"Maybe if you treated people as people and not as toys to play around with
you wouldn't have this superficial Redboxchilipepper life." -Chris Tomkinson,
1994
The reason your police scanner is so boring is because not enough people in your neighborhood take advantage of the modern convenience of a cordless phone. Hopefully this file will help your neighbors overcome this problem and bring your city out of the dark ages, spawning a whole new world of fun for scanner buffs all over town.
Getting to Know Your Neighbors:
First of all you need to figure out which of your neighbors need to get
cordless phones. Any inexpensive scanner will pick up a 2-3 block range, even
further if you invest in an antenna to mount on top of your house. (Or you tap
into the next door neighbor's 80 foot CB antenna.) Find a map of your city,
usually located in the front of your phone book. Using the map, figure out
which houses you could pick up on your scanner if they owned cordless phones.
Now tromp on over to the public library and ask to borrow the reverse-search directory for your city. Going street by street, write down the name, address and phone number of every house within a 3 block radius of your own house. Now that you have this list of names, you must do everything in your power to make sure that these people purchase cordless phones. Let's say to start out, you're just going to take care of the people on your own block and that includes six houses. It's a small block, okay?
House #1: Stake out their house and whenever they go somewhere, follow them. Continue to do this until they take a trip to Wal-Mart, or another department store that sells cordless phones. This may take several weeks to accomplish but will be well worth it in the end.
Go into the electronics section of Wal-Mart and pick out the least expensive cordless phone on the shelf. Tell the cashier that you're going to pay for it at the front. If she objects, mace her and run away with the phone. Now follow your target all over the store, paying close attention to what they buy. If they don't happen to buy a cordless phone, walk by their cart and casually toss the phone into their cart.
Hopefully they won't notice this and won't think anything of the cashier charging them an extra $30 - $40. Stand out in front of the store and when they walk out the door, run over and grab the receipt out of their bag, then take off. This way they won't be able to get a refund on the phone.
When they get home, they will see the phone and think, "Hey, I didn't buy a cordless phone. They must have put it in my bag by mistake." They will try to be sneaky and keep the cordless phone, thinking they really pulled one over on 'ole Wal-Mart.
Even better would be to cut the UPC box off of the back of a candy bar, steal some glue and glue the candy bar UPC over the cordless phone's UPC so the cashier will ring up about 59 cents for the phone. Oh no, she won't notice this at all.
House #2: Some people own cordless phones but they rarely use them because the other phones in the house are more conveniently located. Hang out on their sidewalk, inconspicuously playing hop-scotch or some other innocent-looking game so as not to draw any undue attention to yourself. Wait for your neighbors to leave.
When they finally leave, break into their house and take note of where all of their phones are located. Rearrange the location of all the phones so that their cordless phone will be in the spot where it will get the most use.
An even better idea would be to steal all of their other non-cordless phones so that they would have no choice but to use the cordless one. If you feel bad about stealing their phones, bring a supply of cordless phones with you and replace all of their old phones with cordless's.
House #3: Get a t-shirt and use a permanent marker to write "Phone Upgrade Committee" in big letters on the front so you'll look official. Now take your driver's license or student ID card, white out the "ID Card" part and pencil in the letters "Phone Upgrade Committee" so that you'll have an ID incase you're carded. You can also use this ID to get beer at 7-Elevens.
Go to their door and explain to the lady that you're with the Phone Upgrade Committee in case she doesn't know how to read your shirt. Now comes the social engineering part. A conversation will usually go like this:
*knock knock*
HER: Yes?
YOU: Hello, ma'am, I'm with the Federal Telephone
Upgrade Committee and it's come to our
attention by an anonymous source that the
equipment inside your house may not be up to
standards. May I have a look around?
HER: Why yes, of course you may.
Nose around her house a bit and pretend to be taking notes.
YOU: Well, ma'am, it does seem that two of your telephones
are not up to code. The one in the kitchen and the one
in the bedroom are both in very hazardous conditions.
HER: Hazardous?
YOU: Yes, the new Telecom Bill of 1995 states that no phone
in the house should have any visible wiring around it,
meaning that you have no choice but to go buy a
cordless phone right now. By owning these old phones
you're clogging up the phone lines and using up resources
that could costs lives if there were an emergency.
HER: I had no idea...
YOU: Well, I've heard that one before. Since this is your
first offense, I'm only going to write you a warning but
I will have to visit you again in 48 hours to ensure
that you've upgraded your equipment. You'll need to buy
standard 10 or 25 channel cordless phones on both of
those lines.
House #4: Call up your neighbor and say in a really fast voice, "Hi, this is
Ken McCarthy from KPLA radio and you're live on the air! You've got a chance
to win one of ten fabulous prizes this morning if you can answer our trivia
question. Are you ready!?! ...Okay, now listen carefully...what time is it
right now? You've got ten seconds..." - "Uh... 10:43?" - "You're absolutely
correct!!! You've just won yourself a brand new state of the art cordless
telephone! How do you feel??!"Go on like that for awhile, take down his name and address so it'll sound official, then use a stolen credit card and mail-order a cordless phone to his house. Hopefully he won't think anything of the invoice attached to the box. A good catalog to card a cordless phone from is Damark. Their phone number is 1-800-729-9000.
House #5: Get your little sister to dress up in her girl scout outfit and start going door to door selling Girl Scout Cordless Phones really cheap. Most people have a hard time saying no to little kids. If you don't have a little sister, either kidnap one or dress up in the outfit yourself.
House #6: Call these people pretending to be a telemarketer selling cordless phones. Keep going on and on and on until you sell one. If they hang up, call back. Explain to them that this particular cordless phone has a feature called annoyance block which blocks all incoming calls from all telemarketers. Tell them the phones are earth-friendly. Tell them that 90% of the profits go to help poor kids in New Jersey. If after a week of bartering them they still won't buy a phone, ship one to them anyway, COD.
Cordless Returns - Tricking Employees:
In a few of the examples above, you replaced people's old rotary dial phones
with cordless phones. If this is something you cannot afford to do then you're
going to have no other choice but to scam Wal-Mart.
You've all heard of the old "turning your 2400 baud modem into a 28.8 baud modem" trick where you buy a nice, modern modem, take it home and return your 2400 baud modem for the same price. Well, this also works with cordless phones and is very easy to pull off.
First you'll need to buy a good supply of replacement antennas for cordless phones from the nearest Radio Shack. Any kind will do, just get a lot of them. Shoplifting is optional. Now go home and open your closet. If you've been doing a good job at replacing your neighbors' phones then a pile of old crappy phones will tumble out of the door when you open it.
Hopefully when you bought the cordless phones you saved the boxes and receipts. Take one of the old crank phones and using black electrical tape, attach one of the cordless phone antennas to the handset of the phone. Looks just like a cordless phone now, doesn't it? If the black tape is noticeable, try using multicolored electrical tape.
Now shove the phone into one of the cordless phone boxes, find the receipt and take it back for a full refund. The refund lady should give you no problems because if she opens the box and sees your "cordless" phone in there, she'll have no reason not to believe you. If the phone is bigger than the box, just shove it in sideways or something and if the box bulges just tell the lady that you couldn't figure out how to get it in there. If you have a large enough assortment of phones and boxes, though, this shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Frequencies:
This will be the third issue of PLA that I've published the cordless phone
frequencies in. You'd think that we're getting pressed for material... well,
we are, okay? Below is a listing for 10 & 25 channel cordless phones. It's
best to use the frequency listed under "base" because you're most likely to
get both sides of the conversation there. Sometimes if you also program in
the handset side, you can hear what's going on in their house while they're
not on the phone. I've found this quite common in most areas but don't usually
bother with it since the sound quality sucks.
Channel Base Handset
------- ---- -------
1 43.720 48.760
2 43.740 48.840
3 43.820 48.860
4 43.840 48.920
5 43.920 49.000
6 43.960 49.080
7 44.120 49.100
8 44.160 49.160
9 44.180 49.200
10 44.200 49.240
11 44.320 49.280
12 44.360 49.360
13 44.400 49.400
14 44.460 49.480
15 44.480 49.500
16 46.610 49.670
17 46.630 49.845
18 46.670 49.860
19 46.710 49.770
20 46.730 49.875
21 46.770 49.830
22 46.830 49.890
23 46.870 49.930
24 46.930 49.990
25 46.970 49.970
Channels 1 through 25 are the 25 channel phone freqs (of course) and channels
16 through 25 are the 10 channel freqs. If you only have a ten channel scanner
then program in 16 through 25.Voicemail: With voicemail boxes attached to pagers becoming so popular these days, I'm hearing more and more people call in to check their messages. After you get their voicemail dialup and pass code you're in for a lot of fun and possibly even jail time. (opportunity to hack the jail pay phones!)
You'll be able to listen to all of their messages, erase all their saved messages, change their passcode (31337), change their "user name" and some- times you can even set up a phone number to be called when messages arrive. This can be fun to set up to a person's house who you don't like, especially if it's a call-back system that asks for a code. If the person doesn't know the code then they'll continue to get calls constantly until they figure it out.
What's even more fun is that you can send a message from your victim's mail- box to any other user on the system. Just punch in random mailboxes and start leaving messages for everyone else. It's fun to hear them reply and yell at you. If you want to ensure that your neighbor will disconnect their cordless phone forever, you can record the cordless conversations and play them back into their voicemail.
Don't get too eager with their box at first, though. Give it time, write down the specifics of their messages, do a little spying and don't change anything around or delete anything. They'll notice if you listen to their new messages because when they call in later, those messages will have turned into "saved" messages. So don't be so eager, you'll get to hear them on the cordless anyways. Keep it cool at first, then give 'em hell. They'll probably change their password a billion times and never figure out how the hell "hackers" keep getting the new ones.
Decoding Tones:
After listening to your scanner for awhile, eventually you'll hear information
given out that people should just not give out over a cordless phone. People
have the mentality of, "Oh, I know it's possible to listen to cordless phones
but there's nobody like that in my neighborhood." Only once have I heard a
person switch to a non-cordless phone because they were about to give out a
credit card number.
An even bigger mistake by cordless phone users is to assume that even though they're smart enough not to "say" a calling card or credit card number over the cordless, it's plenty safe to type it in because nobody can understand touch tones. By listening into people's phones, you WILL hear all kinds of account numbers, credit cards, calling cards and voicemail dialup numbers and passcodes. Here's just a few easy ways to decode these tones. Of course, this always assumes that's you've taped the tones. Always have a tape recorder with you when listening to your scanner.
By Ear:
Some people can actually tell each tone apart without the help of a tape
recorder or anything. But let's assume you can't. Pick up your phone and
play the first two or three numbers from your tape recorder. Keep rewinding
and playing these same three tones over and over. Each time you play the tones
try to imitate them with your phone. (or your un-modified red box.) After you
feel you've mastered the first few tones, continue to the next couple and go
on until you've figured out the whole thing.
If the person who originally dialed the number dialed slowly, then this will be rather easy. If they dialed fast or used a speed dial button, you're going to have to work at it for awhile. If you know it's a calling card number that was keyed in, then most likely the first six digits will be your own area code and prefix. If you already have the person's phone number, then you have the first ten digits and only have to figure out the pin code. Some cards don't use the home phone number, though, and are just a random string of digits.
If it's an access number (to a voicemail box, for example), the number might start out with 1-800 so try that at first to see if it matches. If you're getting a calling card number, make sure that you get the access number if needed. For example, MCI cards will only work with their 800 access numbers, which is 1-800-888-8000. Sprint will usually work with any carrier but their access number is 1-800-877-8000. Don't slow down your tape speed because this will distort the pitch of the tones. (duh)
Sound Blaster:
Record the tones onto your computer in WAV format. Basically, you use the
same method to decode the tones but it's a lot easier because you can cut out
all the tones except the one tone you're currently decoding and just loop the
sound. You'll be able to decode each tone in just a few seconds. I
recommend the Cool Edit sound editing program because you can have the entire
string of numbers in a file and loop any one part of the string without having
to do a cut and paste job like on most editors.
DTMF Decoder:
You can actually buy a box that has an LED display which will show any number
it hears. This can be hooked up to any audio source, including your scanner.
This devices usually run about $100. You can also find shareware DTMF decoders
which interface with your sound blaster card. Most of the ones I found were
limited to only 5 or 7 numbers until you registered the program.
Invalid Mailbox Number:
Call up a voice mail company where you're prompted for a mailbox number. When
it asks for the number, play your tape recorded tones into the phone and the
voicemail company's computer will reply with, "I'm sorry. Mailbox number 8402
(or whatever) does not exist. Please try again." Most voicemail boxes are only
four digits long so you'll have to play in each part of the recording until
you have all the numbers. Once you have it all, repeat the process just to
verify that all the numbers are correct. Sometimes you'll accidentally hit a
good mailbox. If it doesn't read you the mailbox number, just forward the
recording a little and try again.
Pagers:
If you or a friend has a pager, you might be able to get the whole code in
one shot. Just call the pager number and when it asks you to enter in the
number you're calling from, play the recording, then hit "#." You'll be paged
with the results. Try this several times just to make sure it's decoding the
numbers right.
Warning: Once you have the 800 number do NOT call it from your house directly if you're going to cause trouble with it. Unless you know how to cover yourself, use a pay phone. I know it's a stupid warning but there are people like Mr. Hack reading this who wouldn't think of that.
We started off just arguing against anything and everything that people posted to the forum, and it was funny to read all their half-witted replies to our rants (the forum is mostly dominated by a bunch of 80-year-old women who have no computer experience whatsoever). Later on, we thought it would be fun to start impersonating people on the forum and posting as them, and we managed to drive several regulars off the forum this way.
Later on, we told RBCP about it and he thought it was pretty funny too, so him and Colleen started posting on it. He used the name ErikB and posted all kinds of LOD/MOD war t-shirt ads on it, then an ad for the new JonBenet Ramsey murder t-shirts which really riled up a few folks. By this time the forum was just completely fucked, but we were having too much fun to stop. Tannest decided to search the web for lots of odd and perverted things, and started posting all kinds of weird shit to the forum.
Desperate to get the hell away from us, the forum regulars decided to turn to IRC for their Ramsey-talk, figuring that they could just "kick the hackers off." This proved to be rather difficult for them, as they experienced constant harassment from all the wonderful #rock regulars. Thanks to me, they now get extremely paranoid when anyone with a hostmask located in Santa Clara, CA enters the channel. Fucking morons.
Through all of this, one especially crazed forum regular who calls herself Teacher has refused to be driven away from the board. In spite of this, she has been driven insane by our mad posting frenzies and nonstop attacks against her. While we haven't been able to track her down, we have gathered that her first name is Jayne and that she is a librarian. We've also completely ruined her previously good reputation on the forum by constantly impersonating her and using her handle to slander the rest of the morons who post there.
Recently, RBCP received e-mail from a Ramsey forum regular who was curious just as to what the hell the PLA is and why they have been doing to this message board (we posted lots of PLA advertisements and other strange things). The e-mail read:
"I find it hard to believe this person is PLA, they lack your obvious comedic brilliance. I suppose they are just PLA wannabes. Sorry if I intruded on your day with a foolish question but you were the first one listed on the e-mail page." Regards, Hominid, hominid@earthlink.net
While it is true that a lot of the posts some of us made were utterly stupid and lacked creativity, much thought was put into several of the posts. This letter and its writer annoyed RBCP, so he sent the following reply:
"Hahaha, actually I'm one of the people intruding on the Ramsey board. You might remember me as erikb, the t-shirt salesman. No offense intended but we had a lot of fun stirring up shit there. I haven't posted anything in about three weeks now but I'm sure that others are still at it. If you want to yell at them, go into irc.dal.net's #rock." See ya, RBCP, bac@bright.net
Soon after this reply was sent, a post appeared on the forum that read "I'm so glad to hear that Peak.org is pulling the plug on Mike Ockurts." Mike Ockurts is the fake name that RBCP used for his account at Peak. This freaked Colleen out and annoyed RBCP even more, so he posted the following snide message to the forum:
"Is this what you consider to be detective work? Don't jump the gun just to be the first, put some effort into it and you can really find out who I am. It's not that hard, I'm not exactly 'not listed.' But the question is, what do you suppose you can do once you find me? Have fun!"
They haven't made anymore attempts to try to stop us yet, other than a couple of stupid and incredibly inaccurate tries to guess RBCP's real name. We don't post to the forum as much as we used to, but there really isn't a need to since it's been invaded by a zillion other people just like us. They still get freaked out when I come to their channel and sit for hours without saying anything, and I usually get kickbanned on sight because my hostmask contains the words "Santa Clara."
That about wraps up our antics on the Ramsey forum so far. The forum is located at http://www.bouldernews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?Ramsey if you want to check out the latest assortment of insane postings. Their IRC channel, #cybersleuths, can be found on the NewNet IRC network (irc.aohell.org, irc.tscnet.com, or irc.eskimo.com). Go there and tell Jameson that the PLA says hi. Let us know if you experience anything strange or interesting with these weird people.
Hopefully we are going to clear AT LEAST one thing up with this, once and for all. And, hopefully, people will stop their petty bickering and kick-ban wars.
Topic #1 on the agenda:
THERE IS NO GROUP CALLED THE "PLA" or "Phone Losers of America"!!! PLA is a 'zine. The topics of this 'zine range consist mainly of phone-phreaking, prank calls, telephone harassment and of course, humor. Anyone who has ever read EVEN ONE ISSUE would realize this.
The PLA website is not the "group's" website, it is a support site for the 'zine. Visit the site. Check it out. Then you will see what I mean.
Lately in #rock, there seems to be a pissing match going on. People arguing over whether they are a member of the PLA or not, arguing who is or isn't, and arguing over whether there is even a PLA. ALL OF THIS IS MOOT. There is no PLA, no one is a member. Apparently, this point just can't be stressed enough. So, just for the record, let's give a brief rundown on the history of PLA.
1) Zak (el_jefe) tells RBCP that he want's to start this el33t euber-hacker- ninja-phonephreak group, and that he is going to call it the "Phone Losers of America"
2) Zak comes down to Austin to vist RBCP for HoHoCon. They get some business cards printed that say, you guessed it, "Phone Losers of America" on them. They stick these all over shop windows and store aisles for some poor SOB to clean up.
3) Here there is a pause...nothing happens for a while. RBCP decides to pull out some old text files that he wrote a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away. He freshens them up a bit, then adds a header and a footer to them that says "Phone Losers of America" and releases them. This is where we get PLA001 - PLA013 (or around there).
4) RBCP and Colleen Card write/edit/produce/release about 30 more issues of PLA, as the 'zine has come to be known. OCCASIONALLY, there is a guest writer, or someone contributes a small piece to the 'zine. But, usually, it is a work produced solely by the efforts of RBCP and Colleen Card.
Perhaps where people get the idea that the PLA is a group is that most, if not all, of the issues of PLA have a footer that state "Contact the PLA Nearest You!". Yes, that is a little confusing, it sounds like the PLA is a group. But if you have ever read the 'zines, or visited the webpage, you would know that this is not true. The footer merely contains the email addresses of contributors or major supporters of the 'zine, PLA. So, let's take a look at the footer on the latest issue:
컴컴컴컴컴횮ontact훂he횾hone횸osers횽f횫merica횼earest훊ou!컴컴컴컴컴컴� etext.archive.umich.edu............................pub/Zines/PhoneLosers ftp.fc.net................................................pub/defcon/PLA bac@bright.net.........................................RedBoxChiliPepper zak@lemming.com.......................................Zak a.k.a. el_jefe pepman74@hotmail.com.............................To contact Colleen Card apok0lyp@command.com.inter.net.................................Apok0lyps http://www.peak.org/~bueno/pla.html.....Phone Losers of America Homepage http://www.peak.org/~bueno/plasites.html..listing of all other PLA sites Nekid Amy nude workout pics now available. E-mail slut@nekid.com for info.Ok. First two entries are FTP sites where you can get the 0-day PLA. We have next 4, count them 4, email addresses. Those addresses belong to, as you can see, RBCP, el_jefe, Colleen Card, and Apok0lyps.
IF THE PLA WAS A GROUP, THEN THESE ARE THE ONLY MEMBERS! Don't you think that SOMEWHERE along the line, just once in the, what, 5 years? the 'zine has been being published that there would have been a member list? The fact that there hasn't corroborates my point (for those of you with out a high school diploma, that big word there means support).
Now, take a closer look at those four names there. RBCP and Colleen Card have been the two people that have been writing and publishing 99% of the PLA for as long as it's been around. I can't remember an issue that Zak contributed to (well, there was that PLA099 thing), but he is the one that came up with the name of the 'zine, if nothing else. Apok0lyps has, I believe, contributed to at least ONE issue of PLA, if not more, and wrote the l33tin' PLA.IRC script.
Now, there are people who are claiming to me "members" of a non-existant group. As Colleen pointed out last night, before I wrote this article, what has anybody besides those four people mentioned, EVER contributed to PLA (THE 'ZINE, MORON)?? Zip, zilch, zero, nada, NOTHING.
Then, last night, in attempting to get this point across, I stated that I myself was a member of the "group", PLA. According to one person, no I wasn't. Apparently because el_jefe invited him to "join" meant that he was a member, but the fact that RBCP, albeit jokingly (sarcasm kinda loses it's impact thru IRC and text communication), invited me to join didn't mean shit. Apparently that means that RBCP isn't in a point to make decisions.
Let's get one more thing straight. RBCP *IS* PLA. No questions about it. There would not be a PLA 'zine if he had not created it, there would not be a PLA 'zine if he had not supported it. If he quit publishing the 'zine today, then it would die. Sure, maybe someone else might pick it up and attempt to carry-on RBCP's "legacy", but then it would not be PLA. It would be a cheap hack, an imitation. Sorry folks, but once RBCP decides to quit publishing PLA, it's dead.
Topic #2: "THE PLA HAS TO BE A GROUP BECAUSE I HAVE MY OWN PLA PAGE!"
Give it up. You are not in a group called the PLA. There is no group called the PLA. Don't make me say it again. Your page, if you can call what most of you have a page (no offense, you just need to learn one thing: HTML), is merely a support page for the main PLA page. By showing your support, you increase the readership. You increase the chance that "Phone Losers of America" will show up when someone does a search on "phreaking" via Yahoo. Sure, if you want to inflate your ego's among your friends or competitors, tell them your a member. No one who matters really cares. Just don't get a fat head and join #rock and act like a jackass about it, and don't lie and say "I know RBCP, I visited him at his house!". Just give it a rest, be cool, and you probably won't get kick banned.
ONE MORE HINT: get a decent ISP, something other than UU.NET, AOL.COM, or any of the big, nationwide ISP's. Most of the op's in #rock, for some reason, don't like those domanins for some silly reason, and will kick-ban you on join if you are from that domain.
Anyhow, that's all that I have to say for now. I hope that clears a few things up, and I hope that some people change their attitude. More than a couple of people are getting pissed. And one last thing, said last night by EightBall:
"#rock was not created or ever intended to be a support channel for the PLA. That said, I'm going back to idle."
Also, Zak (el_jefe) has done a little more for the PLA than just think up the name. Much of the creativity, input and criticism regarding the issues are done by Zak. A lot of the jokes I make throughout the issues were either thought up by Zak or thought up by me because of something stupid that Zak said. Just about everything you've read by the PLA was brain stormed by me and Zak while talking on the phone and bugging the shit out of random numbers. PLA wouldn't be half as cool as you think it is now if Zak were not a part of it. If I did sit down and write out a "PLA Membership List" it would include two names. RBCP and Zak.
People have written me many times asking how to be a member of PLA and suggesting that I form a group out of PLA but for some reason I just fail to see how PLA could possibly benefit from this. If you want to be in PLA just to have your name in print, then write an article. A cool one. Regular contributors to the PLA like Apok0lyps, Colleen and pneyz are what help me put out more than 3 issues per year. These people (and a lot of other unmentioned people) are more a part of PLA than anybody.
Thirdly, #rock is a channel full of idiots. (efnet's #rock, anyways.) If you don't have close ties to the PLA then expect to get kicked as soon as you join. For awhile, even Colleen Card was getting kicked because Dazen didn't recognize her at first. There was a time when #rock was a really fun channel because we'd sit in there and wait for headbangers to come in so we could type obscene messages at them until they were disgusted enough to leave. Now they just get kicked and the channel's ban list includes most major countries and ISPs. What's the fun in that?
And lastly, the "PLA State Web Pages" were created because some guy in Virgina asked me if he could create a PLA site for the east coast. I thought that would be a great way for people to get to know what the phreak scene was like in other parts of the United States, so started offering links to people's "PLA City" pages to whoever claimed them first. More than one person has told me that I've sold out the PLA because of this idea but I don't see it that way. After all, the state pages have not changed the content of the actual PLA 'zine in any way. (Other than this rant I'm on here.) Some of these state pages consider themselves a group and write their own issues which is fine by me - I'm just not a member of this group. So those are my thoughts on the whole situation right now. Hopefully kcochrane's article has cleared a few things up. -RBCP ]
The first way only works if you live in a small town with a low crime rate (like me!). You can usually just go to the video store and rent the movie. Go up to the counter and check it out normally. They'll ask for your account or membership card. Tell them you left it at home and don't remember the number. A lot of the small stores will then just say, "Okay, what's your phone number?" You give them someone's number and name (in a small town, most people will have accounts at the video store). THen take it home and never bring it back.
The next way is a bit more complicated but it'll work if the store requires the card or account number. It's also a lot more fun and the video store won't even know they've been ripped off. Rent a video like normal, take it home and copy it. Most of you are saying, "You fucking idiot, I can copy a tape, but the copy's not as good as the original, which is why I'm reading this." You're totally right. But shut up anyway and let me finish.
When you have a copy (of the WHOLE movie, including the FBI warning and credits), rewind both tapes and take them out of your VCR's. With a small screw driver, open them up and exchange the actual tape reels. Close them up and return the copy in the original case to the store. Now you have two options.
1) You can just return it as usual and go about your life. The drawback here is that next time someone rents that movie and sees that it's all crappy, they'll go to the store and complain. The store will check the records and see that you were the last person who rented it. They won't think to much of it, unless it happens a LOT, then they'll figure it out and probably call you and get pissed.
2) You can be the person who returns it and complains that the quality wasn't very good. The drawback is that they'll start to see a pattern after an even shorter time than with Option #1. The pro side is that you can probably get a free rental out of it, copy that, and just return it like in Option #2.
Switching the tapes is pretty hard at first, but it gets easier as you do it more. Here are a few things to remember:
- When opening it, fold it open so you don't rip the label, and open it so the reels are facing down (ie. swing the top up).
- The tape goes like this (from the left side of the tape): up by a pin on the inside, then on the outside of a larger pin and across the head to go between two other pins and into the other reel. This is really hard to explain but you should see what I'm saying after looking.
- Make certain not to lose the spring(s) that are located in the middle of the bottom, because these control the things that let it play, fast forward and rewind.
- When you're putting it back together, it might seem a little stuck unless you're just setting it right down (which requires ripping the label). You should be able to just force it, and it'll pop in with no damage to the tape.
- Make certain not to get the tape itself caught on anything when you're putting it back together.
- As a technical note, all the tapes I've done this on use a small phillips head screwdriver.
- There should be no compatibility problems so you don't need to get the same brand of tape as the rental. This is because the VCR needs to know where to look for the tape and switches.
You could also set up a fake account and charge it to there, but a lot of stores require a deposit or startup fee to stop people from doing that. And if you're not 18 or 21, forget it unless you've got a fake ID.
*** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE ***
Hey you schmucks. I know you love the PLA FTP site, and so do I. But stop sending me all your PLA questions and stuff. I don't run PLA. If I did, you wouldn't be reading this because I'm too lazy to run a zine. But RBCP is running this thing and doing a half-decent job too. So email him with all your pathetic shit, not me!!!
Oh yea, the FTP site is currently at: ftp.armory.com/pub/user/pneyz/pla
Email RedBoxChiliPepper at:
bueno@peak.org *or*
bac@bright.net
*** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE *** NOTE ***
THEM: Hello? (a lady answers)
ME: Yes, this is the AT&T operator, I have a collect
call from Mr. Heggie, will you accept the charges?
(Note: I picked the name Gordon Heggie at random
from the phone book.)
THEM: Yes, of course.
ME: Okay, let me put the call through. (click, click)
Hello? Ma'am?
THEM: Yes?
ME: It's not going through for some reason. Do you
have a collect call block on your phone?
THEM: No, I shouldn't. We've gotten collect calls here
before.
ME: Well, that's odd. It won't let me put the call
through. You'll have to contact your local phone
company about that problem. I'm sorry for the ring.
THEM: Well, wait, which Mr. Heggie do you have on the phone?
ME: I don't know, they just said Mr. Heggie and that it
was an emergency. He'll have to call you back another
way.
THEM: But where is he calling from?
ME: It's from a pay phone but I don't know the location.
If you'd like, I can bill the call on your end to a
third number or maybe a calling card.
THEM: Okay, let me get my calling card...
Easy, eh? And I swear, sit down with your phone book and about every third or
four call will work out this way. Sure, you'll get the occasional, "He can't
be calling collect, he's sitting right here" but most of the time they'll
accept the charges or just assume it's another "Heggie." One lady even said,
"No, it can't be Mr. Johnson because he's here at home. It must be Eric." to
which I wittily replied, "Yes, it's from Eric, TO Mr. Johnson."Once you have the calling card number, claim that you're putting the call through, then hang up. Or claim that the person on the pay phone hung up. Some people will know something's up when they talk to the "Mr." and find out he wasn't really calling, then they'll cancel their card so use it while you can. Only a small percentage of the people do this, though, thinking it was really an AT&T operator but a prank caller on the pay phone.
Select your pay phone and make sure it's a phone that gets a moderate amount of use, preferably where higher-class folks hang out such as a nice restaurant. Look for the wires that come into the phone, splice them open and hook up the conversation recorder. (Most likely it's the red and green wires you'll want to splice into.) Now plug the conversation recorder into your transmitter and hide it all wherever you can. You might have to duct tape it all to the under- side of the phone or something.
All you have to do now is sit on a nearby bench or table with your walkman and tape recorder and wait for customers. If you're smart, you'll fill the pay phone's coin slot with glue and put the other nearby phones out of commission with a sledge hammer so that making a collect call on your phone will be their only choice.
Now, look on the fone for the number it has for refund/repair. They are required BY LAW to display this, however, some still don't. Usually it's 211 (after dialing, you can hear the fone dialing an 800 number). When the operator answers, tell them that you just dialed this number and lost your money because the fone got screwed up. After that, they will want the same info as the AT&T operator (number you were calling, what happened, etc). This part is easy. They will mail you a check for the amount you "lost" in the COCOT.
A friend of mine dealt with a COCOT company which sent him a 3 minute prepaid card. I don't know which company it was, but most will send you cash. Surprisingly enough, most operators at the COCOT companies I've dealt with have been fairly courteous. Most however, are also very unintelligent, even more so than AT&T operators. Sometimes, you have to explain exactly what happened like you would to a six-year old, but I usually get my check within 2-3 minutes of explaining.
If I go to a few fones (one Bell fone for the jackpot and a few COCOTs with different carriers), I can make around $20 a day. Also, if AT&T sends you that letter from the Coin Refund Investigation Unit, located in a nice big window PO box, you still have the COCOT companies to get checks from!
Free Calls via Relay:
You can call anywhere in the U.S. free via relay if you op-divert. Just have
the operator call relay in the destination state of your call. Once you're
connected, they will ask for the number you're calling FROM. Give them a
number local to the one you're calling. They will place it as a local call,
and nobody will be billed for it!
Free calls through Sears:
If you have a Sears nearby, call them and say you're from the phone company
and you need an outside line. Here's how it usually goes:
Them: Sears, may I help you?
Me: Hello, this is Richard Nixon calling from
Pacific Bell. I'm running a test right now
on business lines in the area. Could you
give me an outside line?
Them: One moment.
ME: MUHAHAH! I've got them now.
Them: Here you go....Click...BONG
ME: Dials 911 and tell them that I'm being raped
RIGHT NOW by the manager in the ass. I then
proceed to have my friend yell "SHUT UP!",
while grunting. Then, I go down there and
watch the phun!
Another method is to get transferred to the main desk from an extension and
then just say "Hi, I'm calling from (the extension that transferred you),
could I have an outside line please?". This works sometimes as well.Just one note, be VERY careful to hang up by the time Sears closes, or they will notice that the guy from baby clothing is still there making a call. Of course, if you use the phone company scam, then stay on as long as you want (within reason).
Free Juno from anywhere in the US:
If you don't have a Juno local access number, just go to the extension box
under dialing options, click yes, and enter 18005754518. Now Juno will dial
their toll-phree number everytime you call in to get an "outside line". It
will also dial the number you gave it, but by then, the call will have routed
already, making that dialing useless. Now Juno can be free for all! Just
remember that if you do have a local number, use it so they don't completely
remove the 800 number or place restrictions on it (such as only new accounts
can dial in), and the rest of us without local numbers can continue to enjoy
the 800 number.
An undetermined amount of cash and money orders was missing from the store in the 600 block of Wood River Avenue, said Sgt. Terry Mason who is investigating the theft. "A customer walked in the store about 3:20 a.m. and there was no one inside," Mason said.
Mason sped to the store and found the employee had fled with the cash and money orders. "He left in a cab with a girlfriend," Mason said.
Thanks,
fL!P33
I'm not sure why he did that... maybe the Radio Shack employees are catching on to us. The number of that Radio Shack is 401-821-9005 if you want to call them up. By the way, I'm going on my first beige boxing expedition tonight with my friend. I printed out your list of #'s and I'll be sure to call Chris Tomkinson multiple times!
Simpkins
http://www.sitexpress.com/
At one point, she told someone that she was about to leave her place, and drive away in her truck. Naturally, I immediately spotted her in the parking lot. She was beautiful, and I had her innermost thoughts recorded on tape. It's not like I was stalking the poor girl, she just happened to use a cordless phone -- what can I say?
I sent her a few anonymous letters of admiration -- nothing too wild or scary -- just hi, I'm out here, I think you're beautiful, and by the way, here's a few personal things I know about you...
She called her mom everytime she got a letter, and couldn't guess who this "stranger" was....
Well, anyway, I eventually met her formally, when I began sharing an apartment with her ex-boyfriend.
Wow, and I thought I was being a bit freaky (phreaky?) back then. Thank God I'm normal -- just like all of you.... '-)
phear..
Karla
it was on channel 4 (FOX) at 7:00pm. cops. roy miller of the roy pd (they didn't say which state), pulls over this guy and he runs off. when they finally catch him after all four cars (which i think there was only 1 roy car, the rest were highway patrol or a different town or something) chase after him, with roy miller on foot, the drunken guy says his name is "mind over matter". then he pulls some piece of what looks like bell equipment from behind his head, and in his drunken stupor, says "whats this?", then it clicks, and he shuts up. i'd put money on the table they caught a drunken hacker
phantom operator
_pip_
jds@iag.net
goldeneye
Any help at all will help out my phone bill. I have a 1-800 number for them to call, if they can only get an outside line. Send all info to A. Carr at ancarr@highland.net . Thank you in advance.
You could set up a phone or find a phone somewhere in your city that doesn't get used for incoming calls that much, such as a 7-Eleven's credit card line. Order call forwarding for them and forward all of their calls to your own house. After that, just have your jailed friend call that number instead of yours which will charge the forwarded line even though you get to answer it. Read the PLA issue on call forwarding for instructions.]
Thank you,
kinkel
Thanks,
Kevin
-runs DOS 6.2
-has a built in modem and radio communications
-a serail port
-LCD display with back-lighting
-alligator clips to connect to a phone line
and mine has 10megs of flash RAM. For more information take a look at the itronix web site 'www.itronix.com' As soon as I make or buy a power cord I'll tell you what else it can do...
--DETHMaster
PS- You probably already know this, but an easy way to get someone's address from thier phone number(even unlisted ones) is to call the nearest Domino's pizza using *67...when they don't get a number they will ask for yours...tell them the person's number who address you want and the'll read off the address to make sure it's correct.
The whole Jamey saga started in about August last year. We saw Jamey on a web chat site, and didn't like him. Always bragging about how cool he is and his legendary sporting acheivements, not to mention taking XTC with his mother. Cool guy. So we got together and formed the THJ. Team Hassle Jamey. Any time we saw Jimmy Jammy Jokey Jerky Jamey as he was soon to be dubbed we would call all the others, and sit there harassing him, changing handles to appear as him and trah his reputation, and genrally be obnoxious pricks. (Hey, we DID have the PLA as inspiration!!) All the time, posting messages such as JAMEY'S A FLOGGER JAMEY'S A FLOGGER JAMEY'S A FLOGGER etc.....
So we set up hotmail accounts to send him nasty email. Pretty lame, but it did the trick to get his mother's name. From there we could find out his address and fone number. But we couldn't be sure. Until the day a girl called Tania came on to Jamey's fave chatline. She was like a female Jamey. All the same interests, but with a possible glimmer of a personality. That didn't stop us from taking over her life. A couple of hotmail accounts later, we had Tania writing to Jameyc@hotmail.com, and Jamey writing to Tataniaa@hotmail.com. This way, we could get info from Jamey and Tania. We left Tania alone though. So Jamey asked Tania out a few times, which "she" tactfully dodged, and he gave her his fone number begging her to call him. So she managed to avoid that too, and said hey, your b'day's coming up, what's your address, so I can send yu a birthday card? So he gave us his address. Dumb boy.
That was where the phun began. So "Tania" sent him a valentines day card, all cute and lovely, and the THJ sent him a deads rose in a mailing tube. We didn't want our maaaate to go without at that special time of year.
So that brings us to today. My friend Josef and I were at university today during one of our 3 hour breaks with no classes. Nothing better to do than hassle people like "Our own little Dino" as Josef puts it.
There is a payfone in the physics building that is fully closed into a little room, making it great for phun fone calls, as it has the acoustics of a regular fone. So bored as we were, we thought yeah, lets call Jimmy Jammy Jokey Jerky Jamey. So off we went. We'd tried the week before for his birthday, but he wasn't home, so we left a message on his mother's machine, and took down the cellyer fone number (oh god. Using the alias Dino Allsman is turning me into him!! Where are my goddam cocksuckin' cigarrette, you motherfuckin' jack-offs?) and resolved to call back. So today we did.
JJJJJ: Hello?
ME: Hi. Is Jamey there please?
JJJJJ: Yah, 's Jamey.
ME: Do you know who this is?
JJJJJ: No...
ME: No? Take a guess.
JJJJJ: Nah...
ME: No idea at all?
JJJJJ: Yeah, I got an idea.
ME: Who, Jamey?
JJJJJ: Umm....Summwun from da innanet, I fink...
ME: Yeah?
JJJJJ: Yeah, I recognised your voice, man, how ya
goin'?
ME: Pretty good Jamey, pretty good. How are ya?
JJJJJ: I'm 'right, how you doin'?
ME: We were just calling to apologize about your
birthday card being so late.
JJJJJ: Wot card? (Jamey's none too bright.)
ME: Oh, it hasn't got there yet?
JJJJJ: Nuh,
ME: It should be getting there in the next couple
of days, probably,
JJJJJ: Ahh... right.
ME: We passed it around, we aaaallllll signed it.
JJJJJ: Cool. (I'm trying desperately not to laugh.)
ME: So whatcha been up to Jamey?
JJJJJ: Oh, School.
ME: Hang on, here's Josef.
JOSEF: Hey Jamey, why aren't you answering our emails?
JJJJJ: Huh?
JOSEF: Why aren't you answering our emails?
JJJJJ: Oh, I haven't got any time for the net anymore...
JOSEF: Oh, you seem to. You're replying to Tania's
emails.
JJJJJ: Yah, I know.
JOSEF: But you're not gonna reply to ours?
JJJJJ: I din't reply to Tania's!!
JOSEF: Ohhhh, as far as we could see you did.
JJJJJ: How could you see?
JOSEF: Oh, a little trick in the book...
ME: (Calling out across the room) MAGIC!!
JJJJJ: What's that?
JOSEF: Magic. Oh, we're just legends.
JJJJJ: Nah, what've you got?
JOSEF: Don't forget who Dino works for. Anyway,
I'll pass you back to Dino.
JJJJJ: Who's he work for?
JOSEF: The CIA.
JJJJJ: Oh, right.....(he obviously has NO idea what
the CIA is. He probably can't even spell it.)
ME: Yep. The Agency.
JJJJJ: Which is that?
ME: THe CIA.
JJJJJ: Oh, right.
ME: Ok. We'd better get going. We've got stuff
to get to. Or something. Ok. I'll see you
'round Jamey.
JJJJJ: Where you livin'?
ME: Where ARE we living? Bye Jamey!!!
>Josef hangs up<
So that's it. My other friend who calls himself Dusty Jones might be
getting an ISP, (well, his dad is) but that means you'll prbably soon be
seeing http://www.flognet.net.au.
Jamey's a flogger!!
Connor MacIsaac / Dino Allsman
Anyway, about a week or so ago me and a friend were doing the daily lunch ritual, when he stopped and said, "hang up it sounds like someone is tapping the line" apparently he was hearing a series of chirp and tones. i said, yea whatever, and continued to call oci, again, and what seems like for the LAST time. suddenly i heard some tones, just sounded like standard DTMF. So now I was pretty sure that one of the fuck-up adminstrators was listening to my call, so i proceeded to tell 'em to fuck off and what-not. So my friend dials 711, and in bellefontaine 711 disables the fone(shuts it off or something) for about 3 mins. (What does the telco use that feature for???)
Not a second later, a group of 5 people (admin & 1 bell) are rushing down the hall like gangbusters, yelling something about "everyone needs to get off the payfones now!" They dial 1-311, which gives you an Operator there. It's fun to dial that # because i think only bell people use it and it really confuses the hell outta the Ops, when I've asked them to dial 800 numbers for me before, I get responses like "and why did you dial 311 to place this call". After the Admin and bell people rushed over to our fones and dialed the op I overhear them say something like "well we can't prove it was them blah blah blah *i'm a big dickhead* blah" and then we got chased off by the principal Joyce Roberts (what a bitch).
The next day that we come out to our beloved fones, there it a sign on them saying "Local Calls Only". We were like ha! we'll just call the operator and have her dial OCI, WRONG. anytime you dial 0, 1 +anything (via the keypad) the fone makes a weird ass "VEEP-VVEEP!" and gives you a dialtone. You can't dial 800's 10XXX-0 or anything. It really pisses me off. I have found a way to call collect and the op but it is a huge pain in the ass, by blicking the reciever. What I think happened was the school thought that we were billing calls to them (which is one thing we didn't do).
Now, I've got a couple of questions... Isn't it the law that payfones have to let you dial 800 #'s, or is it they just have to be free. ALSO what is up with OCI?? everytime I call, dial 0 at the dialtone, the voice now says "please hold for the Wiltel operator", but when one of the OCIdiots completes a call for you they say "thank you for usuing OC--Wiltel" was OCI bought out?
One more thing, I have found that in order to do the "Forced Collect call" through OCI (Latest PLA) you don't even have to have 3way calling, you can call up OCI have them place a collect call, and then when you hear the person on the other end pick-up just say "HELLO!" loudly, and in a slightly deeper(or higher) voice so that OCI cannot hear the other person and go ahead and accept for them. OCI is so dumb...
ttyl,
xt0rt
About OCI - I've been trying to get information out of their operators for awhile now and none of them will admit to even knowing what the hell OCI is. A few months ago they started answering "Wiltel Operator." Then a week later they started answering "OCI" again. Then, yet another week later they once again became Wiltel Operators and still are of this writing. I finally got one operator to admit that OCI and Wiltel were both owned by the same company but she refused to give me any details. The only important thing is that they have no clue where you're calling from.]
Anyway, me and my friend like to call people up on three way and just talk to each other and ignore the people on the other line. This is so funny because the people yell and shout asking who it is for 5 minutes and then they think that there is a mix up with the phones and there listening in on our conversation. They always stay on and listen. How stupid people are! We try to have the most boring conversation and see if they will still stay on, and they always do.
Later
Mohawk
The quarter roll scam was simply us passing off rolls of pennies as rolls of quarters, buying a cheap item and collecting the change. Didn't get rich off of it but it sure was fun.]
Jolly Spamhead
Keith
Hey dude I'm busted :(. Ok I'll try to tell you this long story as short as possible. A couple nights ago, I was really really bored. So I called up dave, we decide to pick random names out of the White pages and try to get their calling card info. Well we pick a couple of wongs. We get the info we were looking for. Ok so dave is like just give me a ordinary person and not a forgein person. So I feed him a random number out of the phone book. We call direct...
Girl: Hello??
Dave: Hi this is brad from Snet, I'm having
trouble with the old PC here...
Girl: Yea so...
Dave: Well I need your calling card number
to enter into the system
Girl: You know you can goto jail for this???
Dave: Excuse me mam, I'm brad from SNET
Girl: Bullshit!
Dave: Mike pick up on Line 2...
Me: Hi this is supervisor mike, what seems
to be the problem???
Girl: I'm calling the cops (hangs up)
Well me and dave being very revengeful people. We decide that this lady
needs to be harassed. We call up OCI, the op asks to speak to domnique.
She Doesn't accept. We try again using OCI. This time she accepts. She puts
a guy on. I'm like neder neder, gotta put your daddy on. This guy tells me
how his name is officer Johnson of the Newington Police Dept. Of course we
don't belive him, he tells me to do myself a favor and not call back
anymore. He hangs up.Ok so we call him about 17 times that night. We think he had enough for the night as it was then 1:30 AM. So next day comes. We decided since this guys thinks he is better than us to call a few Taxi's, Singing Telegrams, and Pizzas to his house. I think this is what broke him. Me and dave once again hang up.
Yesterday, I just get home from my ED (Extended Dentetion). Dave had called the school a few times while I was there and had them page Kevin Mitnick, Mark Abene, and Catus Roy. It was pretty funny. But anyway getting back on subject. We are talking on the phone, when dave gets another call. He clicks over, and comes back quickly. He says this is the cop guy from last night. I could'nt belive this. Dave told me he gave his father's name and asked to speak to him. Dave being the only person in the house besides his Little brother. Dave tells his brother to say that his dad is in the hospital. Well the guy starts yelling at Dave's younger brother, just then Dave dad comes home. He picks up, and this Police Officer says that we were harassing the wife of a High Ranking State Offical or something. He says he has Audio Tapes, and stuff like That. How could this be?? We only called this guy once direct. The other times were through OCI. I suspect that the Taxi cab somehow got dave's number.
Well I'm dazed and Confused. I went to school and security told me that some feds called and wanted info on Dave. But since I'm more known than dave, the security guys brought my name up in it. So anyway I got suspended today from school, for leaving class to go investigate this.
Oh yea the police are coming over david's house tonight or tommerow. The Newington police officers will have to be brought to his house by a E.hartford one. So hmm, anyway the guy doesn't have my name yet. But dave's mom hates me and probly will give it to them. I just got rid of all the PLA stuff, plus a database I have collected over the years. This database had over 450 text files on H/P/A/V. I gave dave a copy of this, he daid hid it. I hope he did.
Jolly Spamhead
see ya,
jeremy aka peart
Stumpy
I am a radio scanner freak. A favorite one of mine is to place a sign on the speaker at the drive up at a fast food place, "SPEAKER IS BROKEN, PLEASE SPEAK LOUD!". Then I park nearby, tune to their frequency and listen to the HILARIOUS conversation. People will hang their heads out of the car and SCREAM their orders out. Finally, one of the employees will say something like,"Sir, you don't have to shout". Then some reference is made to the "SIGN"????WHAT SIGN? A very pissed off employee will come out and angrily JERK the sign down. Fun over for now.
Another favorite is to get a LARGE magnet and affix a LARGE soda cup with lid and straw, to the top of my car. It looks as if I forgot to take it with me. I saw a guy almost break his neck doing a double-take as I merrily cruised along. People will actually GET OUT OF THEIR CAR and tap on the window to tell me about the soda. I politely thank them and drive away, leaving them dazed and confused. They just can't imagine why that soda doesn't fall off!
Anyway, thanks for the laughs,
Stan.