442 DEAR HACKER

442 DEAR HACKER

We’re not running a covert operation here. Everything we do is open to public scru- tiny. Our mailing list, though, has never been touched by anyone outside of 2600. Of course, the post office could be writing down every name that ever shows up on a copy of 2600. But that would be pointless and extremely time consuming. If, by some bizarre twist of fate, the government were to actually launch investiga- tions into everyone who received interesting mail, the way to fight such oppression would not be by hiding and allowing it to continue. Challenging authority is our obligation, particularly if that authority is being abused.

Dear 2600: This letter is intended for those people who break the first command-

ment of the Phone Phreaker’s Ten Commandments (TAP #86) which is: “Box thou not over thine home telephone wires, for those who doest must surely bring the wrath of the chief special agent down upon thy heads.”

Blue boxing is something that is done quite easily here in Ontario and Quebec. All we need to do is dial any phone number (handled by AT&T) that goes to the United States. The two areas in which we can box off of are Springfield, MA (4132T) and Buffalo, NY (7162T). From there you do whatever you want and can with your blue box.

I began blue boxing in 1986 and always boxed from a payphone. In 1988, I began boxing to Compuserve’s CB. Since we only have Tymnet and DataPac, which both charge about $10 an hour, it was much cheaper to box to a local CIS number at 30 cents an hour. I was even nice to AT&T by boxing to the local number in Springfield, MA so as not to charge them with an LD call. I did all my computer boxing from

a local school to be safe, and still obeying the first commandment. In 1989, I was subscribed to call forwarding. I noticed that when I

forwarded my number to an 800 number in the States, an operator would come on the line to do a number verification. Hmm, this was interesting. Bell Canada didn’t know who I was, so I would give them any number except my own. This made me think that I could get away with boxing at home, because AT&T, if they received my number when dialing over there, would have the number I gave to the operator. I

A C U LT U R E O F R E B E L S

began doing this in November 1989. 1 began using the blue boxing techniques to call anywhere, anytime. It was a lot of fun.

Now I knew that the Bell equipment here (DMS-100) was recording everything I dialed even as an operator with my blue box. I also knew that Bell should be ringing my doorbell soon. But they never came by. I got rid of my call forwarding, but continued calling from home. Every once in a while, I would slow down, because 1 was making just too many calls.

Well, it finally happened. Recently, a friend of mine called me up and said that Bell Canada Security just visited him. They handed him a nice little bill of $3,000. He was dialing 976 services every night for

a couple of hours. Then, about an hour later, Bell Security showed up at my door. I was freaked out and panicking as I went to the door with my parents yelling at me. I looked down at the amount they wanted from me and then almost laughed. They only wanted $350! Boy, what a relief. Of course, they took all my spare change, but at least I was able to pay for it. They only had my calls for the previous month. My theory is that the computer erases the dialing info every month when the bill is made.

I found out that for the whole 418 and 819 area codes, there are only three security people from Bell Canada working them. That’s the whole province of Quebec excluding Montreal. I guess that’s one reason why it took over a year and a half for them to come visiting, but then again maybe not. I have another friend who just started phreaking this month and was caught for $80. And there were quite a few others being caught that day, the security guy told me. I wanted to ask why it took them so long to come and get me, but of course I wasn’t going to let them know how long I was doing this for.

Now if you’re asking yourselves why I didn’t just say that I didn’t have

a clue as to what they were talking about, you can blame that on my parents’ big mouths who started talking way too much.