93 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
93 lines
4.6 KiB
Plaintext
What is War Dialing?
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by: Bungalow Bill
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thanks: Dave Ferret
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We've all heard the terms War Dialing, Scanning, and Demon Dialing. But
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do you have a good idea of what it is, and how to do it safely? What
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about where good places are to scan? In this file, I'll give you all the
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info on war dialing (herafter known as scanning), how to do it, where to
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do it, legality, getting caught, etc. So, here we go:
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History:
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<------>
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Basically, all scanning is is dialing random phone numbers, looking for
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modems to connect to. Originally, this was done by hand, by simply
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dialing each number in an exchange, looking for a computer to connect to.
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The first program ever written to simply dial numbers and listen for
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carriers was written by Lex Luthor in BASIC, and was simply called Dial.
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All it did was call phone numbers in the exchange you entered, and if it
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heard a certain tone at the other end, it saved the phone number in a
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log. Little has changed in scanning since then.
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How to:
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<----->
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If you want to war dial, simply find a scanning program (I recomend
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Assault Dial for the Mac, and Blue Beep for the IBM), and run it. I
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advise you to make sure that the program you get has the option to dial
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random numbers. If Bell sees that you have been calling 749-1000,
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749-1001, 749-1002, etc, they will know that you're scanning. But if they
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see 749-1876, 749-1685, 749-3568, etc, they will assume you are just
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calling people. Blue Beep also has the option for you to enter numbers
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for it to NOT call. This function is useful so you don't go dialing the
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police, fire, ambulence, poison control, national guard, and every other
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emergency number in an exchange. Just find out what those numbers are,
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and enter them in.
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Legality:
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<------>
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There are many different opinions of whether or not scanning is legal,
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but Dave Ferret has made what I consider the best quote, summing up the
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whole deal. So here it is. Thanks Dave:
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"As I understand it --
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You have a right to use your phone as you wish to call any other number
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you wish-- PROVIDED it does not interfere with other person(s) rights.
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This is where the harassment comes in. If your repeat dialing to a single
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person, you have disturbed them and made an attack against their right to
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have a phone and not have it ring randomly from some bonehead kid.
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But remember, because the phone system is a corporate entity, it wants to
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make money and doesn't want people screwing too much with it. If you
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start dialing a slew of 800 #'s they'll get suspicious and they won't
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stop you but may mention something to you. What normal person dials 300+
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800 #'s within a month? Checking the price of Motherboards 10 times a day
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for the month???
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Etc... Common sense... You'll get charged for the service you use, but it
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is a service and thus at the owner of the services descretion (Phone,
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Telco, Telephone calls), you can get in trouble."
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Getting Caught:
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<------------>
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It's hard to call it "getting caught" if you consider scanning to be
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legal. However, if you know what you're doing, and you're careful, you
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can keep interuptions at a minimum. So here are some tips for safe and
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effective scanning:
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#1. Scan between the hours of 11pm and 6am. These are the times when the
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least number of people are up and about. That's good because if you dial
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during the day, everyone will *69 you. But if you dial at night, only the
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people who are already awake, or who are tough enough to think it'll do
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them any good to get up, get out of bed, stumble blindly to the phone,
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pick it up, and dial *69, will.
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#2. If you are scanning, and someone calls you back, don't answer. All
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they'll do is start bitching at you about how much you are annoying them,
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and how you should find a more edifying way to amuse yourself. If you
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plan to scan often, and want to scan without interuptions, get call
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forwarding. It's not too expensive, and it's the easiest way to avoid
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people *69ing you. Just find a nice isolated pay phone in a mall or
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something. Then, just before you start, set the forward to that
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payphone's number, and poof. Anyone who calls you back will be ringing
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the pay phone.
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I guess that's all there is to it. Keep it clean, quiet and safe. Later
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on kids.
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