, no longer than a year for this to work. If not done during a "reasonable" amount of time, the contract is said to have been ratified. For example, you're 17 and lease an apartment for a year. After three months, you want to move somewhere else. You can't be penalized for breaking the contract, but you still need to pay for those three months. The only exception to this law are contracts dealing with real estate. This is to protect children who are heirs to deceased parents, and their survivors want to take advantage of the child's gift. Under law, minors must return the property they have gotten from the adult involved with the contract. Conflicts occur when that property is no longer in their posession, or the other party is unable to pay them back. This is where if you think real hard, you can come up with another scam. If you represent your age, and the other person can prove you did it, there's no way you're going to win in court. I hope that this article helps and inspires some of you out there. I wish I knew about some of these laws when I was under 18, but I learned about most of them at college (Business Law class). If you come up with something and it works, email me and tell me about it. =) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- A COCOT That Talks Back by Justine (62010@telis.com) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- If you're a dork like me, chances are you like COCOTs. Compared to your masculine Bell payphone, with its straightforward weakness and honest lack of secrets as well as its square, rugged no-frills build, a COCOT is seductive, mysterious and alluring--feminine to the extreme. They come in many exotic shapes, styles and sizes, and each possess their own specialized abilities in pleasing their owners who are the only ones who can use these powers to their advantage. I touch the body of the COCOT, feeling its curves and worshipping its mysterious power... ...Ahem, excuse me for that. I really don't feel that way about those payphones, but I AM the kind of loser that faithfully gets the numbers of any new `breeds' of COCOTs and calls them from home with a terminal program to see what happens. I've had no luck, of course... no one ever does (but if you have, dammit, you better fuckin' e-mail me right now about it!). This last summer, though, I found a new breed of COCOT that will talk to me. Her voice is soft... This sort of payphone is actually Bell commissioned--in a little corner on the front plate, there is a Pacific Bell logo. The fone itself is called a `California Payphone,' though, and is 100% COCOT. Here's what happens when you call one: [Location 1] .............. atdt2458046 CONNECT 57600 T?!*9092458046*34710*DD4318*2067*033*9705317231826*00000─TNV} NO CARRIER atdt2458046 CONNECT 57600 T?!*9092458046*34710*DD4318*2067*033*9705317231936*00000┬TNVt NO CARRIER [Location 2] .............. atdt2459072 CONNECT 2400 T?!*9092459072*49045*DD4318*1947*089*9706151153243*00000│TNV╝ NO CARRIER a/ CONNECT 2400 T?!*9092459072*49045*DD4318*1947*089*9706151153405*00000│TNV NO CARRIER \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ ? ? \ note mysterious \ number of \ \ \ extra 7th digit (1) \ COCOT \ location? \ \ \ date and time: connection factory 6/15/97, established code? 15:34:05 I always fantasized about login screens and menus, but this is the closest I've gotten. My friends and I did our best to decipher the string (and phear, too, wherever the hell he is), but there are a few mysteries still. I also found that I'm not the first to discover this. A guy named Dark Helmet in an old 80's ('89) California zine called PPP (Phuckin' Phield Phreakers--two issues, kind of lame) stumbled on a similar string while wardialing 619-744-99xx... ................................................................................. 9909 : CARRIER... at 300 7-E-1 Display: T2A*6197449909*29135*AC1009*0784*000*8911305141842N Strange, but that's what it sent at 300 baud. At 1200 it just hung up. ........................................................................... 9922 : CARRIER... at 300 7-E-1 Display: T2A*6197449922*50815*AC1009*1465*023*8911305141634S Another one of the above. .............................................................................. 9970 : CARRIER... at 300 7-E-1 Display: T2A*6197449970*70675*AC1009*0810*000*8911305142223[ ................................................................................. I'm also writing this article as a general `probe' out to anyone else who knows stuff about COCOTs. If you have any info, mail me or System Failure with it! I have tons of stories to trade. Like when there was a pair of COCOTs at my old high school that we'd have tons of fun with--when you called them at the right moment (when the person had the fone at their ear and was pumping quarters in), it would say `incoming call' and then you'd be on. The people would hang up and try to start over, but you could hang up yourself and keep hitting redial, getting them each time and driving them nuts and forcing them to beg you to let them call. Pretending to be operator could be real fun in this way, too ("Insert 18 dollars, please"). And then of course, there's the tricky third-party billing technique that you could use to bill the call to the next fone over... ...But you guys knew that already. I'm rambling, too. Anyways, keep up the exploration of phone systems--it's damned addictive. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Well, that's it for issue #3. Pinguino will be editing System Failure #4, so it should be out on time for once. :) If you've got any submissions or questions, let us know at system.failure@usa.net. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-E-O-F-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-