Hackers: Computer Outlaws

On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Alexander Schreiber wrote: More specifically, the 2600Hz tone enabled you to "seize" a "trunk". A "trunk" is basically a line at the central office going out into the rest of the network. The easiest way was to call an 800 number (a free call, and you were always guaranteed a trunk) and then blast the 2600Hz tone. You would then get a supervisory tone (like a dial tone). You would then use MF (like DTMF but it used different frequencies) to dial a sequence to connect you to where you wanted to go. There were also special tones, like KP (keypulse) and ST (start), which were sort of like protocol markers. KP meant you were starting a destination address, ST meant to route you to that destination. So you would dial KP + <destination number> + ST and off the call would go. If you knew enough, you could connect yourself to various internal telco operators and find out all sorts of cool stuff. You could also connect yourself to operators in foreign countries and then snoop around their networks. One of Wozniak's more famous stories is calling the Pope by BSing his way through their operators (I think he was pretending to be Henry Kissinger). John Draper used to setup calls from one payphone, route it through various telcos around the world, then back to another payphone next to the one he was at, so that he could say a word into one payphone and hear it come out the other a few seconds later :) I wish the phone networks were still that much fun. Nowadays, all signalling is out-of-band, being handled on a separate X.25 packet network (SS7). You can get an SS7 drop to your business (maybe even your house) but you'd have to pay for it, so any snooping would be on your dime :( Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org