💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › groups › PHONELOSERS › pla013.txt captured on 2023-01-29 at 15:06:25.
⬅️ Previous capture (2020-11-01)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
?013??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????013?
? The Phone Losers Of America Present: ?
? Petty Scams and Telephone Tricks - Mostly by RBCP ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? Written On April 8, 1990 Last Revision on January 09, 1995 ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? For Informational Purposes Only. We're Not Responsible For Your Stupidity. ?
?013??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????013?
Listed in this file is about every way that I've attempted and succeeded in
swindling some place or person out of a few dollars (or cents). A lot of these
methods should only be tried by the most pathetic and desperate person, as
a lot of these tricks will get you just about enough to buy a meal or a joint.
Also included are a lot of ways to bullshit your way around the telephone
systems and companies.
Dialing A Phone That Can't Be Dialed:
------------------------------------
Remember rotary pulse dialing? Before the modern days of touch tone dialing,
you had to stick your finger in a hole and spin that stupid dial thing to call
a number and that could really make exchange scanning a bitch. Today, you can
hand a little kid a rotary dial phone and ask him to make a call on it and he'll
look at you like you're crazy. "Where the hell are the buttons?"
If you've ever come across a telephone (whether it be rotary or touch tone) and
for some reason there's a lock on the phone or the dialing keypad has been
disconnected, don't dispair. You can still make a call using the prehistoric
pulse dialing technology.
Let's say you want to dial the number "123-4567" so you pick up the phone and
get your dial tone. Now quickly press and release the hang up button once. That
should dial your number "1." Now repidly press and release the hang up button
twice and you've dialed your "2" and so on. If you want to dial a zero, rapidly
press and release the hangup button ten times. I actually got a disciplinary
write up at work for teaching my co-workers how to do this after the manager
disabled outgoing calls.
Sometimes if the owner of the phone has a lot of custom calling services like
call waiting and three-way calling, this method of dialing might not work
because it messes up the timing of the clicks and you always get a wrong
number when trying it. Usually it will but I've come aceoss phone that won't
dial that way. It also could depend on the type of phone being used. Another
way to get by a locked dial is to buy a touch tone dialer from Radio Shack.
A lot of businesses out there have what's called a network phone system. This
means they have a minerature phone company in the office which let's them
restrict all kinds of things such as if one of their phone will be allowed to
make outgoing calls. To avoid having employees chatting on the phone all day or
a customer picking up the phone and dialing long distance, they usually restrict
outgoing calls on a lot of the phones in the network.
Sometimes you can pick up the phone and hit "Line 1" or "Line 2" or whatever and
get a dial tone, you just won't be able to push any of the buttons on the phone
to dial out. If you try, you eiher get a busy signal or nothing. The solution to
this is to buy a pocket tone dialer from Radio Shack (The $15.oo model is fine)
and dial the number with that. That way, you're not pressing the network's
buttons so it doesn't know anything's going on and you get your phone call,
whether it be across the street or in Austraila.
If you pick up the phone and can't even get a dial tone, then you have to wait
for someone to call you. When the phone rings, pick it up, answer their
questions and get rid of them as quick as you can. When they hang up, stay on
the line. In about a minute the phone company's equipment will reset and you
should get a dial tone. From there just use your pocket tone dialer to dial out.
In airports you'll find a big console with all the local hotels listed on it.
To reach one of the hotels you press the button next to the hotel you want to
speak with. Usually, this setup is nothing more than a speed dialing phone
with all of the hotels programmed into the memory buttons. Use your Radio
Shack Pocket Tone Dialer to dial anywhere in the world on these phones. Same
goes for the rent-a-car booth.
Exchange Scanning:
-----------------
This can be done either with a computer program or manually with the provided
chart. Basically, it's calling up every single number in an exchange and
seeing what kinds of interesting things you can find. Computer hackers use
exchange scanning to find carriers. For example, if a hacker's school phone
line number is 254-7950 a hacker will dial every number from 254-0000 to
254-9999 to find the school's computer line. Hacker's are funny that way...
If you scan numbers where the first two numbers of the suffix is 00 or 99,
you'll find a lot of phone company related numbers like loop lines, weird
recordings, sweep tones, etc. If you're looking for this type of thing it's
best to find out what the phone company's local office prefix is and use that.
Like if the phone company's billing office number is 556-4200 call up every
number from 556-9900 to 556-9999 or 556-0000 to 556-0099. A real handy
recording to find is the one that says, "Please deposit 25 cents." You can
drive an operator bugshit with this number.
Below is a chart that I made for hand scanning. You can do a whole 100 number
exchange while you watch the Fresh Prince of Belle Aire. The chart is fairly
easy to use. Let's say you want to dial every number from 618-254-9900 to
618-254-9999. Fill in the Area Code box as "618", the Prefix box as "254", the
xx box as "99" and fill in today's date.
The first box would be for 254-9900, the second for 9901, etc. Starting on the
next row would be 254-9910, 254-9911, etc. For each thing you find, fill in
the appropriate box, telling what you found. I usually use letters to
represent different findings, like "D" means the number has been disconnected,
"R" means it just rings and there's no answer, "B" means busy, etc. Make a
few copies of this chart and have fun with it.
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? Area Code=______ Prefix=______ "xx"=______ Today's Date=_________ ?
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xxx0 ? xxx1 ? xxx2 ? xxx3 ? xxx4 ? xxx5 ? xxx6 ? xxx7 ? xxx8 ? xxx9 ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx0x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx1x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx2x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx3x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx4x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx5x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx6x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx7x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx8x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
? xx9x ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Oh, heh, heh, one thing I almost forgot to mention. The phone company doesn't
like it when you exchange scan. I've done manual scanning in a LOT of different
areas for long periods of time and nothing ever happened. However, if you have
one of those computer wardialers that dials every single number in a prefix,
they have equipment that detects this kind of thing.
I have friends that have used these programs and the only thing that happens
is the phone company sends them a nasty letter telling them to knock it off or
else or they might get a call from the phone company. I'm always reading,
though, in publications like Phrack about people actually getting BUSTED for
exchange scanning. I don't know why, maybe it's considered harrassment to call
someone and hang up, let alone call 1000 people and hang up. Just be warned.
If you are going to use a computer, use the random scan and not sequencial.
Privately Owned Pay Fones:
-------------------------
I'm a really nasty vandalizer of private pay phones. I hate them mostly
because I can't red box off of them. What is a privately owned pay phone? These
are the ugly pay phones you see that don't have any kind of cool local telephone
company or AT&T logo on it. These are usually owned by a grubby old man who has
a small empiree of his own pay phones around town and he goes around collecting
all the profits from the phone for himself, sometimes splitting the profits with
the owner of the business where his phone is located.
The long distance carrier for these phones is most likely someone you've never
ever heard of that charges about three times as much as AT&T or Sprint would,
and that's pretty bad. If you use your calling card on one of these phones,
you'll notice when you get your bill what I'm talking about. A local call from
one of these phone usually even charges you more than 25 cents.
A good thing about private pay phones is that the phone line it's using isn't
actually classified as a pay phone line, it's classified as a business line for
a regular business customer which is why red boxing won't work. Pick up one of
these phones and dial "zero." If you can get one of their operators, ask them to
connect you with AT&T. Now AT&T probably won't even know that you're calling
from a pay phone line. She'll probably assume you're either calling from home or
your place of business.
When AT&T answers, throw them a line like, "Yeah, I'm having trouble with my
phone here. There's something wrong with the buttons and I can't get it to dial
right. (Crying is optional) Could you try dialing the number for me?" and AT&T
will be more than happy to help you dial that number. This works for local and
long distance calls. Unfortunately, an operator can't dial a 0-700 or 900
number for you.
When dealing with some of the larger privately owned chains, the AT&T operator
can tell that you're calling from a pay phone so a long distance call wont work.
Since these pay phones use a regular line you can plug your own phone to their
line and dial any number you want, bypassing the pay phone itself entirely. The
phone wires are usually installed very amateurly so you shouldn't have much
trouble locating them.
When you find the phone wires, strip the outer covering, then strip the red and
green wires, clip your phone to those two wires and start dialing random numbers
in New Zealand. Don't actually cut the wires to the phone in half or the owner
will be upset and hide the wires so you won't be able to do this anymore. Just
strip them where no one will notice so you can come back and hook your phone up
anytime you want. (This is called Beige Boxing, by the way.)
To make yourself look less suspicious, you can hook up your phone, quickly dial
the number you're calling and then pick up the pay phone and unhook your own
phone. To the casual observer, you're just talking on a pay phone like any
normal person, not screwing the owner out of hundreds of dollars. If he doesn't
have a block on the phone you can dial 0-700 Alliance and 900 numbers this way.
And if he does have a block on the phone, call up the phone company's billing
office and remove the block, pretending to be him.
A Shopper's Guide To COCOTS by Count Zero (More On Private Pay Phones)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
COCOT is an acronym for Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone. In other
words, a COCOT is a phone that is owned or rented by a paying customer (most
likely, a hotel or donut shop). A COCOT is not a normal payphone. The
telephone company doesn't own it, and the telephone line is usually a normal
customer loop (unlike payphones, where the phone line is a "special" payphone
loop, allowing the use of "coin tones" to indicate money dropped in!) So a
COCOT may look and smell like a telephone company payphone, but it is not.
Why do COCOT's exist? Simple. Money! A customer owned payphone is money in the
bank. You pay more for local calls and long distance is typically handled by
sleazy carriers that offer bad/expensive service. The owner/renter of the
COCOT opens the coinbox and keeps the money him/herself. Also, a particularly
sleazy quality of COCOT is the fact that it does not receive incoming calls.
This, of course, is because of money. If people are calling in to a COCOT, the
COCOT is not making money and businesses always want to make as much money as
possible even if it hurts the consumer. Think about it. It really sucks to
call someone at home from a COCOT and then not be able to have him/her call
you back to save money. "Guess I'll have to keep feeding the COCOT quarters!"
First of all, you must understand that the COCOT is a mimic. Essentially, it
wants you to think that it is just a plain ol' payphone. Pick up the handset.
Hear that dialtone? Hah! That dialtone is fake, synthesized by the innards
of the COCOT. You are at the mercy of the COCOT. Remember a COCOT runs off of
a normal customer loop so, unlike a telephone company payphone where you must
deposit money to generate coin tones that are read by the central office, the
security of a COCOT depends solely on the COCOT phone itself. It's as if you
took your own phone and put a sign on it saying "Please put 25 cents in this
jar for every call you make." COCOTs are not naive. They won't let you near
the unrestricted dialtone until you fork over the cash-ola. Or so they think!
See, the Achilles' heel of the COCOT is the fact that all payphones must let
you make 1-800 calls for free! It's not just a fact, it's the law. Now pick
up the handset again and place a 1-800 call. Any 1-800 number will do. When
they answer at the other end, just sit there. Do nothing. Ignore them. Wait
for them to hang up the phone.
Here's an example. Dial 1-800-LOAN-YES.
[Ring, Ring]...[click] "Hello, you wanna buy some money? Hello? HELLO?!"
[CLICK] (You will now hear some static and probably a strange "waffling"
noise, like chh, chh, chh, chh, chh.) [CLICK] DIALTONE!
Now what have we got here? A dialtone? Yes, you guessed it, the dialtone you
now hear is the unrestricted dialtone of the COCOT's customer loop. So what?
So I got an "unrestricted dialtone". Big Deal? You meathead, with an
unrestriced dialtone, all you need to do is place a call via DTMF tones (the
tones a touch-tone keypad generates).
Now, try dialing a number with the COCOT's keypad. Whoa, waitasec, no sound.
This is a typical lame attempt at protection by the COCOT. Just whip out your
Radio Shack pocket tone dialer and try calling a number, any number. Place it
just as if you were calling from a home phone. Call a 1-900 sex line. Call
Guam. You are free and the COCOT's customer loop is being billed.
Some COCOTs are more sophisticated at protecting themselves. Some will reset
when they hear the dialtone. To get around this, make a loud hissing sound
with your mouth into the mouthpiece after the 1-800 number hangs up. Get your
tone dialer ready near the mouthpiece. When you hear the dialtone, quickly
dial the first digit of the number you want to call. If you hiss loudly
enough, you may be able to mask the sound of the dialtone and prevent the
COCOT from resetting. Once you dial the first digit of the number you are
calling, the dialtone will disappear (naturally). You can stop hissing like an
idiot now. Finish dialing your free phone call. Also, some COCOT's actually
disable the handset after the call hangs up (in other words you can't send
DTMF tones through the mouthpiece). Oh well, better luck next time. However,
most of the COCOT's I have run across only disable the DTMF keypad. So all you
need is a pocket dialer to circumvent this!
Other things to know: Sure you can't call a COCOT, but it does have a number.
To find out the COCOT's number, call one of the automated ANI services that
tell you the number you're dialing from or dial a friend from the COCOT who
has Caller I.D. so they can tell you the number. Now try calling the COCOT
from another phone. You will hear one of two things: 1) synthesized voice:
"Thank you" [DTMF tones] [CLICK] [hang up] or 2) a weird carrier.
A COCOT's number is only used by the company that built or sold the COCOT. By
calling up a COCOT, a technician can monitor its functioning, etc. In case
number 1, you must enter a 3 or 4 digit password and then you'll get into a
voice menu driven program that'll let you do "maintenance" stuff with the
COCOT. In case number 2, you are hooked to the COCOT's 300 bps modem (Yes, a
modem in a payphone). Likewise, if you can figure out the communications
settings, you'll be into the COCOT's maintenance routines. Personally, I
haven't had much luck (or patience) with calling up and hacking COCOT
maintenance functions. I just like making free phone calls from them!
RBCP Notes on COCOTS:
--------------------
In Austin, Texas they have some private pay phones called a Fox Fone. Pretty
lame name if you ask me. When you dial an 800 number on one of these it has
the nerve to ask you to deposit a quarter. Now, to get to the unrestricted
dialtone a quarter isn't a bad investment, however I've found that it doesn't
ask for a quarter if you dial 102880 to get AT&T. When AT&T answers, you're
home free.
When you dial a long distance call legitamately on a private COCOT, the COCOT
will dial a sequence of numbers like their authorization codes, etc. So when
you get the unrestricted dialtone and try to dial a number direct like
1-512-370-4680 you'll get a "your number cannot be completed as dialed"
message or a busy signal. To get around this, instead dial 10288-1-512-370-
4680 and your call should go through.
If you're limited on the number of digits you can dial, just dial "0" from the
unrestricted dialtone and ask the local operator for AT&T. Then ask AT&T to
dial a long distance number for you. If you do it this way, you can't dial
700 and 900 numbers but if you use your Radio Shack tone dialer, it's no
problem. Dial a 700 number like 10288-0-700-456-1002.
Sometimes the AT&T operator will know that you're calling from a COCOT and
won't dial any free calls for you, but when she hangs up you can still use
your tone dialer (or the fone's keypad) to dial long distance.
Directory Asisstance:
--------------------
To get any listed phone number in the United States, all you need to do is
dial "1-AREA CODE-555-1212." If you don't know which area code the number's
in, just make up one or call local directory asisstance and ask that operator
what any area code is. Local directory asisstance can be reached at "411",
"1-411" or "1-555-1212." It differs from area to area. Pay phones that offer
"411" won't charge you for information. Some areas I've lived in only will
give me a phone number and say that if I want the address, dial 555-3131.
Toll free information can be reached at 1-800-555-1212 and of course, there is
no charge for this call. There's also directory asisstance for 900 numbers
which is 1-900-555-1212. International Information can be reached by dialing
102880 and asking for it.
1-800-COLLECT:
-------------
I'm sure that most of you are familiar with those annoying commercials for
MCI's 1-800-COLLECT and AT&T's 1-800-OPERATOR services. These two services
allow you to call people collect using an automated service. For people like
us, it provides a free nation-wide messaging service.
You dial 1-800-COLLECT. The automated operator asks you to enter the area code
and number you'd like to call collect. Then it say, "At the tone, please say
your name...(Beep)" where you get about five seconds to say your name.
Now instead of saying your name though, you can say a quick message like,
"This is Ron, call me at 801-234-7448" or "Honey, I'll be home in two hours"
or "Help me, I'm trapped in a phone booth in a black neighborhood!" The person
receiving the call simply refuses the charges after they hear your message and
nobody pays for it. 1-800-COLLECT is the best one to use because they give you
the most time to "say your name."
Ordering Free Phone Books From All Over The World:
-------------------------------------------------
Some people collect stamps. Others collect rocks. And certain serial killers
collect body parts. But imagine the fun of starting your very own collection
of telephone directories from around the world. You can be the proud owner of
directories from great cities such as London, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Miami
and little podunk towns like Celina, Ohio and Roscoe, South Dakota where the
"Local Attractions" section is only two paragraphs long... "Well, as far as
local attractions here is Jessup, Iowa go, we got Herb's brand new paint job
on his tool shed and Toothless Jim here plays a helluva banjo..."
Ordering the directories is quite simple. You can either bill the cost of the
phone books to your home phone or have them send you a bill for the amount.
The beauty part of it all is that you can bill it to any phone number in the
United States. In the past, I've billed my phone books to pay phones,
restaurants that give me bad service, the White House and Ameritech Corporate
Security.
The directory offices never seem to check up on the number you're billing to
nor do they check to make sure that the billing phone number matches the
billing address. Even if the person you'd like to bill it to has a block on
their phone, you can still charge directories to their number and a single
overseas phone book can go for a few hundred dollars. While I'm sure the
person you're billing to can probably have the charges removed, it sure it a
fun way to make someone you hate lose peace of mind.
If you're going to order a lot of phone books, your biggest problem would be
where to ship your phone books. It's best to get a post office box and have
them shipped there. I had phone books comming to me regularly for an entire
six months at a post office box and was never questioned once about it,
although I started getting letters saying I'd better pay them or else and
Gloria, who worked the front desk at the post office always wanted to know why
I got so many phone books all the time. (I told her I was an asisstant manager
for a telemarketing firm.)
You could also have it shipped to your next door neighbor or any vacant house
for you to pick up later. Occasionaly I even send one to my home and nothing
ever happens except that I get a letter every few months from them wanting
their money. Below is a list of numbers you can call to order directories.
DonTech.........................(800)-541-8000
Ameritech.......................(800)-xxx-xxxx
AT&T............................(800)-xxx-xxxx
U.S.West Directory Source.......(800)-422-8793
Pick a number and tell them you want a directory from wherever and give them
the billing number and address to be shipped to. In less than two weeks you
should recieve it. One thing to remember, though, is that you ask them to
deliver the books by regular U.S. mail unless you'll be somewhere to sign for
U.P.S. A lot of post offices won't accept U.P.S. Enjoy your new hobby!
Employee News & Information Lines:
---------------------------------
The phone company has a phone number that their employees can call up and find
out what's new with the company, how the company's stock is doing, what new
advances in phones have been discovered and how they're catching people like
us. To get a newsline number, call the phone company's main office and ask
them for it. Sometimes they won't know what you're talking about but keep
pestering them until they give it to you. Below is a small list of newslines.
Bell Atlantic....................(800)-647-NEWS
Ameritech........................(800)-893-LINE
(312)-917-9797
Main Numbers & Employee Locators:
--------------------------------
An employee locator is a service for Bell employees that helps you find out
exactly what department any employee of Bell works for. Sometimes automated,
you enter in the name of the employee on your touch tone phone and the
computer will rattle off their work phone number, street address and state.
Most locators have a live operator who you just ask for the information.
Usually the employee locator is the same number as the main number. To get
this number, call up directory asisstance and ask them for the phone company's
main number. Call the main number and if they're not the employee locator, ask
them for that number. In most cases, it's given to you, no questions asked.
If you can't get the phone company's main number from directory asisstance,
try calling the billing office and ask them. Below is a short list of numbers.
Bell Atlantic (West Virginia)..........(304)-954-6202
Bell Atlantic (Virginia)...............(804)-225-6300
Cincinnati Bell (Ohio).................(513)-397-5775
South Central Bell (Jackson, Miss.)....(601)-961-1327
Southwestern Bell (Little Rock, Ark.)..(501)-373-9800
U.S. West (Western U.S.)...............(800)-879-4357
Ameritech (Indianapolis, IN)...........(317)-265-2266
Southern Bell (South Carolina).........(800)-336-0014
Pacific Bell (Los Angeles, CA).........(213)-339-6622
Partylines:
----------
An interesting way to meet new people and sometimes learn new phone tricks is
to call a party line. You can find tons of party line phone numbers in
magazines such as "Rolling Stone" and "Spin." A majority of them are some kind
of sex line/lesbian line/gay line/weirdo line but sometimes you find a nice,
normal chat line that you can talk to people on.
Every now and then you'll meet a phone phreak who'd be happy to exchange
calling cards with you or teach you a few new tricks. And a lot of average,
honest people hang out on them but learn some method of calling for free so
they can talk without going broke. These lines can be VERY addictive. Only
regular long distance charges apply on most. Some of them want a credit card.
Hotel California........................(801)-234-SHIT
Underground Party Line..................(515)-945-6700
Getting A Copy Of Someone's Phone Bill:
--------------------------------------
Finding Out A Number After It's Been Changed:
--------------------------------------------
Automatic Number Identification (ANI):
-------------------------------------
When you dial an ANI phone number, a computer voice will tell you what number
you're calling from. There's a lot of ANI numbers out there but my favorite
one is 1-800-MY-ANI-IS. Call this number and a computer voice simply says,
"Your ANI is xxx-xxx-xxxx" and hangs up. I have no idea who sponsors this or
who pays for it but it's been there for a long time. Zak claims that ANI knows
the future and the past by dialing things like 1-800-MY-ANI-WAS or
1-800-MY-ANI-WILL-BE but for some reason I don't believe him.
If you have a friend with Caller I.D., call the friend from the phone you want
to identify and your friend can read the number to you. If you don't have any
friends, call a business who has Caller I.D. and tell them that you're the
phone company testing their Caller I.D. and ask them to read back your number.
Hacking Telephone Answering Machines by Doctor Pizz & Cybersperm:
----------------------------------------------------------------
It seems that lately there is very little discussion of one of the most
simple but useful and rewarding forms of electronic information gathering,
hacking the telephone answering machine. Almost everyone has one of these
wonderful devices these days, to catch important messages while they are away
from their phones, or to screen important telephone calls. Nowadays, they
typically have the added advantage of being accessible from remote telephones,
so one needs to simply call his or her answering machine, enter their secret
code, and then either retrieve new messages, or listen to anything they had
previously recorded on the incoming messages tape, or perform any of a set of
additional functions determined by which key they press on their touch tone
phone. They also typically ignore the fact that virtually anyone else can
gain access to their messages by entering the appropriate code. Hence this is
a wonderful system to gather information from anyone without their knowledge,
especially if they are technologically illiterate.
For the most part, there are two main types of "electronic password" used by
these systems. They are amazingly simple to crack, as they are typically only
2-digit or even 1-digit numbers. On some machines, the code must be entered
before the outgoing message is over, on others, it must be entered after the
outgoing message, and on more sophisticated models, it can be entered at any
time.
MODERN 2-DIGIT PASSCODE SYSTEMS:
These are the most common systems in use today, typically made by Panasonic,
AT&T, etc. In these systems, the code can be entered before during or after
the beep tone. For security reasons, we recommend BEFORE the beep tone, so
your intrusions are unnoticed... We will begin by discussing how to identify
the passcode.
Now, the question of how to hack their code. Well, this is so simple, you
don't even need a computer to do it. You can just enter all 2-digit
combinations until you get the right one (usually signalled by a series of
beeps on the other end). A relatively crude way was to enter each number in
sequence 01, 02, 03, 04,...,99. This works, but may take too long to enter
all numbers within the 20-30 second window we typically have before the beep
(The best time to play arounnd, as any tones entered after the beep will be
recorded on his incoming messages tape, and could let him know something is
up...). It is also important to stop as soon as you hit the right number, as
the additional entered numbers may be interpreted by the answering machine as
codes, and cause you to delete all their messages, or record a new greeting,
etc. That is really asking for trouble, and may cause them to try and change
their password (though it's usually only possible to choose from a range of
three consecutive numbers anyway...). Still, you need to be careful not to
let them catch on, eh?
A more sophisticated and fast way to do this is to take advantage of the fact
that such machines typically do not read two numbers at a time, and discard
them, but just look for the correct sequence, reading one at a time. In other
words, you can enter all 100 possible codes with roughly 1/2 the number of
keystrokes. Just enter as follows:
0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9,etc.
By reading in one phase we get:
0 0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 0,8 0,9 1,1 2,1 3,1 4,1 5,1 6,1 7,1 8,1 9,etc.
In the other phase we get:
0 1,0 2,0 3,0 4,0 5,0 6,0 7,0 8,0 9,1 1,2 1,3 1,4 1,5 1,6 1,7 1,8 1,etc.
So by proceeding as follows we enter the following matrix sequentially,
encompassing all possible 2 digit numbers:
0 0 1 0 2 0 3 0 4 0 5 0 6 0 7 0 8 0 9
1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9
2 2 3 2 4 2 5 2 6 2 7 2 8 2 9
3 3 4 3 5 3 6 3 7 3 8 3 9
4 4 5 4 6 4 7 4 8 4 9
5 5 6 5 7 5 8 5 9
6 6 7 6 8 6 9
7 7 8 7 9
8 8 9
9 0
The last zero is important, as it completes the cycle, and allows for the code
9 0, which is the only one not as yet allowed for. I must emphasize the
importance of quitting as soon as you get the correct code, and also do not
keep going after the beep, if you are on a modern 2-digit access code system.
This way, you can record the passcode for your future reference, and prevent
detection.
Now, we shall get on to the question of how to use their system, once
you've broken in. In general, it is recommended to obtain a copy of the
owners' manual for various machines, but I have summarized some of the basics
below.
PANASONIC
Here are the codes for a Panasonic Easa-phone KX-T1450. The KX-T2420 is
identical without Room Monitor function In this case, strange things happen
when you enter 5:
1 = Back Space (Rewind the OGM tape)
2 = Skip Forward (Fast forward the OGM tape)
3 = Reset (Go back to the beginning of the OGM tape. MAY CAUSE ERASURE!!!)
4 = Memory Playback (Listen to new messages)
5 = Room Monitor (!!!! Listen to what is going on in the room NOW !!!!)
(This is only available on some models... But, try it...)
7 = OGM-REC (Record a new greeting!!!)
9 = OGM-STOP (Stop recording the new greeting)