From: Brian Durham <bdurham@metronet.com>
Date: Tue, 22 Oct 1996 18:57:54 -0700 (PDT)
To: Michael B Amoruso <h2@juno.com>
Subject: Re: Blue Box Plans & hacker bbs's
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SCO.3.91.961021164621.18461G-100000@deepthought.armory.com>
Message-ID: <326D7ADB.5EE6@metronet.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Michael B Amoruso wrote:
> 
> Oh yeah I forgot one thing.  What do you mean by NPA and why cant i just
> dial like a regualr call??  And what is a DMTF dialer?
> 
> On Mon, 21 Oct 1996 16:50:42 -0700 (PDT) Perry Farrell <pneyz@armory.com>
> writes:
> >> Also, the network's signalling has changed, and the basic
> >> Captain Crunch Whistle doesn't work many places any more -
> >> most of the signalling is digital out-of-band rather than
> >> inband audio.  Phreaking isn't impossible (or there wouldn't be
> >> as many people chasing the Dread Pirate Mitnick), but at this point
> >> you actually need to know what you're doing to succeed at it,
> >> and merely having plans for a device you don't know well enough to
> >> emulate in code on your PC isn't going to buy you much.
> >
> >Very good point, phreaking's getting tricky. First of all, forget blue
> >
> >boxes, they're worthless, especially to an amateur, which you (HeLiuM)
> >
> >obviouisly are. Get a red box. Go to Radio Shack and buy a digital
> >recorder pocket memo thing. They're about ten bucks and it's alot
> >easier
> >than getting a handheld DTMF dialer (which is annoying to solder
> >because
> >RS doesn't make them very well). Get BlueBeep or something
> >(ftp.fc.net/pub/defcon/BLUEBEEP) and record some quarter tones. Go to
> >a
> >Bell payphone (CoCoTs and USWest phones do not work) and dial
> >"1+area+npa+number", like a normal call. Then play the tones. For a
> >local
> >call, dial "10288+area+npa+number", which makes AT&T think it's along
> >distance call.
> >
> >                                       pneyz (pneyz@armory.com)
> >


DEFINITIONS for budding phone phreaks:

NPA: Numbering Plan Area - known to us humans as area codes; instituted
circa 1947 for long distance dialing.

DTMF: dual-tone multi-frequency - known to humans as TouchTones(tm); 
used to dial telephones.

Advice:  Instead of getting your friend to build you a red box, get
a SoundBlaster Sound Card and get the sound file that is the
quarter tone.  Play this into a tape recorder or into a greeting card
that records sound and use at your own risk!

Also - find as many back-issues of 2600 (a print publication) and Phrack
(an on-line publication [text files]) as you possibly can.  Memorize
them and you will be on your way to becoming a phone phreak!