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IN THIS ISSUE
ALLIANCE INFO
MORE ALLIANCE INFO
PEOPLE EXPRESS
COMPUTER /PHONE NEWS
2 NEW PAGES'

AND EVEN MORE'

MAY, 1985

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VOLUME TWO. SUM HER EH 7.

People Express To Be Hacked To Pieces

by Paul G. Estev

If a business is starting a new, expensive
touch-tone interactive phone service, it
should assess its real usefulness. New
systems should be tested by the real users
as well as the system creators. All too
often, businesses do not notice that their
systems have fatal flaws or are user
unfriendly.

People Express, the growing economy
airline (economy carrier) has started such a
new service that has many of the worst
features of any Tone Activated Service
(TAS). Other services like this are George
Bank By Phone, IBM-Audio Distribution
System, and Mobil Credit Check.

The new service is called "Pick Up & Go"
and has been described in detail in recent
advertising. It is a system where anyone
could reserve airplane tickets for any
People’s flight using a telephone.
Originally developed by AT&T, Pick Up & Go
should be going soon.

This service is in many ways like other
TAS’s, but unlike a voice-mail system, there
is no real reward for exploring this system.
With voice-mail systems, people acquire
accounts which they can use. In Pick Up &
Go, there are no free plane tickets to get,
because you can only book the flights. The
tickets must be picked up at your
flight... and paid for then. Yet, it is an
example of poor design using this now common
technology, which integrates phone systems
with data lines-in this case, the reserva-
tion computers.

People Express is known for their low
prices, which gives them the competitive
edge to be known as the fastest growing
airline as well as good investment. This
also has its drawbacks. Low prices means
low incentive for travel agents to book
flights on the airline. In addition,
People’s is well known for overbooking
flights while expecting many of the
potential passengers to not show up.
People’s instituted this service so they
could get around the travel agent problem.
But it is expected that they will have more
of the same problems with the booking of
flights, if not more of different
problems. . .

This is how the system works: As with
most TAS’s, there is a voice that asks for
touch tone input as to what date, time,
flight, etc. you wish to take. At first, a
female voice asks you for a seven digit
identification number which you can make up
(they suggest that you enter your phone
number, so it is easy for you to remember).
You tell the people at People Express this
number when you pick up the tickets, so they
know that it is really you who made the
reservation. In effect you are just giving
them a password. So you enter your seven
digit code then a ’#’. (Remember, you enter
a T #* after each command, and numbers can be
either one or two digits. You will be

prompted by the voice for each entry.).
Then you enter the month you wish to travel
then a then the date you wish to
travel; then the coding for the airport you
wish to leave from; your destination; then
the number of tickets you want; then your
desired departure hour. (Follow the hour by
an ’a’ or a ’p’ for am or pm. After this
prompt the voice will tell you the two
closest flights to the hour you indicate.
It will also check to see if any seats are
available at this point.) Finally, you
enter the flight you desire. You are then
told the price of the flights you have
booked. At this point you are looped back
to the beginning, where you can hit a *♦* at
each prompt and it will ’ditto* your
previous entry. You can book up to 5 seats
per code, but you are able to enter a new
code when you loop back, in order to book
ten, a hundred, or even thousands of
flights, if you are patient and devious.

Note again that you do not pay for your
tickets until you get to the plane, nor do
you even tell them who you are, in fact you
cannot if you wished to. In addition there
is no provision to cancel reservations, you
cannot do this if you wished to either.

This system will allow anyone to reserve
almost any number of tickets on any flight
leaving in the next two months or so. You
can book a flight anywhere, even to London
(code-549). This is the way things should
be for travelers, fast and easy, but People
Express is just waiting for people, travel
agents, and other airlines to take
advantage. United Airlines could book whole
planes and clog up People Express just by
making a phone call.

It is predicted that this system will be
gone quite quickly, or the software will be
changed but this takes time as we all know.
If they do not do away with this system,
there should be a commotion about hundreds
of people waiting in line for empty flights.
If you wish to try out this system, call
201.769.0205. Some airport codes you may
need to know are: 397-Newark, 529-Los
Angeles, 626-Orlando, 743-St. Pete. The
codes correspond to the three-character
initials that every airport in the world
has.

There are a few more things you can do
after you are done booking your flight, like

H#-Help, *B#-discard last entry, *D#-Delete

last reservation request, *R#-Review current
reservation, *L#-Review all your confirmed
reservations. At this last prompt you can
use the following commands: D*-Delete, K#~
Keep, X#-Exit this function.

The system itself is fairly user friendly,
but the female voice should tell you about
the help function, you should not have to
read about the help function in a newspaper
advertisement. The voice should also note
that you must enter a ’#’ after each entry,
but it only does this after you make an
error. You should also be provided with the
list of airport codes (Actually, some are

Continued on page 2-32

2-25

How to run a successful teleconference

by The Shadow

Alliance Teleconferencing Service is a
bridging service offering teleconferencing
to businesses. A conference merely is
several phone lines tied together allowing
people to talk to many locations at once.
Alliance is owned by AT&T Communications.
They use #4 ESS’s (Electronic Switching
Systems) to control their conferences.
According to Alliance, conferences can be
originated and controlled from most loca-
tions in the United States. The service
started out in area code 202, but has been
spreading throughout the country. One thing
to remember is that even in the same area
code some central offices will allow access,
and others may not. Conferees can be from
anywhere dialable by AT&T, including inter-
national. Alliance can be reached at 800-
-544-6363 for social-engineering or for set-
ting up conferences in locations that cannot
access Alliance directly. Using this the
conference can be billed to a Calling Card
or to a third number.

Alliance says the cost of a teleconference
is 2b cents a line, per minute, as well as
the cost of a direct dialed call for each of
the locations from the conference site. A
monitoring Alliance operator costs an addi-
tional $3 an hour. Thus ? rumors of $6,000
conference bills seem a little exaggerated.
However, conferences can last for several
days and can have several international
participants, thus running the bill up.

CONFERENCE NUMBERS

Dialing 0-7OO-456-XOOX will result in
’’This is Alliance Teleconferencing in [loca-
tion].- You may dial during the announcement
for faster setup.” The main conference
numbers are -100X and -200X. The locations
indicated by the X (as given by Alliance and
the logon recordings) are 1 being Los
Angeles, 2 being Chicago, 3 being White
Plains New York, and 4 being Dallas. 0 gets
you the conference site closest to you. The
-100X lines only accept up to 21 conferees,
and usually don’t allow international
dialing. The other conference numbers allow
up to 59 lines when available as the lines
have to be apportioned between the various
conferences going at the site, and also
allow international dialing. According to
Alliance themselves -200X are graphic con-
ferences, -100X allows up to 59 conferees,
and both always allow international dialing.
However, actual exploration doesn’t bear
these out.

Alliance doesn’t seem to admit that -300X
conference (X is from 0 to 2, all located in
Chicago, Illinois) numbers even exist.
These conferences announce that they are
graphic, and they seem to bear this out.
They can also be handled as an audio con-
ference. The only difference is that it
asks when adding conferees whether the loca-
tion is graphics (hit 4) or audio (hit 5).
It’s generally best to choose audio. These
tend most often to allow the passing of con-
trol, dialing of international calls, and
are also less used than the other lines.

Dialing 0-700-456-150X or -250X results in
a modem connect sounding tone, followed by
’’You have reached Bell System Telecon-
ferencing Service’s Special Set for testing
and measurement. Please enter your service
code [3 digits] or wait for instructions.”
These cannot be reached from most area
codes, resulting instead in a ”The number
you have dialed cannot be reached from your
calling area” just as if it were an 800

2-26

number not reachable from your calling area.
The only one I know that does get through is
201 (Northern New Jersey). Tne X goes from
0 to 4, just like the normal -100X and -200X
conferences. There is no -350X series. I
haven’t as of yet figured out the ’’service
code.” This can be used as a normal con-
ference, except that it requires you to con-
firm your choice by voice, and each section
is separated by those modem connect sounding
tones. Rumors are that this is the upcoming
new conference system, which is supposed to
add features such as the deletion of con-
ferees. However, any keypress I have tried
other than 1, 6, or 9 (the normal controls)
results in a dire warning telling me ’’Please
wait for an Alliance operator to come to
your assistance.” I haven’t yet stuck
around long enough to find out what ’’assis-
tance” means. Alliance won’t admit these
exist, and therefore the -150X and -250X
warrant much further and deeper investiga-
tion.

Alliance can be reached by other means.
Blue boxing to 213-080-0123 and other direct
routing to the Alliance machines (which used
to be the only way to get through) no longer
seems to work. However, box routing to 0-
-700-456-X00X does work. PBX’s m con-
ference country are often used to call con-
ferences. Merely dial a PBX’s inward access
line, enter the access code, dial an outside
line, and then either touch tone 0-700-456-
-X00X yourself t or dial 0 and get the
operator to do it for you. Sometimes they
insist that the 0-700 SAC doesn’t exist, but
just remain firm and tell them to try it.
Social engineering also works, just call an
operator and try to convince ner to KP+0-
-700-456- 1000+ST and position release, after
getting her to believe you are maintenance/
whatever. Getting a direct drop on an
inward operator increases the chance of
succeeding, such as by dialing 0-959-1211
from a pay phone (BIOC Agent u03’s Basic
Telcom VI, discovered by Karl Marx) Another
trick suggested by Shooting Shark is to use'
a white boxable phone (see 2600 page 1-40,
July 1984) or even an ATM help line or a
hotel phone in an airport (as in the April
1985 2600, Page 2-19). Since when arranging
a conference you really don’t need to speak,
just set up a conference normally, and when
done call another payphone nearby, pass con-
trol. and continue. The conference will
still be charged to the first pay phone.

Several techniques are available to
improve the quality of the call. Since the
call may be going through up to several
extenders to reach a non-800 PBX, and from
there to Alliance, the signal quality can
get quite poor. A technique that helps to
keep Alliance from knowing your number is to
call Alliance via a PBX, add in the lower
end of a loop, pass control to it, and then
call the high end. A variation on this
technique is to call your other line or a
payphone next to you, or even, if you have
call waiting, to call yourself again, pass
control to yourself (it works), and then
hang up the original call. All these
techniques may not always work, as sometimes
Alliance refuses to pass control, as men-
tioned above.

CONFERENCE CONTROLS

Alliance is extremely user friendly, as it
was designed for businessmen. Help messages
abound, and all you need to do is to follow
their directions, but here is a brief going

Continued on page 2-31

414 Bust

2600 News Service

Six people in area code 414, Wisconsin, were arrested for
credit card fraud. The World of Cryton BBS was taken down as
a result, but was reportedly not the target of the investigation,
which is being continued by the Secret Service in several cities.
The Wizard, Phoenix, and many other phone phreak$-were
among those were were implicated in the investigation.

Police Hacker Cleared

Computerworld

A preliminary investigation by the San Franciso Police
Commission has cleared the police department of wrongdoing
in the recent controversy over a breach in computer security.

No evidence had been uncovered to substantiate charges that
a police lieutenant used a specially designed menu to gain access
to Public Defender Jeff Brown’s confidential files, which are
stored in a shared computer system in the city’s Hall of Justice
building.

Although the lieutenant admitted that he was given an access
level usually granted only to system administrators to conduct
an internal police probe, he has denied allegations that he read
confidential files stored by other agencies.

As a result of the police department’s actions, a public
defender had asked a San Francisco court to dismiss murder
charges filed against one man, saying that the security breach
had violated his right to attorney-client confidence. The judge
ruled against the defense’s motion.

Dial-a-Directory

USA Today

Soon to be published is a directory that lists more than 2,500
“informative, exciting, and entertaining recorded phone
numbers.” Called The Incredible Dial-a- Message Directory , it
lists many of the familar and unfamiliar recorded messages
around the country. “1 went through 2,500 phone books,” says
Mark C. Guncheon, the book’s author and no stranger to three
digit phone bills. The book includes such numbers as Dial-an
Avalanche 9073376742, The Sleep Line 206258279 1 , or Dial-a-
Romeo 2 1 59766367 .

Reagan Hangs Up on Kids

Newark Star Ledge

The two Montgomery, N.J. teenagers who were promised a
presidential phone call as their prize for winning a national
essay contest have been put on hold indefinitely, a White House
spokesman said. Donna Woodwell and Kate Baicker, both 13,
have been waiting four months for President Reagan’s phone
call, which they were promised as their reward for submitting
the winning essay and illustration in a contest sponsored by
Current Events magazine. Connie Mackey, the White House’s
director of student correspondence said she never was
contacted by the publishing company and doubts whether they
had arranged for the presidential call.

The editor of the publication said the kids may get a trip to
Washington, D.C. Their winning essay and illustration was one
of more than 400 entries in the contest, which was open to
students in fourth through 12th grade. The entry, which urged
the Reagan Administration to strive for nuclear disarmament
was written by Baiker and illustrated by Woodwell.

MCI goes to U.K.

I he Wall Street Journal

MCI Communications Corp. said it inaugurated long-
distance telephone service to the United Kingdom, increasing
to 18 the number of overseas locations MCI serves. The U.K.
countries represent 15% of the international long-distance
telephone market that totals $6 billion in annual revenue, a
spokesman for the telecommunications company said. MCI
expects to reach 80% of the international market by the end of
this year.

Yellow Scam

The Woodbridge News I ribune

Owners of small businesses in New Jersey are being targeted
by telephone solicitors who are duping them into buying
advertisements that never appear in the Yellow Pages. The
“Yellow Pages” scam is a well operated, out-of-state operation
that floods areas with invoices for Yellow Page advertising.
Unfortunately, the advertising is not for the directory published
and distributed by New Jersey Bell. Businessmen are reportedly
getting invoices from a company that uses the “fingers do the
walking” logo instead of the pretty Bell logo according to
Monmouth County Consumer Affairs Director Sally Mollica.

“Crackers” Cracked

Online Today

Transcall America, an Atlanta based discount long-distance
telephone service, has uncovered a group of computer crackers
who ran up at least $12,000 in illegal calls in five months.
According to company officials, no one has been charged, but
the FBI is investigating the case and could bring state and
federal charges. The crackers were caught when investigators
allowed a stolen access code to be posted on a Cocoa Beach,
Florida, bulletin board, to remain valid, and to be traced. The
bogus calls were traced to several homes in Brevard County,
Florida.

Carrier Choosing Time

Associated Press

Bell Atlantic telephone companies in six states and the
District of Columbia will begin using ballots at the end of May
to make it simpler for customers to sign up for easy access
long-distance dialing. Equal access, as the system is called, was
agreed to as part of the AT&T breakup. It gives all long-
distance companies equal access to customers by allowing
callers to reach their long-distance company by dialing “1,”
instead of a multi-digit access code. Customers of Bell Atlantic
now must place their orders through the long-distance
company instead of balloting. AT&T competitors claim
balloting gives companies a better chance to get part of the
long-distance market.

Mystery Transistor

Business Week

Enthusiastically describing ongoing projects, Robert W.
Lucky, executive director of research for communications
sciences, mentioned that Bell Labs researchers were working on
a “ballistic transistor” that switches at the incredible speed of 10
femoseconds ( 1 quadrillionth of a second). No sooner were the
words out then he caught himself. “I guess I shouldn’t have
mentioned that,” he said half-jokingly to two public relations
people in the back of the small come ’ ence room.

2-27

tetters

Which of the many computer networks
are the best to use?

We looked for a few replies to this
and here are a couple of them:

"I access a database that is on
UN I NET, TYMNET, TELENET, and DUS NET.
I've only used TYMNET and TELENET,
and TYMNET is far superior . TELENET
is one of the most exasperating
experiences I've ever had. "

"Why, TYMNET, of course!

" Seriously , Tymnet has more nodes
than any of the others; it is also
more secure. I have used TELENET as
a private user, and it is MUCH slower
than Tymnet, but since you're not
going to out-and-out believe someone
who works for one of them . I suggest
you look at a study done by DATAPRO
Research Corporation (they're in
Del ran, NJ) which compares TELENET,
TYMNET and several other companies . ”

We'd like to hear more on this.

What are silver box tones?

Every touch tone phone can produce
sixteen tones, not Just twelve.
There is the capability for an addi-
tional row of buttons on the right
side. These tones are labeled

(moving from top to bottom) A, B, C,
and D. They are also referred to as
Flash, Flash Override, Priority, and
Priority Override (in increasing
order of importance) . This is how
the calls are treated when they are
made. Thus a "D" call gets priority
over a n B ft call. This system is used
primarily on Autovon, or Pa Bell, the
military phone network, which can
shut down the regular network at any
time. The tones are also used for
test purposes and occasionally do
interesting things for phone phreaks.

What is 950?

950 is an exchange created to ful-
fill part of the purpose of eaual
access. It was designed to work in
all area codes, so that the same
access number could be used by a long
distance company nationwide. In

other words, 950-1022 will get you
MCI wherever you are. There is no
charge to call 950 numbers and the
connection is always crystal clear.
You can only dial this exchange
locally, i.e. you cannot access San
Francisco's 950 exchange from. Los
Angeles .

Is it easier to trace 800 calls or
950 calls?

Tracing an 800 call simply is not
as easy as tracing a 950 call. 800
numbers exist all over the country
whereas 950' s aren't an actual
exchange, but are located within
every central office. Thus, AN I
(Automatic Number Identification)
intra-exchange is very easy. The
further away from the central office,
the harder this becomes.

What is REMOB?

REMOB is remote observation . Call
a number, enter a code, enter a
number, and listen. We need more
info on this one ourselves .

2-28

Especially as to if these numbers
really exist. We do admit that the
technology is there. In fact, we
were tola of the number where you
could overhear random MCI conversa-
tions in Texas, a few months ago,
without entering any . codes, but it
stopped working by the time we went
to print.

What follows are two true accounts
of adventures that were sent to us.
The first was sent by The Crazy Man.
It depicts thievery and destruction .
2600 in no way condones this type of
activity. We really do not. But
there are some things to learn from
the first adventure about the
construction of pay-phones , so we
decided to include it. As they say:
Learn good things-the bad will teach
you by themselves . The second
adventure is presented for your
amusement only.

I am writing you because I have
done something that might be of
importance to the readers of this
mag. Well, a few days ago me and a
friend went to a construction site
and found a telefone on a piece of
wood with a wood base, so we decided
to take the bitch home. Well, never
underestimate the power of a fortress
fone. We read a file that BIOC wrote
called Basic Telecommunications. Part
VI. It said that you could drill out
the main lock located on the right
side of the coin box. So we tried to
attempt this daring feat. Never. I
repeat, never waste your time
drilling out the lock. It will take
days ana days and probably about 30
drill bits. After about five hours
of drilling, me and my friend decided
to try a different approach. We
knocked off the metal washer located
right on top of the coin return (it
should just break right 9 ff). Then
we used a pair of vise grips to tear
the metal off around the coin return.
By doing this we came upon the coin
box, but it still had the lock on top
of it! Now, this is the part that
takes the longest time. You have to
rip out (with the grips) the metal,
which is only 1/8 inch, that
surrounds the entire coin box. Then
you must push all of the locks around
the silver plate in, or the silver
plate will never come off. After
pushing in the locks, you might be
able to remove the silver plate. If
hot, then take a good size sledge
hammer and a trusty crow-bar and
whack the plate as hard as you can,
making the lid come off. Now, you
might think: Now that I got the

late off I can just pull the coin
ox right out. Wrong. To pull the
box out you must have a key to unlock
the coin box. If you don’t have a
key (which I didn’t; then put the
trusty crow-bar around the com box
and bend the box till it’s removable.
Now be sure to get the little slips
of paper that say "Sorry, this phone
is temporarily out of order.” They
are compliments of Bell. Now you

Continued on page 2-30

The 2600 Information Bureau

NECK AND BACK BENT-

KEYBOARD TOO HIGH—
ARMS TOO HIGH AND NO
FOREARM OR WRIST
SUPPORT

WORK SURFACE TOO
HIGH (AT DESK HEIGHT)
AND NOT ADJUSTABLE

Harry the Hacker is clearly
unhappy. And i-f he isn’t
caret ul with the way he
uses the in-formation on
this page, he’ll soon be
using the phone on the next
page.

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Continued front page 2-28

should be about SO or 60 bucks richer by nou, so go spend it on parts to
■ake a blue box, or soaething related to phreaking. Good luck.

The^nne^rang. I got up, looked at the desk,, it’s 6:00 an, jn hour
before I go to school. I pick the receiver up. Is this John McKee? asked
the caller urgently. 'Yes/ I replied half asleep. ’You better get nd of
your printouts and your stuff on disks, you’re gonna get a visit within the
next 20 ninutes,’ the kid said. He hung up. I got nervous. The phone rang
again, 'John, this is Jin, Greg just got busted and his brother has been
calling up all of his friends on a sheet Greg had. Did he call you? Yes
he did,' I said. 'You better believe it, because you're gonna get nailed
with the rest of us. Get rid of everything, burn it. I thought to nyself,
‘Nhat did I do to lake then wait ne? Codes? Ho tine, have to burn every-
thing pertaining to illegal wrongdoings.’ I was panic-stricken. I .got it
together and went outside and burned it, disks, printouts, everything. As I
was returning to ny house, I wondered if they had a tap on ny line. The
phone rang another tiv. 'Oh no. Who is it now?" I went in and answered
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fllUANCC Teleconferencing Services continued from page 2-26

over of tfie conands. After the logon recording, choose the nuaber of loca-
tions for your conference. Choose below IS locations, as iany people use
Alliance, and using »ore locations than available results in "no conference
facilities available now". To change your choice dial a *, or to go onward
hit a t. To add a nuiber while in control node dial 1+ the phone nuiber.
To dial international dial 1 * Oil + the phone nuiber. Passing control can
be done by dialing 6 plus the nuiber of the person on the conference you
wish to pass control. Then by hitting a I you rejoin the conference, or by
just hanging up you leave, (then in the conference dialing a t will return
you to control node.

When conferees hang up, a "dee-doot" will be heard. The controller also
hears the phone nuiber of person who left. Hitting the t inediately calls
the departed back. There is no way to drop people froi conference other
then getting a conference operator to do it or by blowing 2600 hertz down
the line. However, this will drop each and every person on a trunk using
in-band scaling. Hitting a 0 in control nde sunons a conference
operator, however, she/he takes control before he/she answers, so only do
this when you know what you are doing. Hitting a 9 in control lode requests
a "silent, attendant listener line." According to the Deion this option
allows the controller to hear the tones and phone nuibers of people hanging
up while he is in control lode. Conference op’s claim this function is for
secretaries and such to listen to, but not participate in, conferences for
note taking purposes.

If- these instructions sound confusing, don't worry. Reieiber, the entire
conference is accompanied by extremely user friendly lessages. Recently, on
weekends or late night, lany telcoi hobbyists have had problems with
transferring control, instead getting a recording "Not available at this
tiie". Also, siiilarly, international dialing is soietiies unavailable.
Generally -300X does this less often, then -20OX next.

DANGERS

One mist always be prepared for listeners whenever one conferences. If
one is discussing “guestionable" latters on a conference, last naies and
phone nuibers should NEVER be given out. One of your fellow telcoi hobby-
ists light, be an FBI agent, or soietiies a conference operator listens in on
conferences which sound "suspicious." They do not do this usually, as
Alliance lost often carries business calls (you have to reieiber this
folks!), and thus doesn’t expect fraudulent calls. Sure ways to interest an
op is to have either all the conferees but one or only just the controller
hang up. When a controller hangs up the conference op takes control and
attempts to let the the forme.* controller “regain his conference" by calling
hit at hoie. Also, controllers who spend long amounts of time in control
•ode, resulting 'in everyone else hanging up, arouses the attention of the
op. The nuiber which originally started the conference can hang up though,
after passing control, but the conference will still be billed to it.

Dangers of fraudulently started conferences seei to be slight. The only
person I knew who got caught was forced to pay for a phone call from Dallas
(where the conference was started) to his hoie in California. This is not
to say it is safe, but it definitely is safer than using 950’s fraudulently.
Even phreaks who set up several conferences a night for months, including
the harassient of DA operators, haven’t been caught. However, we don’t
suggest you atteipt a fraudulent conference. Even periitting yourself to be
added to a fraudulent conference is enough for prosecution, according to
AT&T. One thing that prevents a lot of this investigation is that lost
fraudulent conferences are set up with PBX’s, and thus the prosecution lies
with the owners of the PBX, and AT&T isn’t even involved. For this reason,
PBX’s often are traced.

Another risk is that all nuibers dialed are recorded by Alliance, even
lisdials. The nuibers dialed are all printed out and sent to a vault at the
Chicago Bell Test Labs for storage for their records. In addition, con-
ferences are randomly taped and nnitored for fraud. It would seei safer to
use Alliance to call an extender, and then dial out frcm there, as although
Alliance records all nuibers dialed, logically they probably only pay atten-
tion to nuibers they intend to act on, i.e. add to the conference. The
subsequent use of a extender is a latter of investigation by another com-
pany, and don’t forget AT&T and the extender coipanies are competitors, and
thus they wouldn’t always go out of their ways to cooperate.

STINTS

Often when a conference starts to slow down, people start suggesting
various stunts to liven things up. One word of warning, nst of these
techniques would be construed as harassient, and thus are illegal. One of
the nst conon used is adding a multitude of Directory Assistance
operators. Listening to them ask each other "Hhat city please?" and then
arguing about who belongs on the line is extremely timorous. Confusion
reigns when you atteipt to get them to look up a nuiber. Soae DA’s have had
this done so uny tiies that they realize that this is a conference and will
either hang up immediately or will threaten you with taking over your con-
ference. Reieiber, only the conference operator can take over a conference,
so wst of these threats are ineffectual. When any of thei give a hard
tiie, just ask to speak to their supervisor, as this usually adds even lore
confusion. Siiilar things can be done with with business offices, repair
service ("sir, I’m getting all this cross talk on ly line" ‘no, it’s ly
line." ad infinitum) telex ops, and other phone nmpany personnel. Also.

computer coipanies or other corporate bureaucracies have similar chaos
potential. One interesting thing to try is to pose as a phone company
emiloyee for social engineering purposes. However, lost phreaks fail to
realize that "TSPS laintenance" or "Bell Security" gets a little too
repetitious and suspicion arousing due to their over-heavy use.

Generally, for courtesy's sake, one should call people who generally
expect to get weird calls at odd hours, and are often bored at their jobs.
Radio station DJ's often enjoy this, as do hotel operators and bell boys.
Going international often increases the fascination with conferences.
Several hotel ops around the world expect and look forward to conferences
calling them during the dull early morning hours, and the conferences soie-
tiies place calls for thei in appreciation. Hihtary bases are another good
site, as are unattended payphones. Soietiies people at random are called
up. It often is imossible to convince people that they ARE getting a con-
ference call, as they twist up sole impossible theory to explain 15 chaotic
people speaking at once. Even President Reagan (2600 1-23 April 1984) and
other "celebrities" have been attempted to be reached By conferences. Often
telling their secretaries that this is a conference call can arouse their
curiosity enough to coie on line. A conon statement is "You dam computer
hackers are so siart to have figured this out." Little do they know how
simple it is, and it also shows now people and the lass media constantly
lisidentify anything mildly out of the ordinary as the fault of coiputer’s
influence on people. (Sorry about the side digression)

Reieiber that when adding recordings or extenders to a conference that
they generally will not hang up. Siiilarly. people added can’t be forcibly
disconnected without the conference operator s help, and can stay on as long
as they want, mxiitoring or taking notes. Only way to rid a conference of
these is to blast 2600 down the line, with the results predicted above,
(lien adding "dangerous" people such as FBI agents or inforiants the use of
three way calling by one of the conferees is generally lore intelligent, as
it permits the caller to forcibly drop thei.

Many of these stunts mentioned are plain childish, rude, and unthoughtful
to others. Many of these definitely would count as harassient. Frequent
resortation to these often arouses the suspicious curiosity of Alliance ops.
Continual use of these may end up in a general tightening up of security in
Alliance, not due to fraudulent calls, but froi complaints. Obviously,
these utterly senseless acts should be conducted in extreme loderation.

OTHER CONFERENCES

The old method of conferencing by calling the operator and asking for a
conference still works. This however is controlled physically by the
operator, as it uses a cordboard. Three way calling of course is another
conferencing option. Multi-line loops are rare, but do exist. Soietiies
businesses connect several phone lines together to fori a conference. One
of the lost faious was the UCLA one at 213-206-2810 to -2817 as last known.
One up as of the writing of this article is at 602-976-0770 to -0777.
Another conferencing system is City Conference in Oakland and San Francisco.
Siiilar to this is a systei called Phone-a-Friend in sole areas at 550-5000.

Every once in a while conferences are set up in the old historical
phreaking told on PBX switchboards or on telephone switching equipment by
renegade linemen and the like. One of the lost historic of these was the
"2111" conference’ which was arranged through an unused telex test-board
trunk in a 4A switching machine in Vancouver, Canada, For several months
phone phreaks could MF via a blue box 604 (Vancouver’s area code) then 2111
(code for telex testing board) to reach phreaks and other \telcoa hobbyists
around the world. Soietiies conferences set up by this method are acces-
sible via norial phone lines. These conferences, by their very nature of
actual adjustient of switching equipment, are rare.

Several coipanies offer alternate bridging services, otherwise known as
conferences. These all claii they have higher quality than Alliance. They
control the conference theiselves so you can just get down to business
without worrying about details." You can ask thei to leave, but then there
is no one in control of the conference. Generally they offer smaller con-
ferences then Alliance's 59 (Market Navigation’s limit is 19) They all
charge considerably lore than AT&T (Market Navigation Inc. quoted a rate as
$195 per hour for a 12 person conference plus the cost of the dialed phone
calls) You generally have to set up conferences ahead of tiie. They all
will send a bill to your coipany, and soie will allow the use of a credit
card instead. Generally you have to book ahead of tiie. Examles of these
independent firis are Daroie Connection (203-797-1300) , Market Navigation
Inc. (914-365-0123) and Telesession. The nuibers are for setting up con-
ferences, althoud) you can social-engineer thei as well.

CONCLUSION

Basically, conferencing, even fraudulently, is one of the safest ways to
get in contact with other telcoi hobbyists, by its track record of busts.
They are very few and far between. Several times Alliance operators have
dropped in on conferences and carried on conversations with the
participants. Much of the intonation in this article was picked up froi
these sources. Often one hears the conon conent of lany telcoi corpora-
tions that "they are using us as a tax writeoff," however, how long can
they keep taking losses in this post-divestiture age of of telco competi-
tion. Expect in the near future to see other telcoi coipanies such as ITT,

Continued on page 2-32

People Express Continued from page 2-25

easy to find yourself: DEN-336-Denver, SYR-797-Syracuse.). If People’s
really wishes to encourage the systea's usage, it should also have a toll
free nuiber. In the end, this service will result in confusion and reduced
service, as well as longer lines at the terminals. Those who have taken
People Express flights have both regretted and coie to depend on over-
booking. And there will be overbooking: by People who want to play with the
system, by people who aake listakes, by people who do not mind booking a
flight just ’in case’ they plan to travel, by travel agents who custoaarily
book hundreds of tickets, and ’by competing airlines who wish to do People
Express wrong. This service will do nothing but increase the problea. It
is indicative of the lack of huaan factor in creating these systeas. It is
surely a pity that big coapanies do not have real people test their new
technology for thea. Marketing consultants and prograaaers just seea to
forget that it is people who use the products in the end. It will be people
who aake aistakes using their new system, and it will be people who will
take advantage of this new systea.

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teleconference Continued from page 2-31

MCI, and GTE Sprint get into the act, as conferences are really pretty cheap
to set up and aren’t that technically exotic. Telcoa hobbyists can get
together to pick each others brains for info, and starters can learn the
ropes in the presence of several lore experienced phreaks. Also, just
normal socializing with people all over the country is fun, especially when
you realize you probably would have never met the* otherwise. In order to
join in a conference try calling someone on it who has call waiting or two
phone lines, as he can relay to the controller that you wait to be added.
Conferencing is all in all an excellent way to communicate with the telcoa
community at large, when used in moderation. Use, don’t abuse.

Information provided by Alliance Teleconferencing, the Demon, Elric
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Serpent, Shooting Snark, Telcoa. ARPA, Joe Turner and the members of the
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2-32