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PRANKS, REVENGE, and GENERAL MAYHEM vol. 16
--------------------------------------------------------[ 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.
