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The Telecommunications Collage Vol. I
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|| The Telecommunications Collage Vol. I ||
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*Miscellaneous Techniques for the Telecommunications Hobbyist*
Written exclusively for
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P R O D U C T I O N S
By: The Cruiser
_______________________________________________________________________________
The purpose of this text-file is to explain the ethics and purpose of
phone phreaking and hacking to the ones that don't know or that think they do
but really don't. Also I will report on a few odd developments in the hack
and phreak worlds, so this file is by no means just reserved to the newcomers.
But most of it, however, is on the basic level. In later volumes I will get
into more in-depth subjects. For the beginner, I will not get into basic
telephony, switching systems and explaining basics such as loops, divertors,
etc., but for those that need that information I highly recommend reading BIOC
Agent's gem of a series, "The Basics of Communications". Though the earliest
ones date back to 1983, they are very informative and well written. At the end
of this file I'll put a little bibliography with a list of text-files and books
that are recommended reading. Now on to the rest of the file, which will be
roughly divided into sections.
I. Elitism. (This is the only section devoted entirely to newcomers.
Others can go ahead to section II).
It's funny listening to some of the new "phreaks" nowadays.
ALL NEW HACKERS/PHREAKS. . .LISTEN!
What hackers/phreaks do is illegal! Sort of like the mafia - if you turn
someone in you can expect to get hurt! So, for all you people out there who
cannot handle it, I suggest that you had better stop right away before you
get yourself in trouble. There's too many kids out there today who think that
they're big shit because they can make long distance calls for free... WHOOPIE!
A phreak is not a person that makes long distance calls for nothing. Get that
through your heads! A phreak is a person that experiments with the phone
company, and tries to manipulate it and see what it can do! It only curtails
20% of long distance calls. That 20% is the final chapter of the phreak, once
they crack the Bell system they can make calls for nothing.
HOW CAN ANYONE READ THE LAST CHAPTER AND KNOW WHAT THE BOOK CONTAINS?
Phreaking is illegal and you can get busted for it. No, the FBI won't
bust you for sending someone a $2,000.00 phone bill, the FBI has nothing to do
with that at all! And enough about MCI and tracing... 800 numbers always ANI!
950's are routed in a different way, otherwise they're the SAME as other
prefixes! ANY number can trace, so there isn't one safe method or long
distance company to make free calls. So if you are scared of getting caught,
SIMPLY DO NOT DO IT! People who break into computer systems to crash and
destroy them or use long distance codes for the mere sake of running up
someone's bill should be caught. It's vandalism.
Also, a note about boxing. The blue box is the first and one of the few
"boxes" [which is contradictory to the pirates and others that have a rainbow
assortment of them], although I would also classify the black box as a "box".
Others are just tools of the phone phreak. A beige box is nothing more than
a lineman's handset, and a clear box is just a tone dialer. Also, boxing is
not completely extinct, like some say. And YES, there ARE ways around ESS!
One just has to look for them. Not everything one learns can be attained from
a text-file. Phreaking is not a passive activity, one must go places, do
things, and experiment. Although I am not saying that boxing is in it's prime,
either. [I wasn't a phreak when boxing was in its prime, which was way back in
the early 70's]. Phreaks still have blue boxes, some for sentimental reasons,
and others still use them. A lot of the "boxes", such as the yellow, urine,
lunch, super, cereal, plaid, brown, et. al., don't exist. They were "invented"
by intelligent people for the plain idiots and "new breed" of what I call
"c0mpyooter kidz" to toy with (and try to build and use!) Oh, and then
there's boxes like the red box. The red box exists, but it's just a few of
the tones in a blue box. So if you have a blue box, you also have a red box.
What else... Oh, yeah, something about codes. For your own saftey, never
use codes posted on a BBS. Who knows how many people are using it. And,
contradictory to the pirate's favorite little saying, "There's safety in
numbers," it's actually more dangerous to use a code posted around the nation.
All you have to do it put your code hacker on one night, and if you get about
4 codes, that should last you two months if you use one code every two weeks,
and don't give any to anyone.
II. Trashing
Trashing, if done correctly, can be a very profitable and enjoyable part
of a phreak's activities. After trashing local Bell and AT&T sites for over
two years, I've gained a bit of experience on the subject, and have a few
fairly good guidelines for trashing:
1)First of all, you need a place to trash. The best places are your local
central office, business office, AT&T service branch, or communications
center. To find out where these are located, just open up the good ol' white
pages to "American Telephone and Telegraph" or "Bell Systems" and you will
find several local addresses. When you pick one out that you think will be
profitable, jot down the address and take a few drives out there;one during
a weekday business hour, one on a Sunday, and another at night. This will
give you an idea of how heavily populated it is at certain times. Don't
get out of the car during these surveillance trips, but just make a note of
security, etc. Some telco installations keep their trash locked up, others
have it guarded, but most of them just have a plain old dumpster. During
these trips you also have to watch when the trash is collected, so that you
can arrange a day when the trash will be at its peak.
2)Once you have a site picked out, and a good time and date to go, drive out
with a friend or two. Sometimes it's better to park your car and walk when it
is guarded, so you will have a smaller chance of being detected, but most of
the time you can just drive right up. Always do it at night, Fridays,
Saturdays and Sundays being the best. Once you are at the dumpster, grab all
the bags and put them in the trunk. If you walked, then take them out and
leave as soon as possible. Not only is this safer (no worry about getting
caught by the cops) than going in the dumpster and sorting the trash there,
but it assures you that you don't miss anything. And what's nice about telco
trash is that the worst it gets is coffee grounds or an apple core, so you
won't have to worry about smelly garbage.
3)Drive off to your house and sort it in your garage, backyard, or whatever.
Have some trash bags nearby to put the real trash in. The good trash you can
then keep, and dispose of the rest.
There are many good things you can find in telco trash. There are always
abundances of printouts, from loop tests to miscellaneous reports. Depending
on exactly what kind of building you trashed, you could find broken phones
(the parts are very useful) to blank letterheads. I have never found a pad
of unused Bell letterheads, but if you find one that is in good condition but
written on, take it to your local printer and have them print you out two
dozen copies in the same color, but to omit the part that was written on. If
the printer questions you, just leave and go somewhere else. At my local
printer, this cost me $2.60. Letterheads and envelopes are very useful for
scaring enemies (on occasion, friends too!), or for impressing phellow phreaks
when writing to them. In Bell trash you can also find notebooks and binders
with the Bell logo. Once I trashed a computer store and found a binder with
the Intel logo on it. It now sits next to my PC and I use it to keep my
technical information.
III. Your Phriends at Bell!
There's a lot of phree presents AT&T has for you that's just as easy as
a phone call away:
Ever want more than one phone book? Is yours old and tattered? You can
get a White Pages, Yellow Pages, Business-to-Business Yellow Pages, or
whatever suburb yellow/white pages you want just by asking! It's very simple,
and perfectly legal - just open the cover of your current White Pages and get
the number to your local Administrative Office. Give 'em a call and ask for
whatever phone book you want, and they'll send it free of charge. Don't order
more than 3 at a time, however.
A way to get Bell stationary without going trashing is to call Bell and
ask for information on, for instance, WATS lines. You'll get a little
pamphlet in the mail about WATS lines, plus a Bell memorandum slip saying
something like, "George --- here's the information you requested on WATS
lines". As before, take it to your printers', and have it copied without the
writing.
Those manhole covers that you see on your street with the words "Bell
System" on it have more in there than you think. If you can lift one up using
a crowbar, go inside. Sometimes you might find a telephone handset, and if
you're lucky, a Bell manual or two describing the wires lining the inside. But
most of the time, that's just a phreak phairy tale. It's not that easy, but
I worked out an easy method to get various manuals that WORKS:
Ever see those little black lids on the corner of the block that says
"Telephone" on it, and you open it up and there's a long wire in it? It's
called a bridging head. Well go to one close to you, either if you have one
or try one a few houses away. Take the lid off, and pitch it. Then call up
repair service and say, "Hello, this is [insert the name of someone that lives
near it, or bullshit a name], and I have a box at the corner of my house that
contains phone wires. Well, I just looked outside and the lid is missing.
I have a 6 year old daughter, and she plays outside a lot. I don't want her
to get electrocuted or hurt, so could you please send someone out to replace
the lid? My address is [fill in address here]." And in a while (they'll tell
you the time), a bell lineman will drive up, open his truck and get out a
replacement lid. When he's doing that, just reach in the truck and swipe
something. But you have to be quick and accurate, and you can't be too
choosy. While you're at it, you might as well get into a conversation with
the guy. BSing with these people can sometimes yield good results.
Many of the Directory Assistance ops can easily be talked to. Although
they get a lot of calls (1000-1300 a day), they still will talk for a few
minutes. The problem is that they don't have access to much. They can tell
you if a number is unlisted or not, and that's about it. The CN/A operator can
give you the name and address of a number. And, if done correctly, you can
get some information from her. I hear that most CN/As are going to become a
regular customer pay service in the near future, due to all the teens already
abusing them. My CN/A (614) doesn't even give you the full address or name on
most of the numbers, they just tell you the major city it's in (like for a 614
number they'll say "that's in Columbus", and for a 216 number they'll say
"that's in Cleveland"), which doesn't help at all. For unlisted numbers
they'll tell you that they have no record. Some CN/As are on Microfische(like
mine), and that's what happens when you call them. The others are computerized
but they ask for a pass code (two letters and two numerals). It won't be long
before this once-valuable operator becomes useless.
IV. Exchange Scanning
The best way to find pbxes, loops, and other goodies is to manually scan
for them. In the NPA-NXX-99XX numbers, there's a lot of Bell goodies, just
waiting for you to explore them. Get a notebook for phreaking and make a
chart for each prefix like this (thanks to BIOC Agent 003 for this method):
NPA-NXX-99XX Scan
___________________________________________________________________________
|99x x>| 0 |1 |2 |3 |4 |5 |6 |7 |8 |9 |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|990 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|991 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|992 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|993 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|994 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|995 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|996 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|997 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|998 | | | | | | | | | | |
|---------+------+------+------+------+------+------+-----+-----+-----+-----|
|999 | | | | | | | | | | |
|_________|______|______|______|______|______|______|_____|_____|_____|_____|
Then make a key something like:
R = ring [try again later]
B = busy [ " " " ]
R1= recording 1 [make a list of all that you come across, R1, R2, R3, etc.]
D = dial tone
O = intercept operator
S = sweep tone
T = tone [tone at lower number + ignore it's a loop]
I = ignore [dead silence. at higher number, it's a loop]
V = voice number to telco
C = carrier [modem]
Q = strange tone/clicks/buzzing
M = voice mail system
N = SCC / Network port (MCI, Sprint, etc)
Dial all the numbers on your sheet, and record your findings on the chart
in your notebook. Another area that has a lot of things are the <800>/9XX-9999
series of numbers. At the time of this writing, most are disconnected, but a
few useful numbers are still there. Also, <800>/NXX-10XX tend to yield with
a lot of good findings. Try to do your scanning late at night, when most
businesses are closed. Put all your scans in one big notebook, and attempt to
scan as much of the Network [the whole phone system if you were wondering] as
you can. Another good prefix to scan are the pay <900>/200-XXXX numbers. These
generally cost more than most of the normal 900 numbers, and some of them are
private AT&T numbers. You can also try NPA-NXX-00XX, and NPA-NXX-01XX. But
you don't have to be limited to these. Different numbers can be found in
different areas. Explore into deep depths of the Networks' insides, and the
deeper you go the better things you will find. Currently in my area, the
98xx numbers have a lot of loops in them, such as <216>/661-9898/9. Here's
a listing of prefixes for the <800> exchange and the states that the number
resides in (a lot of companies set up numbers that can only be reached in the
same state, and others have ones that can only be called outside their state).
An asterisk to the right indicates that a toll switching office that accepts
MF tones has been found in the area code served by that prefix. An asterisk
to the left indicates that numbers have been found in that prefix that can be
whistled off using 2600. The numbers that should be hacked for blowable
numbers have asterisks before and after them like this: *XXX*.
State 800 Prefix NPA served
----- ---------- ----------
Alabama 633 <205>
Alaska 544 <907>
Arizona 528 <602>
Arkansas 643 <501>
California 227 <415>
421 <213>
423 <213>
854 <714>
824 <916>
538 <408>
235 <805>
344 <209>
358 <707>
Colorado 525 <303>
255 <303>
Connecticut 243 <203>
Delaware 441 <302>
District of Columbia 424 <202>
368 <202> For high volume traffic
Florida 327 <305>
237 <813>
*874* <904>
Georgia 841 <912>
*241 <404>
554 <404>
Hawaii 367 <808>
Idaho *635 <208>
Illinois 621 <312>
323 <312>
637 <217>
435 <815>
447 <309>
851 <618>
Indiana 428 <317>
457 <812>
348 <219>
Iowa 553 <319>
*247 <515>
831 <712>
Kansas 835 <316>
255 <913>
Kentucky 626 <502>
354 <606>
Louisiana 535 <504>
551 <318>
Maine 341 <207>
Maryland 368 <301>
Massachusetts 343 <617>
225 <617>
628 <413>
Michigan 253 <616>
521 <313>
338 <906>
517 <248>
Minnesota 328 <612>
533 <507>
*346 <218>
Mississippi 647 <601>
Missouri 821 <816>
325 <314>
641 <417>
Montana *548* <406>
Nebraska 228 <402>
445 <308>
Nevada *634 <702> Las Vegas
648 <702> Reno
New Hampshire 258 <603>
New Jersey 257 <609>
New Mexico 545 <505>
New York 223 <212>
847 <607>
221 <212>
431 <914>
828 <716>
645 <516>
448 <315>
833 <518>
North Carolina 334 <919>
438 <704>
North Dakota *437 <701>
Ohio 321 <216>
543 <513>
537 <419>
848 <614>
Oklahoma 654 <405>
331 <918>
Oregon *547* <503>
Pennsylvania 523 <215>
345 <215>
*458* <814>
245 <412>
233 <717>
Puerto Rico 468 <809>
Rhode Island 556 <401>
South Carolina *845* <803>
South Dakota *843* <605>
Tennessee 251 <615>
238 <901>
Texas 527 <214>
433 <817>
531 <512>
231 <713>
351 <915>
*858* <806>
Utah 453 <801>
Vermont *451 <802>
Virginia 446 <804>
368 Arlington - (for D.C.)
336 <703>
Virgin Islands 524 <809>
Washington 426 <206>
541 <509>
West Virginia 624 <304>
Wisconsin *356 <608>
558 <414>
Wyoming 443 <307>
Another area to scan are the <NPA>/NXX-4499 numbers. These will connect
you to a loud annoying busy signal. But the neat part about it is that if
anyone else calls it while you're on, you can talk. Many people (I've seen it
where they've gotten 20) can be on it at the same time. And the more people on
the line, the quieter the busy signal gets. Although the busy signal is
annoying, it's good because you don't get charged for busy signals so you can
call it direct. Two working numbers are <603>/353-4499 and <205>/356-4499.
There are a lot of these, at least one in every area code.
V. Closing Notes
This ends the first in a series, "The Telecommunications Collage". This
one was aimed more at the newer phreaks, but more information will be in issue
number two, including Bell computers, answering machine/VRS hacking, radio
hacking, and other topics. This file was written on various dates between
March 17th, 1987 to April 26th, 1987 [as if you really cared, huh?]. Here I'm
listing some suggested reading like I promised you at the beginning of the
publication. Use this material well, and remember,knowledge is power! [as I
quote Scan Man]
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|| Suggested Reading ||
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BIOC Agent 003's Basics of Communications Series (old, somewhat outdated, but
still good for beginners.)
Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary of Electronics, by John Douglas-Young
Phrack Publications
The Legion of Doom/Hackers Technical Journal
The Shockwave Rider, by John Brunner
Understanding Telephone Electronics, Radio Shack Manual 62-1388
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