Phreaking

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This blue box once belonged to Steve Wozniak and is on display in the Computer History Museum

Phreaking [ friːkɪŋ ] ( suitcase word from English ph one, “telephone”, and freak , “crazy guy”) describes a subculture of hackers that (originally) deals with telephony security mechanisms , in particular with the manipulation of telephone connections . In modern usage, this also includes communication security techniques that are not necessarily related to telephony, such as Van Eck phreaking .

Originally, the phreaking methods made it possible to use analog telephone lines free of charge with the help of special signal tones ( Blue Box ; see also Red Box especially for coin-operated telephones ) and also helped to set up telephone conferences and make it difficult to trace participants ( Aqua Box ) or music over telephone lines to transfer ( Rock Box ). The unauthorized use of special toll-free numbers for telephone technicians, via which connections can be made to any remote station, and the like also fall under the phreaking technique.

History and functioning

The roots of phreaking go back to 1844 when the first major telegraph networks went into operation; over 30 years later followed by the first telephone networks. The forerunners of the phreaker include technology-loving operators from that time who used their knowledge to use the network for their own purposes. However, the first practices of phreaking did not develop until the telephone company automatic exchanges and peaked in the 1970s to mid-1990s. They were no longer reserved for operators, but were primarily used by initiated end customers.

Already in 1957 the blind Joybubbles (birth name: Josef Carl Engressia, Jr.) discovered accidentally by whistling in the USA that a telephone connection could be interrupted with a whistling tone of 2600 Hertz . It turned out that the switch now assumed that the line was free. Used correctly, it was precisely this tone that made it possible to make free calls. For this purpose, a free call (e.g. a local call) was ended by means of the imitated tone control signals in order to dial a new number (e.g. an expensive long-distance call) at the old (free) tariff after this special type of call termination.

Based on this, the first methods of phreaking arose by sending audio signals over an analog telephone connection. Such tone signals were used for communication between the exchanges. However, since their transmission was not shielded from telephone calls, the exchange could be instructed to carry out control functions via a normal telephone connection as described. This included, in particular, the ability to set up conference calls and make free phone calls.

One of the foundations for the phreaker scene was laid by John T. Draper , also known as "Captain Crunch". Joe Engressia drew his attention to the fact that the pipe included as a side dish from a Cornflakes pack of the Cap'n Crunch brand generates the said frequency of 2600 Hertz. With the help of friends, Draper later succeeded in further developing the methods of telephone phreaking; they recorded the sound on tape and were thus able to “manipulate” any telephone, which is now known as blueboxing .

Phreaking became known to the general public since 1971 through numerous publications. So published the Yippie Abbie Hoffman in his book "Steal This Book" and together with Al Bell in a newsletter called " Youth International Party Line " Drapers methods. In the same year a corresponding report appeared in the glossy magazine " Esquire ", and a year later in the radical magazine " Ramparts ". As a result, the era of free calling emerged. Another publication in YIPL dealt with the redbox . The Redbox simulated coin insertion on public telephones. This made it possible to make calls using a payphone at no cost. AT&T was powerless for years - to stop the phreaking, a large part of the network infrastructure across the country would have had to be replaced.

As a justification, the argument was often put forward that the overcapacity of an existing system is being exploited and therefore no damage worth mentioning is being caused. The Vietnam War also gave telephony fraud within the USA a political note: Since a corresponding special tax was levied there on telephoning, circumventing it could be understood as civil disobedience in rebellion against the war.

The German telephone network did not have such vulnerabilities. In Germany this option was therefore availed of by using free 0130 numbers (now 0800). You could connect to overseas remote stations in countries with vulnerable networks and only send the familiar BlueBox tones over the line after the connection via the satellite.

When the first acoustic couplers became available on the international markets at affordable prices in the early 1980s , new ways of manipulating telephone networks were open to phreakers. Direct manipulation of the exchanges via one's own PC from home became popular from this point on. Phreaking was now often used for the purpose of breaking into someone else's computer. In this context, these technical circuits also served to make it difficult to trace such activities ( Aquabox ).

At the beginning of the 1990s, free telephoning increased to such an extent (probably also due to the corresponding computer scenes on the Commodore computers Amiga and C64 ) that countermeasures were taken. First, the sequence and duration of the signaling tones used was changed. Shortly afterwards, the first laws came into force that allowed legal action against such manipulations. Although it was previously illegal to physically change or sabotage telephone networks, the use of functions via frequencies was not.

The first versions of phone cards (or card phones ) could also be manipulated to make free calls.

In Austria, with a version of the first public telephone machines "Only for local calls" with this white pointer on top of the device, a piece of cardboard stuck in the shop window was able to stop the pointer that was supposed to stop the call after three minutes. In the case of desk or wall-mounted devices in the home or business locked with a telephone lock, it was still possible to dial out by knocking a finger on the fork contact switch (on which the receiver was placed). Telephone machines around 1980 with a red LED numeric display for the credit inserted in coins could be disturbed by electromagnetic impulses from a piezo lighter operated on the display of the cast aluminum housing so that sometimes a (unpaid) credit - up to 99 schillings - was displayed, which with something Luck could even be telephoned. The machines concerned were gradually secured, presumably through renovation. With specialist knowledge, a high credit could also be obtained around 1980 by operating the handset hanging hook on telephone machines and coordinated dialing of a code . Over the years, the affected machines have been secured.

Trivia

There are several scenes in the WarGames movie that involve phreaking.

Magazines

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Boris Grondahl: Hacker. ISBN 3-434-53506-3 , p. 38 uf
  2. ↑ see Gary D. Robson: The Origins of Phreaking ( Memento December 10, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Blacklisted! 411 (Apr 2004) archived version
  3. ↑ Ron Rosenbaum: Secrets of the Little Blue Box. (PDF; 10.3 MB) Esquire Magazine (October 1971)

Web links