8 Aug
2008
8 Aug
'08
6:56 a.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I always enjoyed wardialling. It was like pot luck, and you had no idea
what numbers you'd wake up to the next day. Then *69 came, and then
Caller ID, then the internet was much more interesting and widespread.
Although Tymnet, Telenet/Sprintnet(not to be confused with telnet) were
fun just to key in random addresses and see what happens. You could
connect to all sorts of goofy stuff.
The phreaking stuff was a lot of phun too. :)
Anyone remember PC Pursuit? Basically a flat rate service (maybe it was
$25/month?) you could dial up local access numbers(for telenet), and
then connect to BBS's anywhere in the cities they supported for free.
Back when long distance calls cost big $$$.
I am a product
of the 80's -- got interested in computers and modems
right when WarGames came out, along with Whiz Kids, if anyone knows that
show. You'll never guess what I did during my teenage(and later) years? :)
Heh... I pretty much kept my nose clean back in those days, but I had
older friends who were quite a bit more reckless. I don't know anyone
that ever built a blue-box, but some of the kids were big into wardialling. One story from those days - I wasn't there to
verify that it actually
happened, but it sounds plausible - was that one kid had use of the
family station wagon when he learned to drive - he piled an Apple II
in the back, with monitor and all, and parked behind a K-Mart by the
garden center, because they had two important resources near each other...
a payphone and an outdoor 110V outlet... he parked as close to the phone
as he could, plugged the computer in and used an acoustic coupler to
do his wardialling from the tailgate. He was ready to unplug and go
if the authorities came sniffing around, but I don't think he ever got
noticed.
It's quite plausible, and I know there were a lot of paranoid people
around who went to such extremes to avoid doing stuff from home.
Realistically, unless you were doing really bad stuff, you'd be unlikely
to get in trouble --- the chance of the local police finding him in the
parking lot (and then being pretty suspicious) was much greater than the
threat from anywhere else.
-ethan
Keith