Beginner's Guide to Phreaking

Beginner's Guide to Phreaking
By, Akurei
June/25/2000





I.	History of Phreaking

II.	Social Engineering

III.	Boxing (Field Phreaking)

IV.	Free Calling

V.	Misconceptions

VI.	Resources







I.	History of Phreaking



	Some say that all phreaking is just boxing.  This is totally untrue.  There 
are many aspects of phreaking.
There is teleconferencing, social-engineering, field phreaking and much much 
more.  I will be discussing many of
these aspects in modern terms.  Phreaking has been around since Bell created 
the telephone, which was long before
hacking came about.  Except it wasn't called phreaking at the time.  In fact 
they did not have a word for it.  But
because of people breaking into telephone systems becoming more and more 
numerous around the early 80's, there was
more and more need for a name.  The people who broke into telephone systems 
were dubbed "phreakers".  (Freek-er) is
defined as someone who enters a telephone system without the proper 
authority.  If you have seen the movie Wargames
(which is a hacker/phreaker classic), you will see the boy sticking a small, 
metal object into the telephone.  In
this movie he played a phreaker/hacker.  This movie was very popular at the 
time (The early 80's).  This shows you
a small piece of how phreakers were treated in those days.  They were 
treated like heroes!  Now the thought of the
phreaker brings chills down people's spines.  This was the time when there 
were few laws governing many areas of
American and many European country's communication systems.  But before the 
early 80's... there were no need for
these laws.  Very few people would try to break into the telephone system 
and use the telephone companies resources.
This is around the time of Capt'n Crunch, Eric Bloodaxe and all of the 
really scary hackers/phreakers.  Because of
the vulnerable telephone networks and the need for new trends and hobbies at 
the dawn of the 80's, Phone Phreaking
really began.  It spread throughout the world like a wild-fire and did not 
stop until the early 90's.  About the
time when the BBS (Bulletin Board System) became just about obsolete, and so 
did phreaking.  Phreakers are a dying
race and the art of phreaking may soon be lost.  As for the hackers... 
Hacking is becoming more and more widespread
and it is now part of most American's vocabulary.  (Whereas the general 
response to the words phreaking, phreak, or
phreaker generally makes the listener shout "HUH?!").  Times change.  More 
and more people today see on the news "A
HACKER HAS DEFACED ONE OF OUR GOVERNMENT'S MOST TOP SECRET WEBSITES BY USING 
A SIMPLE CGI SCRIPT"  Due to people
nowadays being as gullible as they are and more widespread forms of 
communication, hacking is flourishing.  People
would generally rather watch television and use the computer rather than 
talk on the telephone.  Phreaking is not dead
by any means.  There are thousands of teens as well as adults around the 
world learning the art of phreaking.  The main
problem for phreaking is the small amount of technology that 
telecommunications have gone through over the years compared
to computerized forms of communication.  Most kids think that there are more 
"options" available as a computer user (which
there is) than a telephone user.  And This is because of this twenty-first 
century leap into computers, software as well
as hardware has been changing rapidly and more and more people are buying 
computers and getting online, which gives hacker
more targets to claim "UNSECURE!".  In the past, the hacker's enemy has been 
fellow hackers.  But now, his enemy is most
definitely the government.  For the Phreaker, the enemy is telco and the 
government (The government is not very friendly as
you can see). Telco is The telephone company if you are unfamiliar with this 
term.  Telco is also the phreaker's best friend
when it is giving him his free long distance calling to China (etc.) For 
phreaking to rise again, we must spread it around.
Maybe someone will find new holes in telecommunications networks and create 
new problems for telco to solve.  This would
bring more interest to phreaking which could actually bring another uprise 
to the phreaker population.  In my opinion that
would be a good thing!  I figured I would just provide some basic background 
on the history of phreaking.  I hoped you
enjoyed this section.  Now... for the fun stuff!!!







II.	Social Engineering



	Social Engineering is a very broad topic and I will only describe the main 
aspects of this art.  Social Engineering
is defined as manipulating the opinion and/or choices of another through 
words and actions.  The best example of social
engineering is prank calling.  To some people this may seem immature and 
wrong.  But to others, it is very good practice
and very important for the hacker/phreaker.  It builds confidence in the 
phreaker's ability to manipulate his targets
to meet whatever goal he needs accomplished.  This ability is very 
important.  He may need it to coax a man into giving him
his answering machine password, maybe even convince someone that he is a 
telco worker and get information out of them in this
way.  Basically what I am saying is, the best way to develop your social 
engineering skills is by prank calling.  I have read
a few texts on this subject and I believe the best way to go about prank 
calling is to start by calling a number like America
Online technical support (1-888-265-8006), 1800-GATEWAY, or another large 
company of this sort.  Make the call last as long as
possible!  And do this by not laughing, not angering the person on the other 
end of the telephone, and not doing something totally
out of the ordinary. For example, Call America online and say "Hi, I have a 
computer virus, there is a naked ninety year old woman
wearing a Turban dancing around my computer screen, Can you please help 
me?".  And be creative from there.  Although it has nothing
to do with America Online, ninety percent of the time they will accept the 
call as legitimate and keep talking with you.  And THAT
is the trick to prank calling! Keeping the call legitimate... If you call 
and start laughing, they will know right away
that you are lying and hang up.  The same applies if you are making them 
angry.  They will just hang up.  And them hanging
up on you is not good practice at all.  If you get good enough, you will be 
able to convince anyone to do or think just about
anything.  And that is exactly what a con-artist does.  He creates a mental 
connection with a person and makes them feel that
something that usually would be totally ridiculous (The action or thought 
the con-artist is trying to send to the person), would
be perfectly normal!  And it works!  All it takes is practice.  And prank 
calling is the absolutely the best way to develop
your social engineering skills.







III.	Boxing (Field Phreaking)



	There is a misconception that Boxing is field phreaking.  This is not true. 
  Boxing is just one form of the many parts
and pieces of field phreaking.  Basically field phreaking is phreaking at a 
remote location.  Examples would be, at an enemy's
house, at a party, etc.  There are many types of boxes and are almost all 
named after a color.  The most popular boxes are the
Red Box, the Blue Box, and the Beige Box.  Although the blue box is almost 
totally obsolete, it is very famous.  The red box
(which is used to free local calling at pay telephones) still does work.  
But you must find a telephone that it will work on.
Alot of older telephones will work when using your red box.  Cocots and 
Fortress phones are the main targets for phreakers
using red boxes.  A cocot is a customer owned, controlled and operated 
telephone.  Another words, a business will pay money
to get a pay phone installed around or in their business area.  They will 
get the money for a monthly, or yearly fee instead
of the usual case where all of the money goes to the telephone company that 
is running the telephone.  "How do you know which
phone is a cocot or not" you may ask.  Well, the answer is easy.  Cocots 
will NOT have telephone company stickers all over them.
Like bellsouth, at&t and sprint.  They may not have any stickers at all.  
Usually though, they will have some odd sticker on
them, a sticker that you may see very rarely.  On further investigation, the 
sticker(s) will usually say "Call xxx-xxx-xxxx
for pricing".  The telephone is screaming "COCOT!".  But, there is the case 
where a small telephone company will run the
telephone.  But usually, it is At&t, Bell networks, and Sprint running pay 
telephones.  A simple way to make a red box is :

(1) Buy a yak-bak or something of that sort.
(2) Record it from the internet. (There are tones readily available on 
phreaking software such as winphreak).
(3) OR, you can get the tones from a payphone.
(4) Go to a pay phone, and put in the money required (35 cents in my area).
(5) Call a number with a digital answering machine.
(6) Insert in one quarter, one dime, and one nickel, two or three seconds 
apart.
(7) Go to the house with the answering machine and record the tones onto 
your yak bak from there.
(8) To keep the tones from being over-written on your yak bak, open the yak 
bak and remove the record button entirely.
(9) This may not work considering the tones you have recorded may be 
distorted.
(10) If the tones are even slightly distorted, IT WILL NOT WORK!  So don't 
screw up.
(11) Play the tones into the mouthpiece of a payphone that is vulnerable to 
the red box.
(12) It should give you a dial tone and say "THANK YOU"
(13) You have now tricked the telephone into thinking that the money has 
been entered into the coin slot.
(14) Dial!


	This is just a very simple way to create a red box.  The real way to create 
a red box is creating it from scratch.
A beige box or a lineman's handset as it is referred to by most telephone 
companies, is used to gain total access to a phone
line.  With a beige box you can listen into telephone calls, dial out, and 
even do teleconferencing.  This is a tool no
phreak should be without. Have you ever wanted to listen into your 
neighbor's calls, or call out of state for free?!  I KNOW
THAT I HAVE!  And I did!  The neighbor was away... so I walked over, hooked 
up my trusty beige box and there I was, talking
to a friend from England.  The neighbor returned home while I was still on 
their telephone line, so I hung up.  They picked
up their phone and guess who picked up right after to listen to everything 
they were saying?  ME!  Of course, there is many
boxes besides the red and the beige box, but I figured that I would only 
talk about the most popular ones.  Get on your
clothes, and get boxing!  If you plan on becoming a phreaker, boxing is an 
essential.







IV.	Free Calling


	I will explain this in step by step format which is alot easier for the 
writer and the viewer.  This is not the only
way to get free calling.  Just a very easy way.  This works on about thirty 
percent of modern day telephones.  So go find a
pay telephone and start phreaking!


1)	Buy a tone dialer if you do not have one.  A tone dialer is a small 
electronic keypad usually used on rotary phones.

2)	Find a pay telephone.

3)	On the telephone, dial an eight hundred number.  All payphones are forced 
to let you dial free eight hundred numbers.

4)	If and when someone answers, tell them to hang up because you have dialed 
the wrong number. (It doesn't really matter
	what you say, just get them to hang up).

5)	When he hangs up, the telephone you are on should give you a dial tone.

6)	If you can, just dial the phone number and you have got your free call.

7)	If the keypad is disabled, then stick the handy tone dialer to the mouth 
piece of the receiver, and dial the number
	on the tone dialer.

8)	If the mouth piece is disabled then well... you can dial with the keypad, 
but not talk.

9)	If the keypad and mouth piece is disabled... You are screwed, go find a 
different pay phone.

10)	Just a suggestion... Tone dialers usually have a light on them.  This 
light wastes the battery.  To disable the light,
	open up the tone dialer, and clip the wire coming from the small amount of 
solder right under the back of the light.
	Take the clipped wire and solder it to the solder on the left side of the 
tone dialer.  This will generate a loop
	to where you have disabled the light and are not loosing battery power by 
pressing it.







V.	Misconceptions



False :		Phreaking is dead!

True  :		Phreaking is not dead, maybe dying. It is not nearly as popular as 
it has been in the past.



False :		Boxes don't work anymore!

True  :		Most boxes don't work anymore... Some boxes only work under the 
right conditions.



False :		Hacking is better than phreaking.

True  :		Hacking and phreaking are both arts.  One is not better than the 
other.



False :		Phreaking is wrong.

True  :		Phreaking is only wrong if you abuse it.



False :		There is no point of phreaking.

True  :		Phreaking gives you knowledge of the telephone system you use every 
day.  If you choose to abuse it... then
		there is no point in phreaking.



False :		A war dialer is a form of phreaking.

True  :		Although this my be considered more of an opinion, I believe that a 
war dialer is for hacking exclusively.  A war
		dialer has nothing to do with breaking into telephones, only finding 
carriers.



False :		The only aspects of phreaking are boxing and social engineering.

True  :		This is totally untrue.  Where there is new telephone technology, 
there is new aspects of phreaking.  And new
		telephone technology is being created daily.  (Although it is NOT being 
created as quickly as computer technology).



False :		Phreaking is totally safe.

True  :		Messing with electronics can be very dangerous.  Be careful!  There 
is always a chance that you could electrocute
		yourself.



False :		I cannot be caught when I am phreaking.

True  :		Phreaking can get you in alot of trouble.  Try as hard as possible 
to phreak only at night and not to phreak with
		you own telephone.  If you are caught phreaking, you will definitely 
regret it!



False :		When I am done this text, I will be a great phreak.

True  :		Nope.  This text is just to teach you the basics of phreaking.







VI.	Resources



http://www.inforeading.com	Very good site for texts.

http://www.akur.net		My site, which has alot of information on phreaking in 
the texts section.

http://mystik.twoteeth.net	Mystik's site.

http://www.dugnet.net		Dugnet irc server's site.

http://www.phonelosers.org	Damned good prank calls.  =P

http://www.phonebashing.com	Funny guys running around in cell phone suits, 
stealing cell phones and breaking them.

http://www.techfreakz.com	Some pretty good information on scams and 
phreaking.

http://www.attrition.org	Very good information on hacking/phreaking etc.







Thanks mystik for helping with the text.  You can contact me on irc on the 
server irc.dugnet.net in the channels #phreaking,
#chatzone, and #programming or on efnet in channel #inforeading and 
#geekout. You can email me at [email protected].  Thanks for
reading my text on phreaking, I hope you have learned something from it.  I 
may make more texts on other topics if I have time.