76 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
76 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
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"Phreakin' USA"
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When you think "phone phreak," what kind of mental picture do you get? A
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teenager holding a sound-making box up to a phone? Or someone who uses false
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calling card numbers? The phone companies lose an estimated $80 million each
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year on fraudulent phone calls (compared to a total budget of over $27
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billion!), but only a minute fraction is attributed to the above cases. So who
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is causing all these losses?
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A phreak is officially defined as "One who causes information to be passed over
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the phone without the phone company receiving due compensation." This applies
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to more cases than most people expect. For example, calling a "ring-back"
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system long distance just happens to be illegal, because you are passing
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information (that you want to use the modem line) without paying the phone
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company! This law is, of course, not enforcible, and even if it was, why
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take someone to court over a matter of twenty cents lost? It's also illegal to
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make a person-to-person call to yourself in order to let your spouse know you
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arrived at a destination safely! Likewise, calling someone collect at a pay
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phone, calling an operator to say you lost a dollar in a pay phone when you
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didn't, and completing a call with another person over "test lines" (test lines
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are in all exchanges, and if two people dial consecutive test lines, they may
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talk to each other without any charge) are all illegal! Spreading all this out
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along the entire phone network, it suddenly becomes a matter of millions of
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dollars lost each year, even without those little boxes that simulate operator
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tones!
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However, the common image of the phreak is someone who plays with red, black,
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and blue boxes to somehow gyp the phone company into allowing a free call.
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Each of these boxes, named after the color of the originals, has a different
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function, and many times the boxes are confused with each other. A red box
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is a device meant to be used only at pay phones. It simulates the sounds
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of various coins dropping into the phone. When some pay phones hear this
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sound, they automatically assume the a coin actually has dropped into the phone
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and registers it. A black box is a device which converts any phone jack it is
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hooked up to into a toll-free number. If Larry hooked up one, I and everyone
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else could call the CPTBBS as if it were an 800 number, yet Larry would not
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have to pay the excessive charges that an 800 number demands. With the
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sophisticated scanning equipment the phone company has today, however, black
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boxes can be detected after a while.
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The most infamous of the colored boxes is the blue box, which mimics the
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operator tones to allow free calls from any phone. They cost only $25-$50 to
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make, but can sell for up to $3000! Here's how it works: a phreak first dials
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a no-charge number, such as an 800 number for a large corporation (if he wants
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to add a little irony, he'll make it AT&T's 800-number!). The number rings
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once, and then the phreak generates a pure 2600-cycle tone. This tells the
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phone equipment that the call has dislodged and to be ready for the next call,
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though the phreak remains on-line! The phreak then gives another tone telling
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the equipment that a toll call is coming through (though in actuality it is
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not). The phreak dials the number and is connected, but the billing equipment
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never starts! When the phreak eventually hangs up, the records will only show
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that he made a toll-free call.
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It would cost the phone companies approximately one billion dollars to change
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the switching system so that the blue boxes would not work, so instead they
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decided to invest in a scanning system that records all questionable calls.
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Now that scanning system is so quick that it's almost suicide to use a black
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or blue box at home. Phreaks can still get away with using blue boxes at
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pay phones if the call is short, but that's about all. If someone is found
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using a blue or black box at home now, the box is immediately confiscated, and
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the phreak's service may be possibly disconnected.
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If someone offers to sell you one of these colored boxes for the standard
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ridiculous price, I'd advise against it. You stand to lose much more than you
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would gain in the long run.
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The Wanderjahr
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Distributed in part by:
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Skeleton Crue 415-376-8060 located out of Moraga, California.
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!!Get on the band wagon befor it RUNS YOU DOWN!!
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Headquarters for Computer Hackers and Anarchists to Overthrow the State
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(CH&AOS)
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[37] Tfiles: (1-49,?,Q) : |