317 lines
20 KiB
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317 lines
20 KiB
Plaintext
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The Triad
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A 3-In-1 Text File Magazine
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..."Concepts to Educate the Educated"...
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Volume 1, Issue 1
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November Issue, 1987
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Chapter 1: Introduction to The Triad (Its purpose and Goals)
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Chapter 2: Tips On Beating The Radio Call In Contests by Style
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Chapter 3: When Blue And Red Meant The Trashing Of Ma Bell Part I by Schmeg
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Chapter 4: Do it yourself Divertors by Style
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SysOps are encouraged to place this file in their Databases, provided
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they do not modify it. This File is up to date as of November 1st, however
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changes in the world do occur. The Authors, Editors, and distributors are not
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liable for any damages concured from use of information in this Text Magazine.
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It is for informational purposes only. If you wish to place your Bulletin
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Board Systems number in this file, please so it after the -End-.
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-Chapter 1-
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An Introduction to The Triad
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By Style
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The Triad is a text file magazine devoted to distributing knowledge
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available to the common Computer Phreak and Hacker. The Triad is mainly a group
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of text files put together for better distribution. Yes, it sounds like a copy
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of -Phrack, Inc.- Magazine, however, its much smaller than Phrack, Inc. Phrack,
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Inc. usually is 13+ files long and causes the editor, Taran King (and now The
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Disk Jockey), lots of Troubles trying to gather all the files before deadline.
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The Triad (Triad meaning Three) will usually be Three files long unless it
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becomes extremely popular and I have people begging me to put there articles in
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it. Also, I've seen several people attempt magazines only to run out of
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material after the first few issues - which isn't going to happen to The
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Triad.
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The Triad will be coming out on a monthly basis, and I will be the Head
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Editor. If you have a new unreleased text file that you have written that you
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would like to have included in The Triad, I can be reached at the following
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systems:
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The Soldier Of Phortune BBS (414) 367-4367 300/1200 Baud
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OSUNY BBS (914) 725-4060
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Phreak Klass, Room 2600 (806) 799-0016 System Pass: EDUCATE
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PhoneHenge BBS (516) 543-7995
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All are 24 Hour/7 Day a Week Systems
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-Chapter 2-
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Tips On Beating The Radio Call In Contests
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By Style
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October 15th, 1987
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-A Soldier Of Phortune presentation for The Triad-
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Most serious Telephone Phreaks that I've known have a good knowledge of
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the telephone system and its inner workings. However, even if they know how
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their call goes through the the switching system, they (Like most everyone
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else) have never won a radio call in Contest. This File will give you a few
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tips on how to better your odds of being the right number caller. For a
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realistic example, I'm going to use a actual radio stations information in this
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file. You can then apply this knowledge to your own local radio station.
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"Classic Hits" 96.5FM WKLH is a radio station here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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that has recently been giving away some major prizes in hopes of bringing there
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popularity up. WKLH is one of those fad "Classic Hits" radio stations that
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popped up along with a bunch of others across the country. Most of the others
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have folded under from ratings that took a "Hit" (swan dive) a few months after
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they established themselves. So, WKLH is giving away CD players (One every
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day), and Automobiles (One a week to the 96th caller when a particular song is
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heard).
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First off, your best bet is to have a modem that can dial DTMF tones as
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fast as your Switching System can handle, and has Line Detection capabilities
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like Busy, Ringing, Re-Order, and Voice Detection. It also helps if you have
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the custom calling feature "Speed Dialing". It also is EXTREMELY helpful if
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you happen to live close to the radio station, because your call will then be
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processed much faster than everyone elses, and the possibility of a Re-Order is
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less likely. This information is pretty basic, and is pretty much common
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knowledge, so I hope I don't insult any of you...Read on though.
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In able to be anything other than a speedy dialer, you'll need to apply a
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little calculations and social engineering. First off, you need to know how
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many phone lines a Radio Station actually has. They might say "Call 799-1194"
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(94.5fm WKTI), but that's not the only phone line they have. Its simply the
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number that a multi-line Hunt Series runs off of, i.e. if the 799-1194 number
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is busy, it routes the call to the next number in the series (799-1195), and if
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that one is busy, it routes to the next one (799-1196), etc. Most radio
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stations have about 5-10+ phone lines all in a row.
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You can usually find these numbers by dialing numbers higher than the
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number they give out. Or, the DJ's might let out how many lines they have,
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"Boy, we sure have a lot of callers for that sports trivia contest! All seven
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of our lines ae$vkVLE If all else fails, you can call the Radio Stations
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buisness line (Its in the phone book) and try to social engineer the answer out
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of the secretary. Other things that work are to keep calling after a contest
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is over and try to Social Engineer the DJ. He'll try to console you with a
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"Better luck next time...." answer to which you mutter about busy signals and
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how you never get through and then you ask him how many phone lines they have.
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Also, the late night shift DJ's are generally starved for two-way conversation.
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If all else fails, scan the whole prefix - Most radio stations are in the same
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prefix and you'll be able to kill two or three birds/stations with one
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stone/scan.
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So, after you know how many lines they have in the station, all you need
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to know is how to count. Say for example, that you hear the DJ say "A pair of
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Pink Floyd tickets to the 10th caller!". All you have to know is that they
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have 7 lines going in at Pre-1111 through Pre-1117, so since they go down the
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line of buttons the 10th caller would actually be the 2nd caller on the 3rd
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fone line. So, you simply dial Pre-1113 and if you are the second caller on
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Pre-1113 you are the winner!
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=$
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-292 is another method of winning that a kid in New York is using very
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successfully on Z100fm (Z100 gives away more call in contest prizes than any
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other station in the country). He took a tour of the Z100 station and counted
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the number of lines they have; how long they take answering each call; and the
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amount of wire between his local loop, the CO (Central Office), and the Z100
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local loop. Then he devised a formula that tells him the exact second to hit
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the redial button at (He's also got three fone lines at his disposal which help
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a little bit.) The Kid has been featured on news shows like 20/20 & 60 Minutes
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and has been picked up by wire services like AP and UPI for cute litle articles
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to fill in between the comics in the funny pages.
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-Style_
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-Chapter 3-
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WHEN BLUE AND RED MEANT
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THE TRASHING OF MA BELL
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PART 1
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Typed in by Schmeg
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The following article was written by Herb Friedman and appeared in the
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November 1987 issue of Radio Electronics. I, Schmeg, typed it in cuz I thought
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it might be of interest to somebody. I am not responsible for any illegal
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urges brought forth by this presentation (actually I don't really care what you
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do but sayin' that makes me feel important and usually keeps people readin')
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Onward...........
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Before the break-up of AT&T, Ma Bell was everyone's favorite enemy. So it
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was not surprising that so many people worked so hard and so successfully at
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perfecting various means of making free and untracable telephone. (SCHMEG'S
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NOTE: Hey is that a run-on sentence by a professional writer??) Whether it was
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a Red Box used by Joe and Jane College (Fake names...DUH) to call home, or a
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Blue Box used by organized crime (Ooooohhh) to lay off untraceable bets, the
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technology that provided the finest telephone system in the world contained the
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seeds of its own destruction.
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The fact of the matter is that the Blue Box was so effective at making
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untraceable calls that there is no estimate as to how many calls were made or
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who made them. No one knows for certain whether Ma Bell lost revenues of $100,
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$100-million, or $1-billion (mega-bux) on the Blue Box. Blue Boxes were so
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effective at making free, untraceable calls that Ma Bell didn't want anyone to
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know about them, and for many years denied their existence. They even went as
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far as strong-arming a major consumer-science magazine into killing an article
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that had already been prepared on the Blue and Red Boxes. Further, the Police
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(shiver) records of a major city contain a report concerning a break-in at the
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residence of the author of that article. The only item missing following the
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break-in was the folder containing copies of one of the earliest Blue Box
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designs and a Bell System booklet that described how subscriber billing was
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done by the AMA machine- a booklet that Ma Bell denied ever existed. (Radio
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Electr. has a picture of that book and proved that it existed) Since the AMA
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(automatic Message Accounting) machine was the means where by Ma Bell
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eventually tracked down both the Blue and Red Boxes, we'll take time out to
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explain it. Besides, knowing how the machine works will help you to better
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understand Blue and Red Box "phone phreaking"
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WHO MADE THE CALL?
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Back in the early days of the telephone, a customer's billing originated
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in a mechanical counting device, which was usually called a register or meter.
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Each subscriber's line was connected to a meter that was part of a wall of
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meters. The meter clicked off the message units, and once a month somone simply
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wrote down the meter's reading, which was laterinterpolated (Huh?) into
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message-unit billing for those subscribers who were charged by the message
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unit. [Flat rate subscribers could make unlimited calls only within a
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outside that area] Because eventually there were too many meters to read
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individually and because more subscribers started questioning their monthly
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bills, the local telephone companies turned to photography. A photograph of a
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large number of meters served as an incontestable record of their reading at a
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given date and time, and was much easier to convert to customer billing by the
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accounting department.
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As you might imagine, even with photographs billing was cumbersome and did
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not reflect the latest technical developments. A meter didn't provide any
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indication of what the subscriber was doing with the telephone (Hmmm...) nor
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did it indicate how the average subscriber made calls or the efficiency of the
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information service [how fast the operators could handle requests]. So the
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meters were replaced by the AMA machine. One machine handled up to 20,000
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subscribers. It produced a punched tape for a 24-hour period that showed, among
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party answered, and the time the originating phone was hung up.
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One other point that will answer some questions that you're certain to
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think of a9xwe discuss the Blue and Red Boxes: Ma Bell did not want persons
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outside their system to know about the AMA machine. The reason?? Almost
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everyone had complaints- usually unjustified- about their billing. Had the
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public been aware of the AMA machine they would have asked for a monthly list
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of their telephone calls. It wasn't that Ma Bell feared errors in billing;
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rather, they were fearful of being buried under an avalanche of dAb+I]{I-KEVxcom
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plaints. Also, the public believed their telephone calls were personal and
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untraceable, and Ma Bell didn't want to admit that they knew about the Who,
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Where, and When of every call. And so Ma Bell always insisted that billing was
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based on a meter that simply clicked for each message unit; that there was no
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record, other than for long-distance calls, as to who called whom. Long
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distance was handled by, and the billing information was done by an operator,
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so there was a written record Ma Bell could not deny.
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The secrecy surrounding the AMA machine was so pervasive that local,
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state, and even federal authorities were told that local calls made by
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criminals were untraceable, and that people who made obscene telephone calls
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could not be tracked down unless the person receiving the call could keep the
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caller on the line for some 30 to 50 minutes so the connections could be
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physically traced by technicians. Imagine asking a woman or child to put up
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with almost an hour's worth of the most horrendous obscenities in the hope that
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someone could trace the line. Yet in areas where the AMA machine had replaced
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meters, it would have been a simple, though time-consuming task, to track down
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the numbers called by any telephone during the 24-hour period. But Ma Bell
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wanted the AMA machine kept as secret as possible, and so many a criminal was
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not caught, and many a woman was harried (like Harried Carried??) by the
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obscene calls of a potential rapist (a bit melo-dramatic) because existance of
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the AMA machine was denied.
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As a sidelight as to the secrecy surrounding the AMA machine, someone at
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Ma Bell or the local operating company decided to put the squeeze on the author
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of the article on Blue Boxes, and reported to the Treasury Department that he
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was, in fact, manufacturing them for organized crime- the going rate in the mid
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60s was supposedly $20,000 a box. [Perhaps Ma Bell figured the author would get
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the obvious message: Forget the Blue Box and the AMA machine or you'll spend
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lots of time, and much money on lawyer fees to get out of the hassles it will
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cause.] The author was suddenly visited at his place of employment by a
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Treasury agent.
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Fortunately, it took just a few minutes to convince the agent that the
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author was really just an author, and not a technical wizard working for the
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mob. But one conversation led to another, and the Treasury agent was astounded
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to learn about the AMA machine. [Wow! Can an author whose story is squelched
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spill his guts.] According to the Treasury agent, his department had been told
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that it was impossible to a record of local calls made by gangsters: the
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Treasury Department had never been informed of the existence of automatic
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message accounting. Needless to say, the agent left with his own copy of the
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Bell System publication about the AMA machine, and the author had an
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appointment with the local Treasury-Bureau director to fill him in on the AMA
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machine. This information eventually ended up with Senator Dodd, who was
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conducting a congressional investigation into, among other things, telephone
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company surveillance of subscriber lines- which was a common practice for which
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there was detailed instructions, Ma Bell's own switching equipment
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("crossbar") manual.
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That about does it for this part. Part 2 will tie the Red and Blue box into
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this whole educational experimentation. (I love big words)
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Welp, so long until the tips of my fingers grow back.......
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Schmeg
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-Chapter 4-
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Do it yourself Divertors
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By Style
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Before I begin, I'll explain what a divertor is and does. A Divertor is
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an electronic box that is placed between two phone lines. When someone calls
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the first phone line, the divertor answers it, and dials a different number on
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the second phone and connects the two lines. This means that the person who
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answers the phone can actually be at a totally different location. A Bookmaker
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(Bookie, Bet Taker, etc.) can use a divertor to protect his identity and
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location. If you call a divertor, usually you will hear two different rings
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separated by either silence or DTMF tones. However, after the telephone answer
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hangs up on a divertor, you get the second phone's dial tone and can call
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wherever you want. All phone bills and phone traces will originate from the
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divertor's second phone, thus protecting you.
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This File will explain a simple method of finding Divertors that you can
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use for your purposes. If you can't find a PABX (Private Automatic Branch
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Exchange) that supports 976 #'s, 900 #'s, and Alliance Teleconferences and then
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you would have to hack a PABX code out, perhaps a Divertor is just what you
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need. Unfortunately, Divertors are hard to come by. If you try
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scanning/wardialing your Prefix or even NPA, its like finding a needle in a
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haystack. What you need is a Telephone answering service!
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The first step in this process is to get out the Yellow Pages telephone
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book, and open it up to "Telephone Answering Services". In most major size
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cities there will be 3 to 5 pages full of ads promising to answer your phone
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from a remote location via Call Forwarding. What you are looking for is a
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company that has Divertors. In my yellow pages, a couple of the ads even say
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"Divertors available". Look for an older, respectable company, as the small
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new companies are usually some old lady operating out of her home with call
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forwarding bringing your calls to her. Then, its simply a matter of calling
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them up and poising as a potential person interested in there services.
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Here's a few good examples:
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)> Poise as a small buisness person about to go on vacation, and rather than
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have your secretary work at the office for the next two weeks answering the
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fone and using all the electricity and heat (Good excuse for in the winter) you
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want to use a answering service. Then, while their guard is down, ask them how
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they operate and try to get a Diverted phone line number off of them - Say that
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you want to hear how good their girls answer the phone.
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)> Simply say you would like some references (of people who use there service),
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and try to get the spelling of their names right so you can call Directory
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Assistance and get the reference's number. This method usually ends up with
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you having a bunch of numbers that use Call Forwarding though.
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)> Poise as Joe Schmoe of the Better Buisness Bureau, and say that you, in
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cooperation with the District Attornies office, are investigating certain
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Telephone Answering Services as being A) Call Girl Services (Escort Service) or
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B) Bookmakers (Bookies).
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Then you have the choice of interrogating them over the phone for Divertor
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numbers, or saying that they are not under investigation - but you would like
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their cooperation in some facts about how Divertors operate... And a few
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numbers so you can hear how they sound...
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)> Find the answering services junction box, and eavesdrop in on who/what the
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callers are trying to reach. Then, call Directory Assistance and get the
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Who/What's number.
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-Style_
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In the next issue of The Triad look for information on RSTS/e Hacking, Part II
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of When Blue And Red Meant The Trashing Of Ma Bell, and maybe even a file on
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Creating a New Identity...
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-End-
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