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- Phone Taps
-
- Here is some info on phone taps. I have enclosed a schematic for a simple
- wiretap & instructions for hooking up a tape recorder control relay to 4he
- phone line. First i'll discuss taps a little. There are many
- different types of taps. There are tranmitters, wired taps and induction taps
- to name a few. Wired and wireless transmitters must be physically connected
- to the line before they'll do any good. Once a wireless tap is connected
- to the line, it can transmit all conversations over a limited range. The
- phones in the house can even be modified to pick up conversations in the room &
- transmit them too! These taps are usually powered off the phone line, but can
- have an external power source. Wired taps, on the other hand, need no
- power source, but a wire must be run from the line to the listener or to a
- transmitter. There are obvious advantages of wireless taps over wired ones.
- There is one type of wireless tap that looks like a normal telephone mike. All
- you have to do is replace the original mike with this & it'll transmit all
- conversations! There is an exotic type of wired tap known as the 'infinity
- transmitter' or 'harmonica bug'. In order to hook up one of these, you need
- access to the target telephone. It has a tone decoder & switch inside. When
- it is installed, someone calls the tapped phone & *before* it rings, blows a
- whistle over the line. The x-mitter receives the tone & picks up the phone via
- a relay. The mike on the phone is activated so the caller can hear all
- conversations in the room. There is a sweep tone test at 415/bug-1111
- which can be used to detect on of these taps. If one og these is on your line
- & the test # sends the correct tone, you'll hear a click. Induction taps
- have one big advantage over taps that must be physically wired to the phone.
- They don't have to be touching the phone in order to pick up the conversation.
- They work on the same principle as the little suction-cup tape recorder mikes
- you can get at radio shack. Induction mikes can be hooked up to a transmitter
- or be wired. Here is an example of industrial espionage using the phone:
- a salesman walks into an office & makes a fone call. He fakes the
- conversation, but when he hangs up he slips some foam-rubber cubes under the
- handset, so the fone is still off the hook. The called party can still hear
- all conversations in the room. When someone picks up the fone, the cubes fall
- away unnoticed. I use a tap on my line to monitor what ae-pro is doing
- when it auto-dials, since it doesn't take advantage of the handset on the apple
- cat ii. I can also hook up the tap to a cassette recorder or amplifier. Here is
- the schematic:
- -------)!----)!(------------->
- )!(
- CAP ^ )!(
- )!(
- )!(
- )!(
- ^^^^^---)!(------------->
- ^ 100K
- !
- !<INPUT
- The 100k pot is used for volume. It should be on its highest (least resistance)
- setting if you hook a speaker across the output, but it should be set on its
- highest resistance for a tape recorder or amplifier. You may find it necessary
- to add another 10-40k. The capacitor should be around .47 Mfd. It's only
- purpose is to prevent the relay in the co from tripping & thinking you have the
- fone off the hook. The audio output transformer available at radio shack
- (273-1380) is fine for the x-former. The black & green are fine for input & the
- red & white go to the output device. You may want to experiment with the
- x-former for the best output. Hooking up a tape recorder control relay is
- east. Just one of the fone wires (usu. Red) before the telephones & hook one
- end to one wire of the relay & the other end to the other relay wire. Like
- this:
- ------^^^^^^^^^------------
- ---------
- RELAY^^
- 275-0
-