--------------------------------------------------------[ May 22, 1990 ]------- Pranks, Revenge, and General Mayhem Another "no stupid group" Phile ______ ________ __________ \ \ / \ \ / | | (C) 1990 The Fixer \ \/ \ \/ | | \ /\ /| | This Volume: More Phone Pranks \ / \ / | | / \ \ / | | THC....................+1 604 598-4259 / \ \ / | | Dark Side of the Moon..+1 408 245-7726 / /\ \ \ / | | Centre of Eternity.....+1 615 552-5747 /_____/ \_____\ \/ |_____| The Convent............+1 619 475-6187 _______________________________________________________________________________ Preface: On May 9th, 1990, one of my users (of THC-BBS) called the Ripco BBS in Chicago, only to hear this voice message: "This is 528-5020. As you are probably aware, on May 8th, the Secret Service conducted a series of raids across the country. Early news reports indicate that these raids involved people and computers that could be connected to credit card and long distance toll fraud. Although no arrests or charges were made, the Ripco BBS was confiscated on that morning. Its involvement at this time is unknown. Since it's unlikely the system will ever return, I'd just like to say goodbye and thanks for your support for the last six and a half years. It's been interesting to say the least. Talk to you later." On behalf of THC, I would like to applaud Dr. Ripco on his running Ripco for 6.5 years, and express the condolences of myself and THC's users at the loss of Ripco's hardware. It's been interesting, to say the least. The Fixer, May, 1990
DOWN TO BUSINESS: Fucking over your best friends, worst enemies, and k00lest d00dz with their telephones. Answering Machines ------------------ There are several methods of ruining your friends' lives via their answering machines. You can fill their incoming message tapes with bogus messages, you can turn them on/off remotely and hear/erase all the messages, and in some beauties, you can change the outgoing message. The latter is the most devastating of all answering machine methods, and it will get the most space here. - Most answering machines today have "beeperless remote" features, even in the bargain-basement models. Normally they are protected by a security code of between 1 and 3 digits, and quite often even the 3-digit ones are so easily cracked it's disgusting. Once "inside" an answering machine, you can do a number of things. Always, you will be able to hear, and later erase, any incoming messages. This is helpful to the prankster in that it lets him intercept his target's important messages, indicating the target's future whereabouts for later attacks. It also, of course, can be used to prevent the target from receiving important messages, with possible dire consequences to the target's social/work life. - Another interesting feature of many answering machines is the ability to change the outgoing message. When I bought my own unit, the last thing I asked the salesman was, "Can you change the outgoing message from remote?" As soon as he said "No" I bought it. That's how you should shop for answering machines too, as is about to become clear... A few messages to replace a target's answering message with: Blackmail messages: "Hi, you have reached Wayne's House of Drugs. Currently we have Home Boge, Mexican redhair, Black hash from California, crack and Ice in stock. Please leave your name, phone number, and the amount and kind of poison you need and I'll get back to you. Thanks and Party Hardy! BEEEEEEP" "This is The Installer's Codeline. Here are this weeks codes: 604 385 9682 0194. 604 477 9980 6682. 604 727 4432 8282. These are all BC Tel Calling Cards. Please leave your codes at the tone. BEEEEEEEEP" A slightly less malignant blackmail message: "Hi, this is the Silva Residence. No one can come to the phone right now since we're having our nightly session of hot steamy gay family orgy fun. As soon as we get out of the shower, we'll call you back. See ya later, you hunk of man-meat you! BEEEEEEEP" For a machine in a doctor's office: "You have reached Dr. Jones' office. We are sorry, but this office is closed due to a pending malpractice suit. Thank you for calling. BEEEEEEP" For a known police informer (to wit: a NARC): "This is the Sidney RCMP. There is no-one in the station to take your call right now. If this is an emergency, officers are available at the Sidney Donut Shoppe, at 656-4983. BEEEEEEEEP" (The above blackmail messages also work well for narcs) Universally useful: "This answering machine accepts all collect calls. (10 second pause while operator does her thing) Here are this weeks codes: (etc etc etc)" Here's something I have never tried, tell me if it works for you: Send your mark's machine several seconds of 2600 Hz and the appropriate MF coding for a nice faraway lame BBS or something, as the outgoing message. Then advertise (anonymously) on some other faraway BBSes the existence of a new BBS with no download ratios, 25,000 files, etc etc etc. What happens is that when someone calls LD (and they will), the answering machine will start blue boxing. The phone company will not be pleased. I'm sure you can think of a lot more. - Here are a few hints and pointers: My ex-roomie, a consummate dick-head worthy of everything he has gotten in the process of beta testing these pranks (as a matter of trivia, he's the Wayne in Wayne's House of Drugs) has a nice Cobra answering machine. Well, not only did he pay 3 times for his machine as much as I paid for mine, but his has only a wimpy one-digit code (it's 5) and lets you change the outgoing message from remote. Other answering machines have a 2 or 3 digit combination but actually accept ANY digit on the row or column of the "actual" code number, thus bringing the number of possible codes down to near-zero. Still other machines have stupid codes like 123, 369, etc (some of those are the previous kind). Almost all answering machine codes are hardcoded; I have seen dip-switches and PC-mounted rotary switches allowing owners to change their codes at will, but these beauties are rare, fortunately. The best thing you can do is acquire a library of users manuals for various machines to learn their code conventions and instruction sets. This can be readily accomplished by hanging out in department stores etc that sell the things. There is no Canadian Law explicitly dealing with answering-machine tampering, but all of these pranks can lead to your being charged with common mischief at the least. Caveat Trickstor.
Linemans' Handset Methods ------------------------- Please don't refer to a homebuilt lineman's handset as a "bud box", "brown box", "beige box", "tan box", "modu box", "terminal box", or anything else so lame. There is no technical wizardry in ripping the mod plug off your phone and replacing it with 'gator clips. If you can get a real handset, do so because they are specially ballasted to allow near-silent line interception whereas modified Flip-fone ]['s will always generate a nice clunk on the line when you attach, and often will even tinkle the bell on phones in your target's house. Using a handset to do nothing but place phree phone kawlz is lame; the true misanthrope phreak knows the true power of his tool. - Custom calling! It's been said that the only person you can't prank is someone who lives in a cave as a hermit. And it's true in phoneland too, the more services your target subscribes to, the easier it is to have phun with his miserable little life. Take call forwarding. If your mark has this most useful of services, you've got it made. Goto your target's phone terminal box-ette on the side of his house one fine sunday morning (revenge on the Lord's Day is no sacrilege to an anarchist) at 4:30, clip on your awesome modu-box, and try a few of these little gems: :Forward all his calls to 911, the police or Fire Dep't. Guaranteed results at the very first incoming call. :Forward calls to Dial-A-Prayer, Dial-A-Meditation (we have a great Sri Chinmoy recording in Victoria, BC, at 604-595-2721). I used to do this with my own line sometimes, it really fucks incoming callers minds up. :Forward calls to yourself. Risky, but if your mark doesn't have an answering machine you can use your own machine to use the above-mentioned Answering Machine methods. :Forward calls long-distance. In 604, calls that are forwarded long-distance are paid for by the forwarding party, i.e. your target. It should work the same in many other area codes too, call your local telco customer service rep to find out. This can have horrible implications... :...if you forward those calls to a BBS, or better still a code-line and advertise your mark's number as the "new local node for the MegaLeech AE". :Forwarding to a 1-900 or 1-976 dial-it service works well too. Since most of these are voice-only, it is very easy to program a large number of people to start calling your mark on short notice, and the target gets stuck with the bill. :Forwarding to your phone comany's local security office is a sign of true arrogance on your part, as everyone gets hosed. Do it sometime. :Forward calls to a number that is not in service. Effect is self explanatory. :Set your own (or another target's) call forwarding to forward to your primary target. Then have the target's forwarding set to your own number (or the secondary target). Can you say endless forwarding loop? Be warned that some phoneco's have gotten wind of this concept and installed anti-loop safeguards. :Forward calls to just about anything offensive and blackmailable, gay sex lines, the Nazi Party, the KKK, the Jehovah's Witnesses, need I get graphic? :Forward to voice-mail systems. These are great as most will record MF tones so the abovementioned blue-boxing-answering-machine trick will work, in a roundabout way, via forwarding. They also let you wash your hands clean of any answering-machine/forwarding combos you pull.
Electrical Fun -------------- As any phone freak worthy of his k-bud box knows, telephones require certain specific voltage levels in order to operate. Run them too far below these voltages, and they crap out and die. Run them too high, and they blow up and melt. - An old trick, but it has been such a great standby for tricksters, no phone tricks file is complete without it: Drive to your target's residence (4:30 AM on a sunday is definitely the best time for this). Have an accomplice keep the motor running and the car door open. Head on up to that trusty little grey box on the side of Mr. Victim's house, and attach the 'gator clip ends of your "suicide plug" to the phone terminals. Now, I sure hope you brought a LONG suicide plug because it is likely that the only outside 120VAC outlet on the house is on the other side. Murphy's law applies to revenge just as in any other walk of life so be prepared. Now, when you plug that suicide plug into Mr. Outside Outlet on Mr. Victim's house, the effect will be immediate and striking: Every phone in the house will ring loudly and violently. Older mechanical phones might survive having 110 VAC running through them continuously for several minutes, but electronic phones and especially MODEMS will be destroyed. You run the risk of being charged with arson if you are caught, so don't be. RUN, don't walk, to your waiting getaway vehicle and HAUL ASS OUTA THERE before someone comes to the window and gets your licence plate. If you don't mind paying a price for your assured freedom, placing a timer ($9.95 at London Drugs for the cheapest light timers) on the suicide plug will give you a nice safe delay but you'll miss the fireworks... - "The Scarlet Box" was a resistor, circa 6000 ohms, placed across the phone terminals. It had the effect of putting a load on the line that caused horrible noise. Another thing to do is try a capacitor instead, a nice non-polarised electrolytric can. It does wonders to the lines bandwidth. - How about this: Basic phone service carries its audio on a DC bias "carrier." Transformers and capacitors don't like DC but they pass AC just fine. So, put a cap in series on the line. Phone rings, yes, because ringing voltage is AC. Phone give dial tone? Noooooo.... Fixer stop talking in Taiwanese english now. - If your mark's phone terminal box is adjacent to several others, or shares a box with others, then start connecting them together in parallel. Make sure you match rings with rings, tips with tips. Many interesting effects. Krazy Glue the boxes shut when you're done to "save your changes" permanently.
Well, that's it. This file is probably 100% illegal and banned by law, but damned if I'm not going to exercise my right to copyright it. This file is not in the public domain. Sysops of other BBSes are licensed to distribute it free of charge on the sole condition that it is distributed in its entirety and with all bylines and copyrights intact, and with no text added. I've been in the IBM world too long, you can probably tell, but it roast my butt what some lamers are doing to decent text files these days. (C) 1990 The Fixer.

-- swift vengeance