Telephones from Space
by Dent
Modems, fax machines, old recordings, strange beeps, error messages, ancient answering machines, and pissed-off operators. These are just a few of the amazing things I've encountered over the past few months. In this article I will talk about these things, how I found them and how you can find them yourself.
Some time in August, I picked up a payphone and called 1-800-200-1000.
It rang for a good 30-60 seconds before I heard a loud screech from the speaker followed by silence. "Weird," I thought as I wrote it down in my blue notebook. This was followed by calling 1-800-201-1000, and then 1-800-202-1000.
It wasn't long before I started finding all sorts of cool things. I compiled my full list and shared it with friends, only to find that these seemingly useless and unidentified numbers had a history of their own - even better, a community of their own.
This process is called scanning. It is also sometimes referred to as hand scanning or exchange scanning. To put it simply, it is the process of calling a range of numbers in sequential order with a goal of finding something.
That something is up to you. Whether it be finding a strange recording or an elevator (yes, you can find elevators!), the things you write down and share are up to you. When I did my scans, I wrote down anything that I found to be cool. This included conferencing numbers, telecom companies, and pretty much anything I wanted to further investigate.
To start scanning, you only need a few things. Those things are:
- What range you are scanning.
- A notebook and a pencil (or any way to log what you find).
- A telephone!
To decide what range you are scanning, all you need to do is pick a phone number and a set of numbers that will increment after every call. In my previous example, it was: 1-800-NXX-1000
Keep in mind that the N is a number from 2 to 9 and the X is a number from 0 to 9.
This means over a period of a few days (or a day if you're determined) you call around 800 different phone numbers. Within these many non-working numbers, you will find many cool things.
Below is an example of a scan I did in the 1-800-NXX-2600 range.
Short after finishing this scan, I posted it to a phreaking forum under a different alias. You can still call numbers by replacing NXX with a three-digit number listed below.
As you can see, there's a lot of cool stuff to find in plain sight. Even if you don't fully understand what you find, there is a puzzle to be solved, and therefore a story to be told.
I recommend recording particularly interesting numbers as well, in case they eventually claim a new purpose and what was once interesting is now just the voicemail of some guy name "Bob."
Furthermore, sharing your scans with others is a great way to learn more about them. Without people like I-BaLL and ThoughtPhreaker, I would have never found or understood most of the numbers in this list.
In the Links section of this article there are quite a few great places to share your scans with others.
Links
www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?/forum/21-old-skool-phreaking/ Lots of threads all about scanning and a great community.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQdv-NaFYrQ A video I made about some of the numbers in this list as well as some others.
textfiles.com/phreak/NUMBERS A collection of scans (mostly from mid-1980s) put together by Jason Scott.
oldskoolphreak.com/tfiles Lots of useful information about phreaking, scanning, and hacking.