Hi. Everyday im going to post something thats very "informative," hope you
enjoy em'

This is a classic text written by Mark Bluebox back in 1984. Mark was a member
of the hacker organization 2600.

Once upon a time I was talking to one of my favorite friends, one of the
nations oldest and most experienced telephone enthusiasts -- some might refer
to him as a phone phreaker elite.  In this particular conversation, he
mentioned to me that I might want to experiment with a series of 800 phone
#'s: exchanges starting with 9, followed by the suffix 9999 (800-9xx-9999).
And so did, and a whole new world began to opoen up in front of me.

They were mostly weather and time numbers in various locations throughout the
country.  And since theses were 800 numbers, there was NO CHARGE! One number
in particular was a great deal of interest to me and many others.  This was
800-957-9999, which hooked up to WWV the radio station op'ed by the National
Bureau of Standards that does nothing but tell the time and giveshrtwave
reports.  This was the most accurate clock in the entire world!  You either
have to tune to WWV on the shortwave reciever or dial 303-499-7111 in Fort
Collins, shrtwave enthusiast, i dont have to tell you how convienent this was
for me.  Unfortuantely, it got too convienent from too many people.

I guess I made the mistake of giving the former president of a large amateur
radio club in the Dallas area. He in turn, printed it in the Amature Radio
Newsbulliten where thousands of people proably saw it.  Another statewide
newsbuliten picked it up & printed it. Through an amateur radio network which
this bulliten was a part of, the news got as far as California.

One day, I called up the West Link Amateur Radio News Service at 213-768-7333.
This is a service located in the west link, California that broadcasts news
over amateur radio, VHF, UHF, etc.  Their latest report had this little item:
"Speaking of interesting things, the National Burea of Standars has got a Very
convienent time number for those of you that are not constantly at a shrtwave
reciever.  You can dial 1-800-957-9999 for WWW.  It's just another good
toll-free service for us to use."  The avalanche had really began now.

The West Link report was heard on bulliten staions all around the world and,
apparently, one staion in NashVille, Tennessee broadcast it.  From there it
fell into the hands of one of thewriters for the DX prgram on radio South
Africa!  I happened to be listening to the program where they were talking
about pulling in distant time stations, weather station, etc.  He then
mentioned, " FOr those of you that live in teh United States, a convienent
toll-fre 800 number has been provided by the nationa Bureau of Standars for
WWV and that number is 1-800-957-9999."  Imagine my suprise!once again, the
number had been broadcast all around the world.  People in many many nations
now had that number.  Of course, the number only woked inside the United
Staes, but the word was being spread by shortwave and QSL people everywhere!

The government official told him what the telephone number was.  The general
manager called it and heard his own station.  Astound, he contacted the
Mountain Bell Telephone Company in Denver, Colorado.  THey said, "You're not
paying for any 800# in-WATS number.  We show 303-499-7111 for WWV, but we dont
show 800-957-999!"

Mountain BEll checked it out and sure enough, the number existed but nt on
there records.  No one was getting charged for this highly used number.  Now,
of course, you know as well as I do -- they're sure not going to let anyone
have a free ride.  So they told the WATS coordinator to find out what
happened.  He finally made the discoverery that some technicians had hooked
that number up for transmission testing.  [These switching techs are toll
techs and worked with AT&T.  The switchmen and the carrier people got together
and set up this number for testing, finding noisy carriers with cross-talk
on them,etc.]

The WATS coordinator told them they'd better get this number off since it had
grown so popular.  He told them to erase every 800 test line that was on the
system.  Not surprisengly, someone also got chewed out very severelly.

Well, anyway, the point of this was to let you know that theres all kinds of
usefull 800 numbers out there, START DIALING.

     
                              Tomorrow I will try to post a nice little text
                               on how to make a lovely red box.
                                  Hope you enjoyed =)
                GENiUS234
----------------------------[END]-------------------------------------------

14 responses total.

        i like ice cream!

No comment on #1. About #0, let me say that I think this is a very interesting
item to start and an excelent example of exersizing free speech. The one thing
that remains to be questioned is whether the author or the quoter typed #0
quickly enough to make some hugely blatant typos. Oh well, even "r u wnat
hotchat ??" is (some kind of) free speech. So aside from the grammar and
spelling, it's a great item.

Thnx for the comments, but yah, almost all the words are there, maybe a few
mispelled, but other then that its exactly how i got the file. 

This sort of discussion and the ethics of hacking, cracking, phone phreaking,
etc belongs in the cyberpunk conf. j cyber at the next OK: prompt.

I haven't seen any discussion of ethics yet. #0 was just a memoir of a guy
who did something stupid (with good intentions), and #1 was just a question
of typing quality. I see that it's been linked to cyberpunk, but the
discussion still has a place here.

Well I linked it to cyberpunk because that is the conference where the ethics
of hacking is discussed. <fw raven bows and awaits the teaming masses :-)>

<dutifully teems>

<abstains from teeming>

Do you know how dead the non agora/coop/sex conferences are? There is very
little point in posting in cyberpunk, and somehow I get the idea that 800
numbers giving the time of day would go into cflirt. Ergo, agora it is. Yuck,
greek and latin in the same sentence.

r 124
oops ok heres todays phreak text:
File: SCARRIEST # IN THE WORLD
 Read 22 times

******************************************************************************
*
*                                                                          
 *
*                      The Scariest Number in the World                    
 *
*                           [2600 -- December 1984]                        
 *
*                                                                          
 *
******************************************************************************
*

   Recently, a telephone fanatic in the northwest made an interesting
discovery.  He was exploring the 804 area code (Virginia) and found out that
the 840 exchange did something strange.  In the vast majority of cases, in
fact
in all of the cases except one, he would get a recording as if the exchange
didn't exist.  However, if he dialed 804-840 and four rather predicatable
numbers, he got a ring!

   After one or two rings, somebody picked up.  Being experienced at this kind
of thing, he could tell that the call didn't "supe", that is, no charges were
being incurred for calling this number.  (Calls that get you to an error
message, or a special operator, generally don't supervise.)  A female voice,
with a hint of a Southern accent said, "Operator, can I help you?"

   "Yes," he said.  "What number have I reached?"

   "What number did you dial, sir?"

   He made up a number that was similar.

   "I'm sorry that is not the number you reached."  Click.

   He was fascinated.  What in the world was this?  He knew he was going to
call back, but before he did, he tried some more experiments.  He tried the
840
exchange in several other area codes.  In some, it came up as a valid
exchange.
In others, exactly the same thing happened -- the same last four digits, the
same Southern belle.  Oddly enough, he later noticed, the areas worked in
seemed to travel in a beeline from Washington DC to Pittsburgh, PA.

   He called back from a payphone.  "Operator, can I help you?"

   "Yes, this is the phone company.  I'm testing this line and we don't seem
to
have an identification on your circuit.  What office is this, please?"

   "What number are you trying to reach?"

   "I'm not trying to reach any number.  I'm trying to identify this circuit."

   "I'm sorry, I can't help you."

   "Ma'am, if I don't get an ID on this line, I'll have to disconnect it. 
We
show no record of it here."

   "Hold on a moment, sir."

   After about a minute, she came back.  "Sir, I can have someone speak to
you.
 Would you give me your number, please?"

   He had anticipated this and he had the payphone number ready.  After he
gave
it, she said, "Mr. XXX will get right back to you."

   "Thanks."  He hung up the phone.  It rang.  INSTANTLY!  "Oh my God," he
thought, "They weren't asking for my number -- they were confirming it!"

   "Hello," he said, trying to sound authoritative.

   "This is Mr. XXX.  Did you just make an inquiry to my office concerning
a
phone number?"

   "Yes.  I need an identi--"

   "What you need is advice.  Don't ever call that number again.  Forget you
ever knew it."

   At this point our friend got so nervous he just hung up.  He expected to
hear the phone ring again but it didn't.

   Over the next few days he racked his brains trying to figure out what the
number was.  He knew it was something big -- that was pretty certain at this
point.  It was so big that the number was programmed into every central office
in the country.  He knew this because if he tried to dial any other number
in
tht exchange, he'd get a local error message from his CO, as if the exchange
didn't exist.

   It finally came to him.  He had an uncle who worked in a federal agency.
He
had a feeling that this was government related and if it was, his uncle could
probably find out what it was.  He asked the next day and his uncle promised
to
look into the matter.

   The next time he saw his uncle, he noticed a big change in his manner. 
He
was trembing.  "Where did you get that number?!"  he shouted.  "Do you know
I
almost got fired for asking about it?!?  They kept wanting to know where I
got
it."

   Our friend couldn't contain his excitement.  "What is it?" he pleaded.
"What's the number?!"

   "IT'S THE PRESIDENT'S BOMB SHELTER!"

   He never called the number after that.  He knew that he could probably
cause
quite a bit of excitement by calling the number and saying something like,
"The
weather's not good in Washington.  We're coming over for a visit."  But our
friend was smart.  he knew that there were some things that were better off
unsaid and undone. <>

SF][G2:ba003.021785

        Cortesy of BIOC Agent 003, 2600 Magazine, & Sherwood Forest ][
                                (914) 359-1517

-----End of File

Ya know, there are lots of exchanges that have only one or two working phone
numbers in them.  There are lots of places that have numbers from more than
one area code.  While I rather doubt that wide area local dial would be a
priority in Presidential bomb shelter design, I'm guessing that if they did
that they wouldn't make all the numbers the same apart from the area code,
and they wouldn't make the last four digits "easily predictable."

"And the password is:  One.  Two.  Three.  Four.  Five."  

That sounds like the combination some idiot would have on his luggage.

Hey, that's the combination I have on MY luggage.  :)

(you know you've seen the movie Spaceballs too many times when ...)

Response not possible - You must register and login before posting.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss