89 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
89 lines
5.8 KiB
Plaintext
The South Pole [312] 677-7140
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The Fine Art of Telesearching
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by Dragyn
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First off, i'm sure we all know what telesearching is, if not don't read this
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article. Telesearching can be done many ways, depending on what type of
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hardware and software that you have. Some telesearching should be done by hand,
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while, the majority of it can be done by computer. Now you might say, 'why do
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it by hand?' . Well to answer this question we must first take a look at some
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of the nifty things that the phone company has hidden in it's vast multitude of
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cables and switches. In almost every exchange, there are test numbers. What
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these numbers are for, you got me. But some are interesting at that. Up until
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recently, you could call one of the local test numbers and chat with other
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people that had called the same number. But, ma bell, didn't like us using her
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lines to chat freely when we could pay her to do the conferences for us. (There
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are other reasons that they turned them off also.) But now when you call the
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numbers, no one else could get through, (i.E. Busy signal) on a few of the
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numbers you can call and if you listen real closely, you can sometimes hear
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people chatting away, and mf tones zapping all around. (Now, I wonder what one
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could hear if they hooked an amplifier up to their phone...) Most of these
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numbers can be found in any exchange ending with these four numbers:
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4010/4011/4012/4098/. But remember they aren't always there! Needless to say,
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there are many neat li ttle numbers that cannot be found by a computer
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telesearcher. Another type of strange numbers that you find are the ones that
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have strange tones on the other end. Like the ones that sound like sirens or
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just a steady blast. Again, I would like to know what purpose these numbers
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serve as well as you. I have a few ideas, but they aren't worth your time. The
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best part of an exchange to search by hand is from 9800-9999. In this range,
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you will generally find special operators and stuff as such. But remember, most
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pay phones' last digit can be anywhere from 9000-9999. So, if someone answers
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rather strangely, it's probably a pay phone.
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Now, back to computer telesearching. Having your computer do all of the
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dialing is a great help, you can go to sleep, and wake up with a nice list of
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numbers to check out in he morning. However, to make this list more accurate,
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one should be aware of a few things. First: telesearching generally works best
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if you have your own phone line that doesn't get a lot of calls. The more calls
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that your phone receives , the less accurate your list could be. And if you ask
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why, here's why. When your computer finishes dialing a number, it has to hang
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up the phone, and in doing so, the line becomes free to let calls in. If
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someone calls you at this point, your computer (if it's dialer isn't very smart)
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will start dialing at them, and you will lose numbers that could be computers.
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But depending on the type of modem that you own, this can be overcome. Modems
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like that apple-cat and the DC Hayes can detect to see if there is the dial
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tone, and if not, they can hang up, and pick the phone up a few seconds later to
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see if it got a tone again. (Enuf of this) I have found that the best time to
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wait for a carrier is about 18 seconds depending on how long it takes your
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exchange to connect to the other. Some exchanges are very slow and you have to
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compensate for this in your dialer. The 18 seconds allows the phone to ring 3
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times. (Most computers will answer after 1-2 rings, so the third is a safe ty
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one, unless you know of a computer that usually answers after more than th at,
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the 18 seconds is satisfactory. Now, where to look you might ask. Well, one
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thing to do is (if you have a particular company in mind) look up i t's phone
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number in the phone book and scan that exchange. What I have found as real
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handy, is the number/location list in the front of the phone book. Good places
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to search are downtown areas where there is a lot of businesses. I don't
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recommend scanning residential areas unless you are looking for something. Some
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people might say that telesearching is against the law. Well, for one thing,
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have you ever gotten a phone call from some computer that wanted to ask you some
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questions? Well, all these computers do all day long is dial numbers.
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Essentially, they are doing telesearching, however for something other than
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computers. If someone gives you trouble, tell them to phock off, since you
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aren't violating anyones' rights by calling them. They paid for that phone and
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you have as much right to call them as any jerk in the world. And I never heard
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of a law that said you couldn't call anyone in the middle of the night either.
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Now, what do you do that you have 69 zillion phone numbers? Well, de- pending
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on how interested you are, you could call every one to see if there is actually
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a computer there. But most of us aren't that dedicated if you have a whole mess
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of numbers. Now comes the part of identifying the numbers. You will probably
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find a lot of numbers that do nothing when you call them. This could be due to
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a lot of reasons. One could be that they have excellent security (boo). Or,
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you aren't in the right baud rate (i.e. 1200/300/110/ Etc . [ and some even
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run on a different ascii set.]). And there are the 'telex' type computers that
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are set up to receive data only. These carriers can usually be identified by
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typing ctrl-e (here-is msg). But remember, these systems record everything that
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you type! I could continue this article further, but somethings are best left
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unknown.
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The Dragyn
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