Blue box Wikipedia. A blue box is an electronic device that simulates an operator by generating the same tones employed by a telephone operators dialing console to, for example, switch long distance calls. 1 Developed in the 1. The most typical use of a blue box was to place free telephone calls. A related device, the black box, enabled one to receive calls which were free to the caller. The blue box no longer works in most Western nations, as modern switching systems do not use in band signaling. Instead, signaling occurs on an out of band channel that cannot be accessed from the line the caller is using, a system called Common Channel Interoffice Signaling or CCIS. HistoryeditIn November 1. Bell System Technical Journal published an article entitled In Band Single Frequency Signaling, which described the process used for routing telephone calls over trunk lines with the then current signaling system, R1. 2 The article described the basics of the inter office trunking system and the signalling used. This, while handy, could not be used in and of itself, as the frequencies used for the Multi Frequency, or MF, tones were not published in this article. citation neededIn November 1. Bell System Technical Journal, with another article entitled Signaling Systems for Control of Telephone Switching, which published the frequencies used for the digits that were used for the actual routing codes. 3 With these two items of information, the phone system was at the disposal of anyone with a cursory knowledge of electronics. citation neededHowever, contrary to numerous stories, before finding the articles in the Bell System Technical Journal it was discovered by many, some very unintentionally and to their annoyance, that a 2. Hz tone, used by AT T Corporation as a steady signal to mark currently unused long distancetelephone lines, or trunk lines, would reset those lines. Joe Engressia known as Joybubbles accidentally discovered it at the age of 7 by whistling with his mouth. 4 He and other famous phone phreaks, such as Bill from New York and The Glitch, trained themselves to whistle 2. Hz to reset a trunk line. They also learned how to route phone calls by causing trunks to flash in certain patternsclarification needed. At one point in the 1. Capn Crunchbreakfast cereal included a free gift a small whistle that by coincidence generated a 2. Hz tone when one of the whistles two holes was covered. The phreaker John Draper adopted his nickname Captain Crunch from this whistle. Others would utilize exotic birds such as canaries, which are able to hit the 2. Hz tone with the same effect. citation neededWith the ability to blue box, what was once just a few isolated individuals exploring the telephone network started to develop into a whole sub culture. Famous phone phreaks such as John Captain Crunch Draper, Mark Bernay, and Al Bernay used blue boxes to explore the various hidden codes that were not dialable from a regular phone line. citation neededSome of the more famous pranksters were Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, founders of Apple Computer. On one occasion Wozniak dialed Vatican City and identified himself as Henry Kissinger imitating Kissingers German accent and asked to speak to the Pope who was sleeping at the time. 5 Wozniak said in 1. Initially, it appeared that the recent HBO hack was most impactful for the theft and possible leak of Game of Thrones data. The digital thieves also allegedly. Youll perhaps be as surprised as I was to learn that Volvo offers a car for sale that is over 100,000. But here we are The XC90 T8 Excellence racks up at 105,895. The stop sign was approaching. You should start braking, Teresa, the owner of the 1956 Jaguar XK140 Roadster I was driving, cautioned from the passenger seat. I. A blue box is an electronic device that simulates an operator by generating the same tones employed by a telephone operators dialing console to, for example, switch. I called only to explore the phone company as a system, to learn the codes and tricks. Id talk to the London operator, and convince her I was a New York operator. When I called my parents and my friends, I paid. After six months I quit Id done everything that I could. I was so pure. Now I realize others were not as pure, they were just trying to make money. But then I thought we were all pure. Blue boxes were primarily the domain of pranksters and explorers,citation needed but others used blue boxes solely to make free phone calls. They were also popular with drug dealers and other criminals, because calls were not only free, but were virtually impossible to trace with the technology available at the time. citation neededBlue boxing hit the mainstream media when an article by Ron Rosenbaum titled Secrets of the Little Blue Box was published in the October 1. Esquire magazine. 4 Suddenly, many more people wanted to get into the phone phreaking culture spawned by the blue box, and it furthered the fame of Captain Crunch. Two major amateur radio magazines 7. CQ published articles on the telephone system in the mid 1. CQ Magazine also published details on phone phreaking, including the tone frequencies and several working blue box schematics in 1. In November 1. 98. CCITT now known as ITU T published recommendation Q. Signaling System No. This caused a resurgence of blue boxing incidents with a new generation. citation neededDuring the early 1. Europe. Software was made to facilitate blue boxing using a computer to generate the signalling tones and play them into the phone. For the PC there were Blue. BEEP, TLO, and others, and blue boxes for other platforms such as Amiga were available as well. citation neededIn the 1. The death of blue boxing came in the mid to late 1. CCIS and SS7. These systems separated the voice and signaling channels, making it impossible to generate signalling signals from an ordinary voice phone line. It is rumored that some international trunk lines still utilize in band signaling and are susceptible to tones, although often it is 2. Hz then 2. 40. 0 Hz to seize. Sometimes the initial tone is a composition of three frequencies. A given country may have in band signalling on trunks from a specific country, but not from others. citation neededOperationeditThe operation of a blue box is simple First, the user would place a long distance telephone call, usually to an 8. For the most part, anything going beyond 5. When the call began to ring, the caller would use the blue box to send a 2. Hz tone or 2. 60. Hz on many international trunks followed by a 2. Hz tone. The 2. 60. Hz is a supervisory signal, because it indicates the status of a trunk on hook tone or off hook no tone. By playing this tone, the user would convince the far end of the connection that theyd hung up and it should wait. When the tone stops, the trunk would go off hook and on hook known as a supervision flash, making a Ka Cheep noise, followed by silence. This would be the far end of the connection signalling to the near end that it was now waiting for routing digits. Once the far end sent the supervision flash, the user would use the blue box to dial a Key Pulse or KP, the tone that starts a routing digit sequence, followed by either a telephone number or one of the numerous special codes that were used internally by the telephone company, then finished up with a Start or ST tone. At this point, the far end of the connection would route the call the way it was told, while the users local exchange would presume the call was still ringing at the original number. KP1 would generally be used for domestic dialing, and KP2 for international calls. The blue box consisted of a set of audio oscillators, a telephone keypad, an audio amplifier and speaker. Its use relied, like much of the telephone hacking methodology of the time, on the use of a constant tone of 2. Hz to indicate an unused telephone line. A free long distance telephone call such as a 1 8. Hz tone from the blue box was fed into the mouthpiece of the telephone, causing the operator to be disconnected and a free long distance line to be available to the blue box user. The keyboard was then used to place the desired call, using multi frequency tones specific for telephone operators. These frequencies are different from the normal touch tone frequencies used by telephone subscribers, which is why the telephone keypad could not be used and the blue box was necessary. CountermeasureseditDevelopment and use of the blue box was largely enabled by Bell Telephones policy of publishing all technical documentation regarding its equipment. In response to the development of this and other means of telephone hacking, the company began to develop other means of securing its system, without publicly disclosing the details. citation needed These included modifying telephone central offices to listen for the 2. Hz tone coming from a subscriber telephone. This, plus the investigation and prosecution of several hackers by the FBI, led to a decrease in phone phreaking and displaced much of the remaining activity to coin phones.
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November 2017
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