The Anarchist Cookbook (29 page)
can just monitor them. They can listen in on your calls and from that, they can get your
name and other information from the conversation. They can also call the number you
called and ask your friend some questions. If you call terminals and BBS'S then it is
much harder to get information. For one thing, most sysops won't give these dudes
that call any info at all or they will act dumb because they PHREAK themselves!
Beware when using colored boxes! They are easy to find! ! !
Try to find a sine-wave number. Then use an MCI or other service to call it. You will hear a
tone that goes higher and lower. If the tone just stops, then that code is being
monitored and you should beware when using it.
If you do get caught, then if you think you can, try to weasel out of it. I have heard many
stories about people that have pleaded with the MCI guys and have been let off. You will
get a call from a guy that has been monitoring you. Act nice. Act like you know it is now
wrong to do this kind of thing.....just sound like you are sorry for what you did. (If you get
a call, you probably will be a little sorry!) Otherwise, it is very dangerous! ! ! ! (Very with a
capital V!)
100.Red Box Plans by The Jolly Roger
Red boxing is simulating the tones produced by public payphones when you drop your money
in. The tones are beeps of 2200Hz + 1700Hz a nickle is 1 beep for 66 milliseconds. A dime
is 2 beeps, each 66 milliseconds with a 66 millisecond pause between beeps. A quarter is 5
beeps, each 33 milliseconds with a 33 millisecond pause between beeps.
There are two commonly used methods being used by Phreaks to make free calls.
An electronic hand-held device that is made from a pair of Wien-bridge oscillators with
the timing controlled by 555 timing chips.
A tape recording of the tones produced by a home computer. One of the best computers to
use would be an Atari ST. It is one of the easier computers to use because the red box
tones can be produced in basic with only about 5 statements.
101.RemObS by The Jolly Roger
Some of you may have heard of devices called Remobs which stands for Remote
Observation System. These Devices allow supposedly authorized telephone employees to
dial into them from anywhere, and then using an ordinary touch tone fone, tap into a
customer's line in a special receive only mode. [The mouthpiece circuit is deactivated,
allowing totally silent observation from any fone in the world (Wire tapping without a court
order is against the law)]
How Remobs Work
Dial the number of a Remob unit. Bell is rumored to put them in the 555 information
exchanges, oron special access trunks [Unreachable except via blue box]. A tone will then
be heard for approximately 2 seconds and then silence. You must key in (In DTMF) a 2 to
5 digit access code while holding each digit down at least 1 second. If the code is not
entered within 5 or 6 seconds, the Remob will release and must be dialed again. If the
code is supposedly another tone will be heard. A seven digit subscriber fone number can
then be entered [The Remob can only handle certain 'exchanges' which are prewired, so
usually one machine cannot monitor an entire NPA]. The Remob will then connect to the
subscribers line. The listener will hear the low level idle tone as long as the monitored
party is on hook. As the monitored party dials [rotary or DTMF], the listener would hear
[And Record] the number being dialed. Then the ENTIRE conversation, datalink, whatever
is taking place, all without detection. There is no current box which can detect Remob
observation, since it is being done with the telephone equipment that makes the
connection. When the listener is finished monitoring of that particular customer, he keys
the last digit of the access code to disconnects him from the monitored line and return to
the tone so that he can key in another 7 digit fone number. When the listener is totally
finished with the Remob, he keys a single 'disconnect digit' which disconnects him from
the Remob so that the device can reset and be ready for another caller.
History of Remobs
Bell has kept the existence of Remobs very low key. Only in 1974, Bell acknowledged that
Remobs existed. The device was first made public during hearings on "Telephone
Monitoring Practices by Federal Agencies" before a subcommittee on government
operations. House of Representatives, Ninety-Third Congress, June 1974. It has since
been stated by Bell that the Remob devices are used exclusively for monitoring Bell
employees such as operators, information operators, etc., to keep tabs on their
performance. [Suuureee, were stupid]
Possible Uses for Remobs
The possible uses of Remobs are almost as endless as the uses of self created fone line.
Imagine the ability to monitor bank lines etc, just off the top of my head I can think of
these applications:
Data Monitoring of:
TRW
National Credit Bureau.
AT&T Cosmos.
Bank Institutions.
CompuServe and other Networks.
Voice Monitoring of:
Bank Institutions.
Mail Order businesses.
Bell Telephone themselves.
Any place handling sensitive or important information.
Anyone that you may not like.
With just one Remob, someone could get hundreds of credit cards, find out who was on
vacation, get CompuServe passwords by the dozens, disconnect peoples fones, do credit
checks, find out about anything that they may want to find out about. I'm sure you
brilliant can see the value of a telephone hobbyist and a telecommunications enthusiast
getting his hands on a few choice Remobs.
Caution
If any reader should discover a Remob during his (or her) scanning excursions, please keep
in mind the very strict federal laws regarding wiretapping and unauthorized use of private
Bell property.
102.Scarlet Box Plans by The Jolly Roger
The purpose of a Scarlet box is to create a very bad connection, it can be used to crash a
BBS or just make life miserable for those you seek to avenge.
Materials:
2 alligator clips
3 inch wire, or a resister (plain wire will create greatest amount of static) (Resister
will decrease the amount of static in proportion to the resister you are using)
Find the phone box at your victims house, and pop the cover off.
Find the two prongs that the phone line you wish to box are connected to.
Hook your alligator clips to your (wire/resister).
Find the lower middle prong and take off all wires connected to it, I think this disables
the ground and call waiting and shit like that.
Now take one of the alligator clips and attach it to the upper most prong, and take the
other and attach it to the lower middle prong.
Now put the cover back on the box and take off!
** ######## **
######## /
# #### # /
######## /
/
/
/
/
/
/
/
**/
**
**
**
**
**
(**)= prongs
**
(/) = (wire/resister)
(##)= some phone bullshit
103.Silver Box Plans by The Jolly Roger
Introduction:
First a bit of Phone Trivia. A standard telephone keypad has 12 buttons. These buttons,
when pushed, produce a combination of two tones. These tones represent the row and
column of the button you are pushing.
1 1 1
2 3 4
0 3 7
9 6 7
697 (1) (2) (3)
770 (4) (5) (6)
851 (7) (8) (9)
941 (*) (0) (#)
So (1) produces a tone of 697+1209, (2) produces a tone of 697+1336, etc.
Function:
What the Silver Box does is just creates another column of buttons, with the new tone of
1633. These buttons are called A, B, C, and D.
Usefulness:
Anyone who knows anything about phreaking should know that in the old days of phreaking,
phreaks used hardware to have fun instead of other people's Sprint and MCI codes. The
most famous (and useful) was the good ol' Blue Box. However, Ma Bell decided to fight
back and now most phone systems have protections against tone-emitting boxes. This
makes boxing just about futile in most areas of the United States (i.e. those areas with
Crossbar or Step-By-Step). If you live in or near a good-sized city, then your phone system
is probably up-to-date (ESS) and this box (and most others) will be useless. However, if
you live in the middle of nowhere (no offense intended), you may find a use for this and
other boxes.
Materials:
1 Foot of Blue Wire
1 Foot of Gray Wire
1 Foot of Brown Wire
1 Small SPDT Switch (*)
1 Standard Ma Bell Phone
(*)SPDT = Single Pole/Double Throw
Tools:
1 Soldering Iron
1 Flat-Tip Screwdriver
Procedure:
Loosen the two screws on the bottom of the phone and take the casing off.
Loosen the screws on the side of the keypad and remove the keypad from the mounting
bracket.
Remove the plastic cover from the keypad.
Turn the keypad so that *0# is facing you. Turn the keypad over. You'll see a bunch of
wires, contacts, two Black Coils, etc.
Look at the Coil on the left. It will have five (5) Solder Contacts facing you. Solder the
Gray Wire to the fourth Contact Pole from the left.
Solder the other end of the Gray Wire to the Left Pole of the SPDT Switch.
Find the Three (3) Gold-Plated Contacts on the bottom edge of the keypad. On the Left
Contact, gently separate the two touching Connectors (they're soldered together) and
spread them apart.
Solder the Brown Wire to the Contact farthest from you, and solder the other end to the
Right Pole of the SPDT Switch.
Solder the Blue Wire to the Closest Contact, and the other end to the Center Pole of the
SPDT Switch.
Put the phone back together.
Using The Silver Box:
What you have just done was installed a switch that will change the 369# column into an
ABCD column. For example, to dial a 'B', switch to Silver Box Tones and hit '6'.
No one is sure of the A, B, and C uses. However, in an area with an old phone system,
the 'D' button has an interesting effect. Dial Directory Assistance and hold down 'D'. The
phone will ring, and you should get a pulsing tone. If you get a pissed-off operator, you
have a newer phone system with defenses against Silver Boxes. At the pulsing tone, dial a 6
or 7. These are loop ends.
104.Bell Trashing by The Jolly Roger
The Phone Co. will go to extremes on occasions. In fact, unless you really know what to
expect from them, they will surprise the heck out of you with their "unpublished tariffs".
Recently, a situation was brought to my attention that up till then I had been totally
unaware of, least to mention, had any concern about. It involved garbage! The phone co.
will go as far as to prosecute anyone who rummages through their garbage and helps
himself to some
Of course, they have their reasons for this, and no doubt benefit from such action. But,
why should they be so picky about garbage? The answer soon became clear to me: those
huge metal bins are filled up with more than waste old food and refuse... Although it is
Pacific Tele. policy to recycle paper waste products, sometimes employees do overlook this
sacred operation when sorting the garbage. Thus top-secret confidential Phone Co.
records go to the garbage bins instead of the paper shredders. Since it is constantly being
updated with "company memorandums, and supplied with extensive reference material, the
Phone co. must continually dispose of the outdated materials. Some phone companies are
supplied each year with the complete "System Practices" guide. This publication is an over
40 foot long library of reference material about everything to do with telephones. As the
new edition arrives each year, the old version of "System Practices" must also be thrown
out.
I very quickly figured out where some local phone phreaks were getting their material.
They crawl into the garbage bins and remove selected items that are of particular interest
to them and their fellow phreaks. One phone phreak in the Los Angeles area has salvaged
the complete 1972 edition of "Bell System Practices". It is so large and was out of order
(the binders had been removed) that it took him over a year to sort it out and create
enough shelving for it in his garage.
Much of this "Top Secret" information is so secret that most phone companies have no
idea what is in their files. They have their hands full simply replacing everything each time
