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%% MA BELL! %%
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%% A file from the book %%
%% GETTING EVEN %%
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%% Typed by %%
%% --==**>>THE REFLEX<<**==-- %%
%% [Member: Omnipotent, Inc.] %%
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Did you ever see those office signs that say, THINK? In one
telephone-company office I visited, I saw signs saying, SNEER.
People have been messing with Ma Bell for as long as that corporate
dictator has been monopolizing telephone service. For years stories have been
circulated about using strips of Scotch tape on coins, which allows their use
again and again in pay telephones. Do you know what a number-fourteen washer
will accomplish in a pay telephone?
The Yippies and other groups have developed marvelously ingenious ways of
sabotaging telephone-company operations. Some of their literature is sheer
technological genius, almost as if it were written by a Bell Laboratoris
dropout. I once spoke with a radical who had become a "mole," an agent of his
political beliefs who secreted himself away in five years of deep cover working
as a technician for Illinois Bell. His purpose was to learn about the
technical side of the company so he could later control or destroy telephonic
communication.
Gordon Alexander presents an alternative manner, simple but novel in these
complex days. A professional dirty trickster for more than twenty years,
Alexander uses the dangerous but simple method of physically cutting telephone
lines. If you are looking for instructions on how to safely cut Ma Bell's
lines here, forget it. Unless you know what you are doing and have the proper
equipment you could easily light up like an insect hitting an electric bug
trap. I said it was simple; I didn't say it was easy or safe.
Lee Jenner, an accountant, suggests that you overpay your telephone bill
if you're alienated from Ma Bell. He says, "Overpay by a constant seventeen
cents a month. Make it consistent. Then, after a few months, underpay by
seventeen cents. Start another pattern for a while of overpayment; then
underpay again. It drives them nuts."
Jenner continues, "The local telephone company had screwed a client of
mine and refused even give him the time of day. He started this seventeen-cent
bit, and before the year was out he had the manager of the local company
begging him to stop. It worked totally to his satisfaction."
Meanwhile, on other battlefield fronts, Bell-hater Leo Garry says you
should have your printer make a bunch of OUT OF ORDER signs with the local Ma
Bell's logo on them. Hang them on every public telephone you find. Speaking
of pay telephones, only punks and idiots damage them. Much as you may hate
them, they're the only game in town. If you've ever needed a pay phone in an
emergency, you know what I mean.
You can play games with your local service representative (Ma Belltalk for
salesperson) by ordering phones and equipment for marks or ordering service
shutoffs. Always make these type of calls from a pay phone, for obvious
reasons.
Bandit calling may have been developed by the Yippies. Certainly they are
among its champions, both as practitioners and as cheerleaders. Aside from the
blue boxes, which make free calls for you, there is a tactic that can be used
by the nontechnical wizard and doesn't cost you anything. It's the use of the
bogus credit-card numbers, and it works like this.
Always use a pay telephone and not always the same one. Next, you need a
credit-card number. Here is where knowledge of Ma Bell's codes comes in. For
that information check OVERTHROW, a tabloid published by the Youth
International Party. A subscription cost you ten dollars a year, but each
issue contains all sorts of other dirty tricks, as well as an updated listing
of not only Ma Bell's codes, but also the complete credit-card numbers for many
corporations, public utilities, and government agencies. To order a
subscription, send ten dollars to Overthrow, P.O. Box 392, Canal Street
Station, New York, N.Y. 10013. It's a good investment, according to most
readers.
After you get credit-card codes or numbers, the Yippies claim, the rest of
bandit calling is simple. You simply dial the long distance operator from your
pay phone and sound very, very businesslike when you say, "This is a credit
card call, and my number is [give the operator the credit-card number]. I want
to call [give the operator only the number of the party you are calling]." Be
sure you can tell a suspicious operator the area code from which the card was
supposedly issued. If the operator wants to know who holds the card, either
make up a legitimate-sounding company name or use the name of the agency or
company whose card number it really is, depending upon the circumstance. It
helps if your party at the other end of the call knows what's happening.
Talk straight and businesslike for the first five minutes, as a snoopy
operator -- that's the way Ma Bell trains them -- might stay on the line that
long to listen in. Avoid sensitive subjects like your name, politics, drugs,
or dirty tricks since you never know who is recording calls these days. Break
off the call within twelve minutes. Obviously, your callee should act very
dumb when Ma Bell's security people do come to investigate a month or so after
the fraud is discovered. And don't let them intimidate you or your friends,
either. They're good at that -- many of them are former federal or state
police.
One Bell employee told me that their security people utilize warrantless
wiretaps, blackmail, and physical surveillance to catch persons suspected of
making bandit calls. The employee also told me these tactics are used against
persons who even publicize such practices. I consider myself warned. So
should you. Ma Bell can be one nasty mother.
By the time you read this, though, the game may be up. In Washington
state, the Supreme Court there upheld the conviction of a newspaper for
publishing the telephone company's secret codes. The telephone company, which
has both security and propaganda sections that rival the government's, was
working furiously behind the scenes to influence the verdict.
Abbie Hoffman suggested this next trick, so if it doesn't work, call him.
Restrict Hoffman's idea to corporate, utility, or institutional telephone
systems. Cut the female end off an ordinary extension cord. Unscrew the
mouthpiece on the telephone in any one office. You will see a terminal for a
red wire and one for a black wire. Attach one of the wires from the extension
cord to the red and one to the black. Finally, plug the extension cord into a
power socket.
According to Hoffman, you are sending 120 volts of electricity back
through equipment designed for six volts. He says this will knock out
thousands of other telephones and the main switchboard, "if all goes right."
Even if his numbers are somewhat exaggerated, you've had a good day.
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