THE MWP FILES ------------- File #6 of Issue #2 Summer of '97 ------------- Date:7-19-97 =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= ( Public Enemy #1 ) ( By ) ( InSaNe ) =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Every history teacher will tell you that the past reflects the future when you ask him or her why do we need to know about history. For phreakers they should know a somewhat elabrote background on Telecommunications. Telecommunication services and providers have grown with the era of the electron and the swicth. It was the beauty of the baud that brought phones into the world of computers. Phones have helped the computer industry grow. The vast world of computers would be very dull and boring if telecommunications had not have been brought into it. Some prime companies such as AT&T and MCI are now evolving. AT&T, which stands for American Telephone and Telegraph, was orignally American Bell Telephone which was the first company that started the telephone. If you do not know (which in this case would mean you have an I.Q. below 5) these companies were named after the man who started it all, Alexander Gram Bell. It was bought and, under the tutelage of another huge company, became the monopolous phone provider. Huge telepone company that was the Microsoft of the Seventies and Eighties. It was the ONLY telco until the Seventies. It was broken up by the justice department in 1982, which created lots of little baby RBOCS. In 1990 their phone network crashed, which got them in to major trouble. Now Lucent Technologies has taken over this spectrum. They now own AT&T and all Bell Labrotories. Phreaking was the backbone of hacking. AT&T was worried more about what the hell was wrong with their security and phone services than their competitors because they were the only ones out there. They couldn't keep up with technology and make it work for them instead of allowing phrackers like me and you to navigate throughout the Bell System. Then competition came. People tried them out and they kept on coming and coming. Finally came computers and with computers came more problems. Hackers had now entered spectrum in which phones were the dominant ones. Computer phreaking had come into place. But there were still the phreakers who had no desire what so ever to learn how to use these new things. Phreakers kept on Phreaking and tried hard to develop new ways in which they didn't have to pay for the phone service. Things just kept on coming up. Boxes that the phreaks used multiplied greatly. It went from the first blue box that Capn' Crunch made to the red box which was very useful with payphones with ACTS or Automated Coin Toll System. Then Ma Bell decided "Hey, now we got technology; we're in with computers." So they made more and more things digital. They stopped making payphones with ACTS so that cancelled out the blue box and the red box. Then came the beige box. This was a whole other concept. With this phreaks found a weakness. The houses in a community. Payphones had been secured. They could never secure every house in the U.S.. The beige box enabled phreaks all around the country to dial all around the country without them paying for it. They would simply go to the side of a house and plug in their phone and PRESTO. Dial to your friend in California if your in Florida or anywhere else. The person who would pay would be the person or the victim who was living in the house. This never hurt AT&T one bit before the seventies because there was no one else to go to and they were still getting their money; and plus, there was no beige box. Many modifycations came with this beige box. Some of these were boxes like the crimson box, tan box, and the swtich box. The crimson box provided a way to listen but not talk when beige boxing. It would also come in handy at the house because instead of buying a $30.00 phone with a hold button from Radio Shack you could simply make these yourself. Also you could kill your phone line so if you have a plan to skip school flip a switch and the crimson box makes the phone line "disconnected", then if you get caught no one is home. The tan box became useful for eavesdropping without being there and having proof that the said this or that by recording it. The switch box is identical to the crimson box with one exception; it is made for phones with two lines. Any form of beige boxing has to be done outside and it is easy to find out if you made it correctly and it works. Black boxing is done from the inside and is hard to find out if it works. It isn't a simple procedure to build either. The plans that I have are very vague and the shematics are mixed up. There is many different variations of this box too; just like the beige box. One type deals with an easy hook up with a PC/circut board. It is VERY easy to hook up but extremly hard to build because there are no instructions or steps, just a shematic. I suggest you make a beige box for your first box and get fimilar with the Bell System. Go on the side of your house in the middle of the day and play around with the trunks and the prongs and go exploring through the jungle of wires. Figure out how to conference call from the side of someones house while beige boxing. Then move on to the electronics. Goto Radio Shack a lot and browse. Get a good look at all the resistors and LED's and capcitors and potiemeters. Know what they look like. Then when the time comes, you can go in and buy supplies for any box and learn how to solder well (which is VERY hard for me to do). If you live in an apartment complex and you are all bummed out because you can't do this STOP! You have it off easy! There is a meterroom on the first floor of one of your apartment buildings. If they keep the door locked then go back to your building and invent a cure for the common cold but if it is unlocked you have it off the easied way. You can go beige boxing and just sit in the meter room all night. You can busy box in about two minutes because you're right there and your not in a hurry not to be caught. Heck, take all the time in the world. Also, take it one box at a time. Parts are very easy to mix up. Especially resistors. Always keep them in there package so you know the Ohm's. SPST and DPDT Switchs and Pushbuttons are kind of hard to tell apart. Always keep them in the package or case. If you start making a lot of boxes, get a tool box for all the parts and boxes to go in. Keep them in one place to with all the nescessary tools like a soldering gun. For box plans go to www.yahoo.com and type in phreak and click on the catergory and check out those web pages. Its getting to be 12:00am and I got a party to go to. Happy Phrack and may the schwartz be with you. MWP® Productions Phreaking Dept.101 Unauthorized use is Prohibted (c)Copyright 2000 xxinsanexx@juno.com "...And the blind man said to his deaf wife `I see'."