On the Road Again: Portable Hacking

by The Masked Avocado

As the smoke clears from the battlefield, it appears that the enemy has gained a major victory.  Scores of people raided, many arrested, some in jail, bulletin boards seized; the casualties are many.  Today it is almost impossible to find any hack/phreak board, let alone a decent one.  Everyone is laying low, information is scarce.  When asked almost everyone is "retired."  Our world is on hold, and has been on hold for what seems like an eternity.  The Phrack trials, Operation Sundevil, and a dozen other events have struck a major blow against our way of life, and caused paralysis.  Just like in the real world, the phreak/hack world is experiencing a recession of its own.

Raids, of course, have happened many times before, to a lesser extent, and the phreak/hack world has always bounced back.  I am sure that the phreak/hack world will come back stronger than ever one of these days.  But if it is to survive and avoid another series of raids, then it must change.  No longer will we have the comfort of hacking, phreaking, or scanning from home.  Those days are over; the enemy has finally learned to use technology too.  CLID, ANI, DNRs, narcs, and wiretaps have changed the way of hacking.  If we are to survive, then we must change as well.  Hacking on the road is no longer an option.  It has become a necessity.

History

From the beginning, phone phreaks realized that the surest way to avoid being busted was to use payphones.  They called them "phortress phones."  Phreaking from a payphone was not that much harder than doing it from home.  However, many found this to be an inconvenient, if not a somewhat overly paranoid, option.  Given the technology, ignorance, and lack of law enforcement on the part of the enemy at the time, very few were busted.  I remember when people set up their computers to hack 950 codes all night, scan entire 1-800 exchanges, and blast all sorts of illegal tones down their home telephone line without giving it a second thought.

Today, this kind of behavior is equivalent to suicide.  It has gotten to the point where, if you have a DNR on your line, and you actually have the balls to call your favorite bulletin board or (gasp!) call a Telenet port, you could be raided or have yourself hauled in for questioning.  Because of easier tracing, recent examples have shown that you can be raided for calling a board, especially one under investigation, perhaps not even knowing that the board was set up illegally on a hacked UNIX.  Big Brother may be eight years late, but he has arrived.  Let us take Darwin's advice, and adapt before we become extinct.

Who Should Go Portable?

Everyone, actually.  However, novices and explorers should learn as much as they can from others, and try not to do anything overtly dangerous from home.  There is much exploration that is completely legal, like public access UNIX machines and Internet.  Those who should go portable right away are experienced hackers, those with a relatively high profile in the hacking community, or those who have many associates in the hacking community.  Because of this, they are likely to have a DNR already slapped on their line.  Sometimes, all it takes is to have one DNR'ed hacker call another, and the second one has a pretty good chance of getting a DNR of his very own.  Enough gloom, let's see what lies ahead.

What You'll Need

Okay, you don't particularly want get busted by hacking from home, and you want to take your recreation on the road, eh?  Well, let us explore the options.  Knowing your options and getting the right equipment can make your experience of hacking on the road a less difficult, more comfortable, and more pleasant one.  Depending on the hacker several factors come into play when purchasing equipment, among them price, power and portability.

Obviously, one does not need a 486-50DX laptop with an active matrix TFT color screen, 64 megs of RAM, 660 meg hard disk, running UNIX SVR4 to go hacking.  Besides the $13,000 cost, I don't think getting a hernia is anyone's idea of a fun evening.  Besides with a system like that, chances are the laptop you are calling from has twenty times more power than the piece of shit 3B2 with a 4 meg hard disk that you're likely to hack into.  Similarly, a dinky little pocket computer with a 20x2 flickering LCD screen and a conveniently alphabetized ultra-bouncy membrane chicklet keyboard is not what is needed either.

Important factors in purchasing a laptop or notebook computer are price, weight, screen reliability, keyboard, memory, disk storage and battery life.  The price that you can afford should be determined by you.  As far as the screen goes, it should be large enough, preferably 80x24 characters, and easy to read.  LCD is okay, super-twist LSC even better EL and PLASMA are even better than that, but if you plan to hack at night or in the dark like most hackers on the road, you should make sure your laptop has a back lit screen.  Color LCD screens are useless unless you plan to call Prodigy or download and view GIFs in which case you should stop reading this article right now and go back to play with your Nintendo.

The keyboard should be a standard full-sized QWERTY keyboard, with full travel plastic keys.  You don't need a numeric keypad or function keys or any of that crap.  Membrane keyboards or chicklet rubber keys are out of the question.  Unless you are utterly retarded, having your keys alphabetized is not an added benefit.  Basically, if [you] can touch type on a keyboard without your fingers missing keys, getting jammed or slipping around, then it is a good keyboard.

You don't need a lot of memory on you portable either, since you will mostly be using it as a dumb terminal.  However you should have enough memory to run your terminal software and be able to buffer most of your online sessions for later analysis.  A floppy drive or some kind of permanent storage is also a good idea.  If your portable has battery backed RAM, you may get away without using a floppy drive, since you can always transfer any buffers to a larger machine via the serial port.

The last and perhaps the most important factor in determining your choice for a laptop or notebook is battery life, or more precisely, how long you can use the machine (when it's turned on) before needing a recharge or battery charge.  Unless you plan to find an AC outlet at every location you hack from, battery capacity is a crucial factor.  These battery times vary greatly, anywhere from two hours to 20 hours on some notebooks and palmtops.  I would recommend a machine with at least four hours of battery life per charge.  If you have a floppy disk drive, your battery life will decrease significantly with each disk
access, so try and keep any disk access to a minimum.  If your terminal software access the disk a lot, I would suggest running it from a RAM disk.  Having a hard disk on a laptop is pretty useless in relation to hacking, unless your sole purpose in life is to climb a telephone pole so that you can leach all the latest GIFs from Event Horizons 1-900 number.

The laptop and notebook market has changed more quickly than any other segment of the computer industry.  New models are literally coming out every three months.  While the new models offer better screens and lighter weight, they are usually far too expensive, especially for use as mere hacking rigs.  But an interesting byproduct of all this change is the fact that the older models are constantly being liquidated at almost rock bottom prices by companies like DAK, Damark, and Underware Electronics, which sell by catalog through mail order or by any number of companies that advertise in Computer Shopper.  The prices are dropping constantly, and by the time you read this article I'm sure the prices I mention will sound high once you've looked through some of these catalogs.

Not long ago a friend of mine purchased a brand new 4.4 pound discontinued NEC UltraLite computer with a backlit LCD screen, with a 2 MB battery backed silicon disk, and a built in 2400 modem for just under $500.  I've seen a Toshiba T1000 going for under $399, Zenith MinisPORT machines going for $299.  If you want, you can pick up a 386SX-20 notebook for under a thousand bucks easily.  The point is that the hardware is there, and it's usually far less expensive that any desktop machines.

Modems and Couplers

One does not need a 57,600 baud V.32bis/V.42bis modem to go hacking.  Unless you play to download all of the UNIX System V source code from an AT&T mini in under 5 minutes, a high-speed modem is no required.  A 300 baud modem may be too slow for most purposes, and the only times I would recommend 300 baud is if your notebook or palmtop has a small screen where everything would scroll off too quickly or if your a slow reader.

A 1200 or 2400 baud modem will do fine.  If it has error-correction (i.e. MNP), ever better.  If your laptop doesn't already have one built-in, I would suggest buying a pocket modem.  Pocket 1200 baud modems can be found for as low as $29.  Many pocket modems are the size of a cigarette pack and run for 15 hours or so off of a 9 volt battery.  Other pocket modems, like the Practical Peripherals' Practical Pocket Modem (Model PM-2400PPM, price $159 retail, can be found for $79 mail order) or the Novation Parrot, use low-power chips and run off either the power from your RS-232 port or the phone live voltage or both.  These modems are not very much more expensive than the battery ones, and you never have to worry about your modem running out of power.  All pocket modems are Hayes AT-compatible and some, like the USRobotics WorldPort 2496 Pocket Fax/Modem, even have G3 fax capacity.

If your going to be hacking from payphones, you're going to need an acoustic coupler to attach to your modem.  Several are available from stores specializing in laptops and laptop accessories.  The most popular among hackers is the CP+, available from The Laptop Shop.  There's also the Konnexx coupler, which can work with 9600 baud modems and faxes.  Look in magazines like Moblie Computing for ads for other modems.  A coupler will run you around $100 mail order.

Ultimately, it is best to keep your portable hacking system as small as possible and made of the minimum number of parts.  A notebook machine such as the Tandy WP-2, Cambridge Z88, NEC UltraLite, and the acoustic coupler/modem mentioned above is probably the best possible combination for a compact and inexpensive portable rig.  It's small and light, consists of only two or three pieces, fits in a small briefcase or knapsack, and weighs just under five pounds.

By planning and designing your system from start to finish you can achieve a sleek efficient portable hacking system.  Poor planning can result in uncomfortable heavy multi-piece systems that one has to drag around.  Before laptops really existed, a friend of mine decided to put together a portable rig from parts he already had, and this did not turn out too well.  His system consisted of an Apple ][c, a 12 volt car battery, AC power inverter, 7" monochrome monitor, and a full-size external Hayes modem.  The only things he ended up buying were the inverter and acoustic coupler.

However this system was a nightmare of a machine, weighing almost 45 pounds, consisting of seven cumbersome pieces, with tangled cables, and capable of completely draining a fully charged car battery in a matter of 30 minutes.   He managed to fit the entire system in a large suitcase.  It took him almost 15 minutes to set the entire thing up inside a phone booth, leaving very little room for him.  If trouble would arise, he would have a very difficult time making a quick getaway.  This is an example of what not to do when putting together your portable rig.

Where to Go Hacking

Location is just as important as having a good portable rig.  Where you hack from determines how long you can hack, how late you can hack, whether you'll be bothered by interruptions or have to look over your shoulder every minute, and many other factors.  Unless you happen to be traveling around the country and staying in hotels every other week, your only options for portable hacking are payphones, junction boxes, and exposed phone wiring.  Finding a great hacking location takes some work, but is well worth the effort.  You can save time by surveying locations beforehand, that is, before you actually go hacking.  You should find several possible locations that meet your needs.  After using one location for a week or so, you should move on.  Depending on the sensitivity of the machines you hack, using the same location for an extended amount of time is hazardous to your freedom.

Time of day is also another important factor.  It is best to go out late at night to do the majority of your hacking.  Besides 3 am is about the only decent tome to cut into people's phone lines to attach your portable without being noticed.  However, 3 am is also when local cops like to make their rounds through quiet neighborhoods, so be careful, because it's very hard to explain what you were doing inside a junction box to the police, even if you were wearing a lineman's helmet, because linemen don't work at 3 am.

If you don't have an acoustic coupler, you can't really use a payphone unless you manage to get access to the wiring.  Therefore, you are limited to using whatever telephone lines you can get your wire cutters on.  Junction boxes are great, but the ones directly on the street are too dangerous.  For all junction boxes bring along the necessary hex wrench.  Almost all junction boxes in suburbia are unlocked and usually very secluded.  In the city however the best junction boxes are in the back of large apartment buildings, or in their basements, or in the back of stores and in parking lots.  As an added bonus, junction boxes not on the street are not locked.

When using a junction box it is preferable if you can not be seen from the street.  Junction boxes on poles are also good if you can find them in secluded or remote areas.  I found one near me that fits my needs well.  It is a huge unlocked box atop a pole with a very nice and comfortable seat.  What is really great though, is that right next to the pole there's a tree.  The branches and leaves of the tree completely engulf the top of the pole, thus I am completely invisible to people passing by on the street.  I simply climb the tree to get high enough to start climbing the metal ladder spikes on the pole and climb up to the seat, unpack my rig, and I'm ready to rock.

This is the perfect hacking and phreaking location at 3:00 in the morning.  Having access to hundreds of different lines also allows one to use such a location for many hacking sessions before moving on.  If you're a college student, dorms are great places to find indoor junction boxes.  They are usually in stairwells and in the basement.

If you are not able to use a junction box, all you have to do is find a running line in a secluded location.  Again, the backs of stores are good places to find wiring.  Be sure you know what you are doing, because there is a lot of other wiring that can get in the way, such as cable TV, antenna, and electrical wiring.  If you fry yourself on a power cable then you deserve it, because you're too stupid to even go hacking.

If you plan a direct connection (running wiring or junction boxes), other parts you will want to bring along on your hacking trips are a lineman's handset, wire cutters and strippers, and an RJ11 phone jack with alligator clips.

If you have an acoustic coupler, you have the added option of using payphones and phone booths.  But stay away from COCOTs, they are too much of a headache, and the sound quality usually sucks.  Good places to find secluded payphones late at night are parks, playgrounds, beaches, and boardwalks.  If you live in New York City then this does not apply to you unless you enjoy being harassed and urinated upon by homeless people while trying to gain root.

Obviously, outdoor hacking becomes much less of an option when it rains or when the weather turns poor.  During the day, good places to find secluded payphones are old buildings, college buildings, airports, hotels, libraries and museums.  I once found a phone booth in an old secluded hallway at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan.  The phone was rotary and hadn't been used by humans in I don't know how long.  The phone book in there was from 1982.  The phone booth was recessed in a wall, well lighted, with a door.  Needless to say, this was the perfect spot for several hacking sessions during the day.

With payphones, there is the added problem of the phone constantly wanting money.  A Red Box is very cumbersome, and modem transmissions are immediately killed when the phone wants money every few minutes.  Unless your hacking consists entirely of machines with 1-800 dial-ups, codes or calling cards are a must.  Using a phone company with good sound quality, such as AT&T or Sprint, will reduce errors and line noise.  Given the acoustic nature of the connection, it becomes necessary to manually flash the switch-hook between calls, and perhaps even manually dialing if your modem cannot autodial.  This hassle can be avoided by using a dial-out such as a UNIX with cu, an Internet dial-out, or PC Pursuit.

Unlike on TV and in the movies, cellular phones are not really an option for portable hacking, unless you have the ability to completely reprogram yours at a moments notice, by changing both the Electronic Serial Number and the telephone number to someone else's.  This type of phreaking requires some advanced knowledge.  Getting the ESNs and TNs is not a problem since they are broadcast digitally over the air, and you and pluck them right off the air if you build a decoder and hook it up to a scanner with 800 MHz capability.  This is, however, a topic for another article.  Just as an aside, modem transmissions over cellular phones are quite possible with error correcting modems up to 9600 baud.  Telebit even makes a very nice cellular modem called the Cellblazer which can pump data through at 16,00 baud.

Taking to the Road

Another crucial element in successful portable hacking is planning.  In light of time constraints and battery life, you should plan as much of your work ahead of time as possible.  Any preliminary work should be done before the mission (research, social engineering, etc.).  I understand that hacking is somewhat of an unorganized, unplanned activity, but you should at least have some sort of an agenda planned out.  That's not to say that you can't have any fun or enjoy yourself; you could spend all night calling pirate boards in Europe for all I care.  Nothing is worse than sitting atop a telephone pole at four in the morning trying to think of where to call next.

Be prepared, and bring everything you will need: your rig, handset, notebook, flashlight, food and drink, a list of computers to call, and if you live in New York City, bring along a weapon for self-defense.

When using payphones, it is also a good idea to have a good excuse ready in case someone asks you what you're doing.  A favorite among hackers on the road is.  "I'm a freelance writer and I'm transmitting a story to my editor."  During the daytime at a payphone no one is likely to even notice you since so many people have laptops these days.  If you're at someone's junction box or cutting into someone's phone wiring at three in the morning, no excuse is necessary.  Just be prepared to run like hell.

During your hacking mission, try to have a good idea of where you are, and make a note of any exits that may be needed if you need a quick getaway.  And buffer everything for later review.

The Future

The ultimate thrill would be to carry around a notebook machine with a pocket packet radio TNC and a portable HF transceiver.  There are places on the packet nets where you can link into TCP/IP gateways and Telnet to any place on the Internet.  Also rumored to exist on the packet nets are telephone modem dial-outs.  With this kind of setup, you could literally be in the middle of the desert outside of Phoenix and be hacking a machine anywhere in the world.  When you're done, you can just move on.  I'm sure this scares the shit out of law enforcement, and rightly so.  But that may be exactly what we're doing five years from now.

Conclusion

I have been on many portable hacking trips, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends.  All I can really say is that it's lots of fun, just like regular hacking, but without any of the worries associated with hacking from home.  Also, portable hacking is more exciting that just sitting at home in front of your computer.

If you find good locations, and bring along a couple of buddies and plenty of good American beer, hacking on the road can be the best thing in the world.

Select Forward Method

This method prevents others from using *69 to call you back from up to six telephone numbers that you select.  It forwards those calls to any other number in your area code.

To accomplish this, dial *63 (1163 pulse), then 3.  After the tone, enter the telephone number you want calls forwarded to and then # (12 pulse).  When prompted, enter 1 and then # (12 pulse) when prompted again.  Next, enter the telephone number(s) you wish to have calls forwarded from, with a # (12 pulse) after each number.  You can forward calls from the number you just received a call from by entering 01 in its place.  Hang up when you're done.

Select Forward costs about 50 cents each day it's left on or $3.50 per month for unlimited usage.  If you're not a monthly Select Forward subscriber, don't forget to deactivate it when you don't need it or it could end up costing you over four times the monthly rate.  To deactivate Select Forward, dial *83 (1183 pulse), then enter 08 and hang up.