The Fixer Presents Colored Boxes a 1998 Review File 4 of 4 Other Kinds of Boxes, Non-Phreak Boxes, Jokes and Parodies .---------------------------------------------------------------. | Others | `---------------------------------------------------------------' Blast Box and Loud Box (Phone mic amplifier) The "Blast Box" and "Loud Box" are mouthpiece amplifiers. The Blast Box is intended to make the called party's receiver so loud that it's more like a loudspeaker. I was called by a few telemarketers using a device like this back in the early 1980's, so I know it existed once. Also, my local phone company once experimented with extremely loud "You left your phone off the hook, please hang up now" recordings. The Loud Box is the same thing, only less obnoxious - its function is simply to make your voice more audible to the other party on analog conference calls, long distance calls, and other times when your signal might otherwise come through poorly. These devices were invented back in the old days when a phone call created a direct analog connection between the caller and callee, giving almost unlimited dynamic range and thus happily passing extremely loud signals when desired. With today's digital switches, the voice is digitized, which limits not only the frequencies but the volume levels that can be passed through the phone system. Below a certain level, the switch will pass no signal at all, and above, it will "clip". "Normal" speech levels fall between the extremes. On the upside, digital switching also eliminates a lot of the problems that would have made a legitimate mic amplifier desirable - today, long distance and conference calls are loud and clear. Plausibility: Largely real with a significant bullshit factor. The concept has been put to commercial use on an experimental basis. Obsolescence: Nearly 100 percent obsolete now. Skill: Not much. You could likely use an off-the-shelf amplifier to boost the mic signal. Risks: You could only get in trouble if you damaged your line or pissed off the wrong person. Busy Box (Makes a line busy all the time) If you short a phone line, anyone who calls it will get a busy signal. This is a basic truth and is the only thing the Busy Box text file has to offer you. It's yet another example of an adolescent effort to get recognition in the virtual underworld by writing a text file about *something*. Plausibility: Real but VERY pointless. The busy condition will last only as long as it takes to call repair service. Obsolescence: Still current. Skill: Zero skill needed. Risks: Only of being caught in the act. Chartreuse Box (Steals DC power from the phone line) The Chartreuse Box is another exercise in lameness. It purports to give free electric power from the phone line, but the phone line's DC power can only supply a small current, above which you'll trip circuit breakers. Never mind that as soon as the phone rings, whatever you happen to be powering will be fried. Plausibility: None at all. Obsolescence: N/A. Skill: You need more skill than the textfile author, that's certain. Risks: You are certain to draw the phone company's attention with this thing. Chrome Box (Change traffic lights) This is not a phreak box. It claims to be able to change traffic lights by emulating those flashing strobe lights you sometimes see on fire engines. A lot of cities aren't using that system anymore, and I don't think that the timing needed is as critical as the textfile claims. There IS such a thing as a Chrome Box, however. I once rode in a taxicab that used to be a police car, and the cabbie showed off a button under the dash that flashed the headlights. INSTANTLY the lights at the intersection we were at changed. If the sensor that changes the lights can be tripped by flashing headlights, then there's probably no need to build an elaborate box. Plausibility: Real but with a significant bullshit factor. Obsolescence: Increasing as the optical system is phased out. Skill: Depending on how critical the system in your area is with respect to timing, this could be an easy headlight flasher or an elaborate hidden strobe lamp arrangement. Risks: If you are spotted manipulating the traffic lights by police, you can count on being arrested and treated poorly. After all, you're stepping on their turf. And, the device carries with it a risk of causing an accident, possibly involving you. Clear Box (defeats audio muting on postpay payphones) The Clear Box takes advantage of pay phones where you are supposed to dial first and pay when your party answers. The phone mutes the mouthpiece until you put in the quarter (or whatever the call costs). However, the earpiece is still active, and while you are fishing in your pocket for that quarter, you can hear your called party going "Hello? Hello?". The Clear Box is basically an amplifier and an induction coil that lets you speak into a microphone, amplifies your voice, and feeds it into the coil, which then transfers the voice signal directly into the phone line by electromagnetic induction, bypassing the muted microphone. The *concept* is sound, but if you can even find the phone line itself, it is very well shielded with metal piping that will beautifully (and inconveniently) absorb any magnetic induction signal you try to impart through it. And if you had easy enough access to the line to successfully do this, you would likely do better just to bud box your calls in the first place. A version of this file suggests putting the induction coil near the earpiece, and your voice would then enter the phone line that way, presumably by way of crosstalk. The problem with this is that if you used a strong enough induction signal to be heard, you would also oscillate the earpiece's cone, resulting in loud feedback and the deafening sound of your own voice. I don't think so. I strongly suspect that clear boxes really did exist, but the text files most of us see about them are based on conjecture and second hand reports. Perhaps the original clear boxers found an electromagnetic weak spot in the phone or some point on the line where they could inject an electromagnetic signal. Perhaps the mouthpiece cutoff relay was near the outside of the phone, in which case a strong magnet would have defeated it. Postpay phones have one more problem that the clear box files never mentioned. Not all phone calls require you to speak. On a postpay phone you can call up the local sports scores line or whatever and just listen - the phone might even let you use its keypad! If you live near a postpay phone, try it some time. Try local, long distance, even 900 numbers. Try everything till you find a weakness, that's what real phone hackers do! Plausibility: Not terribly likely. As I said, the concept is sound, but I doubt the file authors actually did it. Obsolescence: Moderately high, increasing. Postpay Phones were widespread in Canada and the rural U.S. in the 1980s but here in Canada they are disappearing. Skill: Expert. You'd have to build an amplifier and an induction coil, and probe for the best EM weak spot on the phone, an artful venture. Risks: Low if there's no one around to see it, which is likely in the kinds of out-of-the-way places these phones were used in. Any kind of payphone phreaking that involves gadgets carries the risk that someone will see you acting suspiciously. Copper Box (Creates a loop in the long distance system, crashing it) This isn't a phreak box but it once may have worked. Everything about this idea reeks of urban legend, so I'm giving it a low plausibility rating. Here's how it's supposed to have worked. Call an 800 number with an extender. From that, you get dialtone and call the same 800 number again. Repeat a few dozen times until the toll network is filled up with your calls, and it crashes. I really don't think this could ever have worked simply because the toll free system as a whole will not run out of lines before the 800 number you are using runs out of extenders. It may even have only one! Plausibility: Very implausible. You'd have to show me a newspaper clipping or something before I'd believe it ever happened. Obsolescence: Almost certainly, if it was ever done it happened decades ago when the toll free network was far less capacious than it is today. As implausible as it was back then, it is a virtual impossibility today. The worst you can do is tie up the extender owner's switchboard temporarily. Skill: You'd have needed an extender and to know how to use it. Risks: If you did it from home and succeeded, you'd have some very angry telco security dudes at your doorstep toot suite. Remember, 800 subscribers have ANI. DNA Box (Cellphone Hacking) The "DNA Box" is not a box. A few years ago, a group called DNA released some cell hacking files and called the series "The DNA Box". Cellphone Hacking is a pretty big subject in itself, and with new technologies emerging, it's still a developing set of methods, and beyond the scope of this series. Plausibility: Quite. DNA's files are pretty credible but quite basic. Obsolescence: The files are old. A lot of the phones from those days are no longer in service, none are still sold new today. Skill: Varies with technique. Generally high. Risks: Still low, for now. Stay mobile and low profile to stay free. Grab Box (Radio Antenna Extension) The Grab Box is frequently found among phreak box files but it's not a box at all. All it is is a long wire antenna for an AM radio. Everyone who owned a shortwave receiver back in radio's golden age knew that for long distance reception, longer is better when it comes to wire antennas. And now, someone has come along and called the wire antenna a box. Plausibility: Nothing more than an ego trip. Obsolescence, Skill, Risks: All N/A. Neon Box (Direct Audio to phone line) The Neon Box text file is just instructions for how to connect an audio source, for example a sound card, directly to the phone line. You risk frying your audio source if you do it, because most tape recorders/sound cards are not designed to cope with the 90 VAC ringing voltage on the line. Get an FCC Part 68 interface if you're serious about sending direct audio into the line from an arbitrary source. Or hack up an old phone and use the mic line as your audio input. Plausibility: Perfectly plausible until someone phones you, then your tape recorder starts smoking and stops working and the whole idea fades into fantasy. Obsolescence: N/A Skill: Very basic. Risks: You're likely to wreck your equipment, and probably your phone line. Phuck Box (Uses call forwarding to exploit overlapping toll free zones) This isn't really a box. Most areas have overlapping toll-free calling zones (A and C), where two areas that may be a long distance call between them have, in common, a geographical area that is not long distance to either point (B). So, (A) must pay LD to call (C) and (C) must pay LD to call (A) but (A) and (C) can both call (B) for free, and (B) can call (A) and (C) for free. Sometimes there are one-way exceptions, check your local calling rate sheet. Anyway, if someone in (B) forwards their calls to someone in (C) then anyone in (A) could call (B) for free and get forwarded, toll free, to the person in (C). This is the idea behind the Forwarding Phuck Box. BBS Operators have used this trick for years to allow more people to call them toll-free without the high cost of a regional 800 number, but the textfile authors suggest having Call Forwarding turned on for an unwitting mark and then beige boxing the mark's house to set the forwarding destination. Only thing is, if you can spend the gas money to drive to (B) everytime you want to call (C) from (A), you'll probably find it cheaper just to pay Ma Bell for the call instead. I think a Gold Box would be a better solution, especially one installed in a business where the phone is never used after hours. As long as only local (to the box) calls are made, it should last a very long time. You could do this at work, and call BBSes and ISPs downtown from the suburbs without having to pay for optional extended local service or LD! And it's only when you start charging LD calls that eyebrows would get raised in Accounting. Plausibility: The BBS version of this is real, but I think the textfile is full of shit. Obsolescence: Only works where the forwarding party pays for forwarded toll calls and the forwarded does not pay for forwarded toll calls. This is the norm and is actually getting more common, not less. Skill: Very little skill involved. Risks: If you do as the text file suggest, you're beige boxing and therefore prowling and therefore at risk of being seen. Not good. Scarlet Box (Creates very bad connection) The Scarlet Box was written by someone who never tried it. All it does is short out the victim's phone line, when its purpose is supposed to be to create line noise. If you use a direct piece of wire the phone company will be around shortly to fix the problem as a dead short is very undesirable to them. If you use a resistor the line will just stay open all the time. Whoop-de-doo. Plausibility: None. Obsolescence: N/A Skill: None to speak of required. Risks: You still have to prowl around the victim's house to install it. Snow Box (micropower UHF television transmitter) The Snow Box is not a phreak box, it's a TV transmitter. It belongs in the Pirate Radio file section of underground boards, and is only mentioned here because (a) it's called a Box, and (b) it appears so often among phreak boxes. Unless you are planning on doing your own version of the Razor and Blade show, and have been turned down by your cable community access channel, the Snow Box is of very little use to you as a phreak. Plausibility: 100% real, pirate TV is a well documented phenomenon. Obsolescence: Works wherever there are UHF TVs to receive your signal. Skill: Successful pirate TV requires advanced skills. Risks: Pirate TV and Radio stations are busted all the time. Power Box and Tron Box (Free Power) The Power Box is nothing more than stealing electric power by bypassing the meter. The power company WILL notice this, if you don't kill yourself in the attempt. Remember, the voltage through the meter is 220 volts, not 110. It will kill you twice as dead. The Tron Box is a series of capacitors which supposedly slow the meter using the reactance of the box's circuit. The claim is that the more power you use, the slower the meter will run. If constructed and plugged in, in fact a Tron Box will explode. Literally - the capacitors are rated at 50 volts, your line is 120. And they are electrolytic, meaning polarized, meaning unsuitable for use in an A.C. circuit. Ever see a big filter cap go foom? Plausibility: Zero. Both were written by idiots who knew not what they were talking about. The Tron Box probably came from The Anarchist Cookbook or some similar publication which is widely suspected of being produced by the U.S. Government with deliberate misinformation so that would-be American neo-Revolutionaries kill themselves in the attempt to overthrow The Man. Certainly no one in the boardroom of Con Ed would be upset at the news of a college communist who electrocutes himself frying... err... trying to get some free juice. Obsolescence: N/A. Skill: The Man is counting on your lack of skill... Risks: Electrocution, fire, arrest for attempted theft of service. On the upside, you risk being nominated for the coveted Darwin award. .---------------------------------------------------------------. | Jokes and Parodies | `---------------------------------------------------------------' Assassin Box (Zap your enemies by phone) This is along the same general lines as the Spike Box, but with some adaptation might actually do something. Unlike the Spike Box, this is connected directly to your victim's phone line. The victim picks up the phone and gets electrocuted. The plans given in text files tell you to connect a battery but the problem is that phone lines actually operate on a higher voltage than the battery they prescribe. Now, if you changed this to a power source that kicked out a few dozen kilovolts, you'd have something useful. Plausibility: None to speak of. Obsolescence: N/A. Skill: You need better electrical skills than the guy who wrote the text file, that's for sure. Risks: You have to prowl around outside your victim's house for a prolonged period, your chances of not being caught aren't good. Blotto Box and Spike Box (A bad joke that went too far, supposed to shut down an area code with overvoltage) It amazes me that even today, from time to time, someone still posts a serious question as to whether the Blotto Box works. This started out as a parody years ago, and has been worked into serious textfiles by several writers who mostly just want to "see their name in lights". The Blotto Box purports to cause such grievous damage to the phone company that an entire area code would be taken out. This is done by sending high voltage down the line. There are lots of things wrong with this, not the least of which is that the outside plant (i.e. all that copper overhead) is riddled with circuit breakers, fuses, gas discharge devices, etcetera. And this makes sense, because if a 220 volt Honda generator could bring an area code to its knees as the Blotto Boxers claim, then the first lightning strike would destroy the whole system. Second, the file suggests using a Honda portable generator. Depending on the model you'll either get 110 volts or 220, which you can get from household outlets anyway. Why waste the money to rent a generator? And it amazes me that the authors never thought of instead hooking up a Tesla coil, which typically would be over 100 kilovolts - and due to its high frequency, might actually jump a blown breaker and cause damage a little further down the line than your local loop! HellO!!! The kicker is, someone else did think of this. They called it the "Spike Box". The claim there is that you can electrocute a dialled victim, burn their house down by phone, etc. Suuuuuure. If you want to get the phone company's attention, a parcel full of manure sent to their security department would be more effective than blowing out one subscriber loop. Plausibility: Zero. Just writing this was a waste of my time. Obsolescence: N/A - it never worked anyway. Skill: Duh, two jumper wires, it's too compelcated fur me, George. Risks: You'll just get in shit for nothing. Mauve Box (No-contact tap) Let me start by saying that the Mauve Box is pure unfiltered bullshit. It claims to be able to tap distant phone lines by using a "magnetic field" which you generate by running your phone line through a bucket of mixed soil and iron filings. No way is given as to how to direct it to tap a particular line. Anyone who's taken Grade 7 science knows the Mauve Box is a joke file, and I think a lot of people who would have flunked elementary school would also hold a pretty big suspicion about it. It's that obvious. Plausibility: Zero. The file tries really hard to make itself look plausible but the total disregard for scientific reality gives it away anyway. Obsolescence: N/A Skill: You'd have to have a skill level below zero and an IQ to match to think of following the Mauve Box instructions. Risks: You might hurt your back shoveling the soil, otherwise none. Paisley Box (Bad joke, supposed to sieze a TSPS operator's console) The "Paisley Box" is just a parody file. Its file description on BBSes implied that you could sieze a TSPS operator's console, but what you actually get is a file which will get you drunk and electrocuted (and it says so). This parody is mentioned only because even to this day, the Paisley Box is still described in file lists everywhere as a serious phreak box. Plausibility: None. It was a joke. Enough already! Obsolescence: N/A. Skill: How much skill does it take to drink a keg of beer? Risks: Electrocution, alcohol poisoning. Rainbow Box (Destroy enemy's phone line) This is another joke file. It's supposed to take out your enemy's phone line and everything around it by simply plugging 120 Volts AC into it. In fact, the *worst* that can happen is you'll set off a circuit breaker. Plausibility: None. The file acutually says you have to have an IQ of 2 or less to use it. Obsolescence: N/A. Skill: Almost none. Risks: Electrocution. Urine Box (Kill/Maim Enemies by phone) The text file for this box starts off seeming pretty normal, until you get to the part where it tells you what it does. That's where the file takes a sharp left turn into the Horseshit Zone. It claims to create a "capacitive disturbance" in the victim's phone line. By remote, from your line. Turn up the "disturbance" enough and you can melt the victim's phone or make his body explode. Probably the most glaring error with this is that even if this were possible, the same conditions would have to exist on your line too, meaning you'd be lying there dead and/or gibbed while your intended victim is still going "Hello? Hello?". But even that isn't going to happen. The Urine Box is just another adolescent grab at notoriety and nothing else. Plausibility: None whatsoever. Obsolescence: N/A. Skills: Irrelevant. Risks: If you're dumb enough to believe it works, you will probably screw up the construction and damage your phone line.