You are about to witness the power of phreak knowledge.
Maybe you're a lamer. Maybe you don't know what a lamer is.
Maybe you just want to know a little bit about phreaking.
I'm gonna teach you how.
I. Definitions
Dialup: A telephone number used to access a long distance service such
as MCI. Once accessed, a call may be made through a Calling Card.
An extender for an LD company.
Calling Card: An account with a LD service such as Sprint or MCI. The card
itself is plastic and has the subscriber's account number
printed on the front, resembling a credit card. Never actually
steal one, for it will be cancelled. Just copy down the number
and use it for LD or whatever.
INWATS: Inward Wide-Area Tellicommunications Service. WATS is an 800 number.
Inwards means a WATS that recieves calls, (a normal 1-800 number).
PBX: Private Branch Exchange. An extender owned by a private company that
allows employees to make calls from outside the company, to be charged
to the company. Naturally, a phreak uses this oppurtunity to hack out
the code himself and use the PBX for his own needs.
Loop: A loop involves two phone numbers. One is the tone side, which is called
by one person. The other is the silent side which is called by the
second person. The two people can then talk to each other. Used by Ma
Bell for some stupid testing thing. Used by Joe Phreaker to talk to
people without giving out his home phone number [voice validation,
maybe even conference shit].
Ma Bell: A generic term for the phone company, the place you're ripping off.
Bridge: A bridge is one big line where many people can call up and be added
to an on-going group talk. Used by phreaks for a big conference.
AT&T Alliance Teleconference: A new conference system by AT&T that allows up
to 50 people in a conference and can easily
be accesed by any payphone with an AT&T calling
card. It's made for business pigs, so it's a very
un-suspicious user-phreindly system. It's run on
a voice system, so its much easier than with an
operator.
ANI: Automatic Number Identification. It is used by companies to identify
the number of the caller. Used by phreaks when beige boxing or using
a diverter to tell the number they're calling through.
Diverter: Basically calling up a company or small business and accesing
their outward line. If you're gonna waste your time with this,
make sure you use an ANI number to tell you actually have
a diverter, and aren't just hearing your own dial tone
[its happened].
Local: A non-LD call.
Blue Boxing: The original phreaking. Using a 2600hz tone to seize a trunk
(using a tone that operators use to connect phone calls).
You can also move yourself all around the phone company
when you blue box, because Ma Bell thinks you're an operator.
This still works under ESS, but if you try it an FCC man will
be at your door within an hour. See ESS.
Beige Boxing: Using a lineman's handset, or similar homemade device, to
access other people's lines through a bridge head.
Red Boxing: Using a device ["box"] to produce quarter tones at a phortress
phone. Free calls.
Black Boxing: Using a device ["box"] to recieve a collect call without
paying. Does not work under ESS.
ESS: Electronic Switching System. New brand of switching system used by Ma
Bell. It is a computer program written to monitor, detect, and prosocute
phreakers to the fullest. ESS detects foreign tones on the line, and
alerts another computer in the system exactly where the call was originated. As you can see, this is a dangerous weapon against phreakers.
Other switching systems: The original switching system was step by step
which used pulse and actually moved a relay for
every digit you dialed. Next was crossbar, which
had DTMF [touch-tones], but didn't have advanced features that ESS has, such as last call re-dial,
trace call, other * fucntions, and 911 for emergancy.
VMB: Voice Mail Box. An advanced answering machine where the user pays a VMB
company to store messages for them, which are then retrieved by the user
with a code. Phreaks can hack out a VMB's access code, and then change
the box to their own.
Conference Call: A telephone call where more than two parties [people] talk at one time.
Area Code/NPA: First set of 3 digits in a telephone number. NPA-Nxx-xxxx.
Prefix: Second set of 3 digits in a telephone number. NPA-Prefix-xxxx.
Exchange: Last 4 digits of a telephone number. NPA-Nxx-exchange.
CN/A: Customer Name and Address. This is an office that an emplyee of Ma Bell
calls up to recieve the name and address of someone from their phone
number. Used by phreaks to see who their ripping off.
Phortress Phone: A standard pay phone.
Phreaking: The illegal use of the phone system by an individual or group.
Phreak: An abuser of the phone system for his own benefit.
Scanning: Either by hand or by using a program, dialing random or sequential numbers in an exchange, prefix, or NPA, looking for carriers, PBX's, or other Ma Bell test functions.
Extender: A number used by a LD company that can be dialed free from phortress phones [950-xxxx]. Provides instant long distance access for calling card holders.
II. Abbreviations
NPA: Number Planning Area [area code] (703)
Nxx: Prefix (765)
xxxx: Exchange (6567)
VMB: Voice Mail Box
ESS: Electronic Switching System
CN/A: Customer name and Address
PBX: Private Branch Exchange
99xx: A prefix scan (from 7659900 to 7659999)
LD: Long Distance
PIN: Personal Identification Number
WATS: Wide Area Telecommunications Service
XDC: X digit code, where x the number of digits in the code
ACN: Any standard 10-digit telephone number
CO: Central Office
SxS: Step by Step, the first switching system
III. Conclusion
Phreak Knowledge is very usefull to everyone in the present. Hopefully,
phreaking will not die, and any new technology Ma Bell comes up with,
Phreaks will fight back at. Unfortunatley, ESS has disproven this theory. This
new, electronic switching system, has shown the end to much of our heritage.
Blue Boxing, Black Boxing, and in some places even Red Boxing, have all
been destroyed. We must ban together and fight against these evils, or we all