Hardwiring Your Way In (Winter, 1988 1989) 
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By Dr. Williams

One of the most obvious ways of obtaining free telephone service is through
"hardwiring" - that is, directly connecting a phone to somebody else's line
without their knowledge. This can be accomplished in a few different manners.
One technique is just to hook up a phone to the exterior of a house or
business. Another way, canning, is a little less blunt. Any dime store phone
can be hooked up, and voila! Free telephone service is yours just for the
begging.

There are basically two types of exterior phone boxes that are used for homes
and small businesses. The older ones are a pukey green color, are square, and
have four terminals inside: two for the grounds, and two for the charged wires.
These are kept closed by a long bolt. The newer ones are rectangular and have a
phone jack inside of them. They are kept closed by a lid. There is only one
tool you'll need, and that is a touch-tone phone. The ones where all of the
components are contained in the headset are the best for this. Take the cord,
cut it in the middle, and strip the wires on both halves. There should be four
wires: green, red, black, and yellow. The green and red ones carry the current,
and the black and yellow are the grounds. There could be some variations in the
colors of the wires, depending on the phone, but there should always be two
grounds and two charged wires. After stripping the wires, put an alligator clip
on the green and red wire on both halves. Putting one on the grounds is a good
idea, too. Now you have what it takes to connect up to any phone box. On the
older ones where there are just four terminal posts, you take the headset and
connect up to the terminals via the alligator clips on the headset. You won't
need to use the other half of the cord with the phone jack since there is no
place to hook it up. You may also have to bring some vise grips to unscrew the
bolt, which holds the box closed. Sometimes, the colors of the terminals aren't
marked, so it will take some trial and error to find the two live ones. On the
newer boxes that have a telephone jack inside of them, you use the other half
of your cord containing the jack to plug inside of it. Then you connect the
alligator clips together on the headset. This should be no problem to open
since they are held down with a plastic lid. Easy, isn't it! One note, though.
There may be other variations out there. From my experience, these are the most
common types of boxes.

There are some drawbacks; relationships are always two-sided. The good points
are that it s easy (it beats hacking out codes to the local extender at the pay
phone) and, since most residential areas still use AT&T as their primary
carrier, you can call anywhere in the world. Some other long-distance carriers
have limited calling areas. The drawbacks are, first, you have to do this at
night like, 3 or 4 a.m., and if you do this, you always run the risk of getting
caught. Some neighbor might think you're a prowler. You should therefore dress
in dark clothes and not carry any identification with you. There is also a
limited amount of things you can do. After all, you can t call up your
relatives or too many of your friends at that time of day.

There is a wealth of locations where one can try to hook up. One spot is
housing construction - going up and coming down. Sometimes, when houses or
apartments are being built, the phones are connected before construction is
complete. I've also seen cases where people move out and the phones are not
disconnected. Once the people lived in a mobile home and they moved out,
leaving a vacant lot with a utility pole. Well, lo and behold, the phone was
still connected. The phone company didn't disconnect it until about seven
months later, and that was after practically everyone in the neighborhood had
crank-called people in Japan and Australia. You can also try rural
neighborhoods late at night, although using your own probably isn't a good
idea.

Small business clusters or industrial centers are also good spots. These
usually have the green boxes clumped together in lots of four. Late at night,
no one is around, so it's only a matter of hooking up. I'm talking about those
places where a company leases the shop or office space to various companies.
Trying to hook up where a 7-11 is located probably wouldn't be too smart.

Canning

A subject I'm going to touch upon is canning. The reason I say I just want to
"touch" upon it is because this topic really deserves a whole article by itself,
but since you can use the same tools of the trade, I'm going to mention it
here. Cans are those ugly green containers that stick out of the ground. Most
of the smaller and isolated cans can be easily opened with vise grips. The
bigger ones sometimes have locks on them, but nothing a bolt cutter couldn't
handle. Most cans that I've come across come in two flavors: ones where there
are just masses of individual telephone wires clumped together, and the others
that break apart the clumps of wires to help the distribution of the telephone
wires. The ones that have just the bundles of wires clumped together I've found
to be of little use. I imagine that a guy would have to match up the two wires
for each single phone to get a current that will work. But then again, I'm not
an expert. Sometimes these do break up a few individual houses in the
neighborhood. There might be a metal plate attached to the top of the can with
four or five terminals sticking out. Use trial and error again to find a live
current. It is usually pretty easy. The other cans, the bigger ones, which are
sometimes locked, can be a gold mine. They usually distribute pairs of wires in
a horizontal fashion, with a row of metal stubs sticking out. Inside it might
look a bit confusing. Around the perimeter, there are wads of wires tangled
together and going every which way. Inside the perimeter are rows and rows of
square metallic stubs. These stubs are thin, about three eighths of an inch
wide, and they stick out about an inch. The telephone wires will connect to
both sides of the horizontal rows of these metallic stubs. All you need to do
is connect up to two horizontal stubs. Not all of the wires in the can may be
live, so you need more than one try. Sometimes these bigger cans have some
goodies in them, such as lineman's headsets and papers containing technical
data. From what I understand, the purpose of these cans is to help troubleshoot
problems by breaking up units (or clusters of wires) into smaller units. I want
to emphasize that I am not an expert on these cans. These are just my
observations and I'm sure things work differently in different parts of the
nation.

The real benefit of hooking up comes when you own a portable computer with a
modem. If you find a target computer that you'd like to get to know better, and
you re not stupid enough to try to get to it from your home phone, then this
might be a good way to go. Portables are going down in price; I've seen some in
pawn shops for about $125.

There are a couple of other observations that I'd like to make. I've attended
two different high schools and I found their long-distance dialing procedures
in the same place. On the principal's desk, there was a bread board that slid
out on the left-hand side. The instructions for making long-distance calls were
typed on a piece of paper taped to this location. Perhaps this is a common
occurrence. I've also lived in a few different dorms, and I've noticed
similarities in their setup, too. In each room there was a plated telephone
jack. The plate was only held down by two flathead screws. I unscrewed the
plate and behind were most of the telephone wires for the whole floor. I could
have hooked up to any room on the floor undetected.

Finally, if you find that any of the above works out pretty good for you, don't
be too greedy, too stupid, or start taking life for granted. As they say on
Wall Street:  "Bulls make money, bears make money, pigs get slaughtered."