-= THE SCIENCE OF =- -= RED BOXING =- By: Foxx D'Gamma CONTENTS -------- 1 Disclaimer 2 Preface 3 What the hell is a Red Box? 4 ACTS 5 Know Your Enemy 6 Red Box tones 7 How to create the Red Box tones 8 The Tone Dialer 9. The Walkman 9.1 Making Patch Cables 9.2 Headphone to RCA (Phono) Jacks 9.3 Headphone to Headphone 9.4 Dubbing 9.5 Walkman Tips & Tricks 9.6 Pros & Cons 10 The Discman 10.1 Pros & Cons 11 The Digital Recorder 11.1 Making Patch Cables 11.2 Getting the tone to the recorder 11.3 Pros & Cons 12 Electronic Devices 12.1 DTMF Encoder Based 12.2 The Modded Phone/Beige Box 12.3 Pros & Cons 13 Tips And Tricks 14 The Theory of Use 14.1 How To Use The Damn Thing 14.2 AT&T ACTS Numbers 15 Security 16 Getting Busted 17 License Agreement 1 DISCLAIMER Im am writing this to totally rip off the phone company(s). If you have a problem with it, take it to someone who gives a fuck! Cause I sure-o-shit don't. All text in this article I have personally done, and if you want to rat my ass out, or if you are some telco agent, try and bust me, all you have on me so far is this file I supposedly wrote myself, and all allegations within it. If someone gets busted for attempting ANY of this, don't come crying to me, this is not fool proof. Any actions you take with this file, as in reading, printing, construction of any of the devices, and the wiping of your ass with it, is your desgression. I am no where near responsible for your idiotic actions. You have been warned. 2 Preface OK, this is for all you IDIOTS out there that can not be helped out what so ever by anyone when trying to Red Box. I am writing this because that is all people think they have to do to become a phreak now a days. Well, I hate to break it to you, but there is a lot more to it than that. Just to make you happy, I will now explain The Science of Red Boxing. 3 What The Hell Is A Red Box? Ever call someone on a payphone? Ever hear very faint chirps in the background when you put money in? Those chirps are telling the telephone that you put in money. What a Red Box does is imitate those specific "coin" tones through the Microphone of that phone (unless its cut off) to fool the computer at the other end to think that you have deposited money. Quite slick, huh? 4 ACTS A long while ago (sometime in early 1982) a system called ACTS came out. ACTS was an acronym for Automated Coin Tolling System. It was developed just for payphone type calls. Its purpose was to free up human operators that would handle coin based calls so they can do other jobs, such as routing, assisting morons such as yourself, and sitting in a pool of booze, vomit and piss cause the ACTS system made them obsolete. The more we accept technology as a replacement for a human, more and more flaws will pop up. Man; as a being is flawed, and can not make another perfect being because he is not, nor will ever see perfection, so this is where we have the fun! Because of the machine called ACTS, Red Boxing is possible. What ACTS does is route and rate all coin based payphone calls. Today AT&T owns the ACTS systems, and as a part of the telephone systems, it must rely on tones to operate. All that ACTS is looking for is a simple set of tones that say "Nickel", "Dime", or "Quarter". However, unlike traditional telephone systems, it does not use a solid tone. It uses a tone that has repated pauses in it, that is why you hear the faint chirping in the headset. The tone is playing, and then pausing repeatedly a number of times depending on the type of coin. The specific tones that ACTS is looking for is 1700Hz and 2200Hz mixed together in a DTMF signal (I take it that you already know what a DTMF tone is, if not, your screwed!). This is where the brake time of the tones come in. When dealing with an ACTS, you will have to imitate the coin tones, which can sometimes be tricky. Unlike the DTMF matrix of a telephone, the ACTS tones are all the same, but just played in different ways, at different intervals. The DTMF matrix on your phone will always make a different noise; no two buttons will ever make the same tone. ACTS does not wok in this way. 5 Know Your Enemy Before attempting to make a Red Box, you should look around for payphones that might be Boxable. Why spend all the time and money, just to figure out that you cannot do it in your area. If you have a life, and actually go outdoors every once and a while and you see a payphone, stop and check it out. Most of the usual Bell Atlantic payphones, or your local telco payphones should work. A quick test is to blow into the Mic. If you hear the PFFFFT sound in the headset, the Mic is obviously active. Since the Red Box is an acoustic (sound based) device, the Mic is required to be functional. The next test is to see if the phone will let you Dial an ACTS based telephone number (explained later). Most COCOTs (acronym for Customer Owned, Coin Operated Telephone) will NOT work, do not even waste your time trying. Even if the Mic is not cut off, they will not let you dial an ACTS based number. Almost every COCOT will use its internal computers to calculate the cost of a call. Or the payphone will have its own long distance carrier plan to use that is not AT&T. Bottom line, don't try to Box a COCOT. All COCOTS are good for is pissing on. Usually if it does not have a Bell Atlantic or Telco payphone sign on, near, or above it, it is a COCOT. 6 Red Box Tones Here are the actual frequencies that the Red Box produces. Actually, this is what a pay phone produces, and ACTS listens for. The "tone" is 1700 Hz and 2200 Hz mixed as a DTMF signal. A Nnickel is 66 ms on (1 beep). A Dime is 66ms on, 66ms off, 66ms on (2 beeps). A Quarter is 33ms on, 33ms off repeated 5 times. 7 How to create Red Box Tones Oh sweet Jesus help me! I know that some moron will contact me after reading all of this and still not know a good god damn thing! There are SO many ways to make the Red Box tones; here are some of them. I will explain all of these ways and all of the pros and cons of them... Some things that you should be familiar with when attempting to construct a Red Box are: How to read Basic electronics. How to read a schematic. Basic audio systems (hooking up cables and patching equipment). How to use basic tools. How to soldier. 8 The Tone Dialer The modded tone dialer was first posted in an issue of 2600: The hacker Quarterly. I have not seen this actual article, but I do know that people have beaten it to DEATH! Thank you 2600 and all of your media whore hacker/phreaker wannabe fuckheads! All the credit for this section of the article should go to Noah Clayton who originally wrote this for 2600. This is my version, one that actually works today (to a point). Keep in mind that the original article was written in the mid 90's (95 I think) and is old, so the technology HAS changed, or died. Use this as a basic guide. Converting A Tone Dialer Into A Red Box: You will need: Radio Shack pocket tone dialer model #43-146 Soldering Iron Small regular and Phillips screwdriver Wire clippers A 6.5536 MHz Crystal Place the dialer on the table keypad side down and speaker side up. Remove the battery cover and all the batteries. Use the Phillips screwdriver to remove all four screws on the back of the dialer. If you have the new model, there will be six screws. Now slide the Flathead screwdriver along the side to separate the two halves of the dialer. Slide the speaker half underneath the keypad so you do not break off the speaker wires. On the left-hand side down near the battery compartment, you will see a brownish, rounded rectangle like component. This is the Resonator you want to remove. Pull it up with your fingers and break away all the glue that's holding it down. Use your soldering iron and de-solder it from the circuit board Replace this fucker with the 6.55 Mhz Crystal you have. You should hear high-pitched touch-tones. The "star" key on the dialer is your coin key. By hitting this key quickly one time, you create a nickel tone. Two times makes a dime tone and five times equals a quarter tone. Nobody can hit the button fast enough to make a quarter tone so you have to program 5 hits into one of the memory locations. You'll be using the three priority buttons on the top of your unit. P1 will be your quarter, P2 your dime and P3 will be the Nickel. So here is how to do it: (1) Switch the unit on. The Red light in the corner should come on. (2) Slide the DIAL/STORE switch to the STORE mode. (3) Press MEMORY, *, *, *, *, *, MEMORY, P1. That programs your Quarter. (4) Press MEMORY, *, *, MEMORY, P2. That programs your dime. (5) Press MEMORY, *, MEMORY, P3. And that's the nickel. (6) Slide the DIAL/STORE switch back into the DIAL mode and you're ready to go. Try pushing the priority buttons now. Each one will emit a different high-pitched chirping noise. This is what the phone hears when you deposit money into a pay phone. If you've ever Red Boxed with a tape recorder or heard the actual pay phone tones before, you'll notice that these tones are slightly slower than the real ones. Do not try to fool ops with this! It will not work, the Ops today are trained to listen to the speed of the tones, and most likely know that you are using the dialer mod, and they will say something to you. Making Red Box/Tone Dialer Combo I like this mod, since you can still use your dialer as a dialer, as well as a Red Box. The hardest part to this is mounting a switch to the dialer itself. The dialer doesn't have much room, so you will have to use that tiny peanut brain of yours. 1. Buy a small SPDT switch. As small as you can get it. 2. Soldier the Crystal to one end of the switch, and the Resonator to the opposite end, leaving the middle one bare. 3. Soldier a small wire, about 4" long to each bare end of the Crystal, The bare end of the Resonator, and the middle post (bare as well) of the switch. 4. Soldier the Resonator and the Crystal pins together, and soldier it to where the Resonator would be on the main board. 5. Soldier the wire from the switch to the main board. Where to get a Crystal Any 6.5 Crystal will work in a tone dialer, whether it is 6.5 or 6.5536 or whatever. Here are a few places to order crystals from: Mouser Electronics. 1-800-346-6873 www.mouser.com. Part No. 520-HCU655-S 1.12 ea. Digi-key Electronics. 1-800-DigiKey www.DigiKey.com Part No. X018-ND .84 EA. Now that you read all that, I bet you are about to go and get everything you need to build one! Man, it seems that easy right!? WRONG! Today, the payphones won't accept a Tone Dialer Red Box... Why you ask?! Well, most of the assholes I have talked to that could not Red Box said that there was a filter in the Mic, or some stupid shit like that. First of all, there are NO filters in the payphone. The payphone will add some capactive disturbance to the Mic so the tone can't go through. Some of the newer ones can detect the tone and cut off the Mic, so it will sound like you are dialing in pulse when you put the tone through. Remember, this MOD is 5 years old or more. I think that has given the phone company more than enough time to fix this problem (which costs them aver 3 billion bucks a year). The solution: Make the dialer louder! That is the only thing that I have done that actually worked... However, you will have to buy an extra $12 external amp from radio shack, patch cables, and you will have to yet again MOD the dialer. Personally, I don't think it's worth it. And if you DO get the dialer, don't even bother to rip the LED out, it will last you about a year on some good batteries, and the LED only takes up 20 mA of power, which isn't much. If you want to MOD the Dialer, use my updated Dialer Plans. 10.1 Tips and Tricks Coating the keys On most of my dialers, the paint on the keys has worn of from pressing then too many times. It is a good idea to coat the keys with clear paint, or do like I do, use some clear nail polish to coat all the keys. This will keep ALL your keys protected. If you want to go the distance, take the whole dialer apart, or before you MOD it, you can use some clear spray paint and coat the whole thing, just don't use too much. This will keep your dialer looking like new. 10.2 Pros and Cons Pros * All Electronic * Somewhat small * If moded right, can also be a tone dialer Cons * Need no know electronics (kinda) * MOD might not work in your area * Dialers hare VERY hard to find! * Might not be loud enough 9 The Walkman With this version, you need to know a LOT about your equipment... First off: the payphone. Most of the time the tones have to be above 30 db (decibels) and be at a decent quality. This is where the science comes in. The easiest way to make a Red Box cassette tape is to hook your computer up to a recorder and play the Quarter Tone in a loop. That easy? SHIT NO! First off, how are you going to connect your stereo and your computer together? If you don't have a stereo that has an input, you WILL need something that does. You can just simply hold the recorder up to the computer speaker and dub it. That shit just will NOT work, don't waste your time! First, you have to make/buy a patch cable. Depending what you are using will depend on the types of cables you will need. If you are going from a computer to stereo, you will need a headphone to RCA (phono) jack connection. If you have a Walkman that could record, or a lil' recorder with an input, you will need a MALE to MALE headphone jack cable. You could make them yourself, or buy them from radio shack. If you want to make them, here is how... if you are going to be a lazy fuck, I suggest you skip this. 9.1 Making Patch cables. The Color Code The standard color code for stereo connections are as follows: RED Right Channel WHITE Left channel BARE Common lead Sometimes when you go to the dollar store and buy some cheap headphones to strip for parts, they wont have the standard color code, or only one color will match, for this application, it doesn't matter. 9.2 Headphone to RCA (Phono) Jacks Take your headphones and splice the wire. Now you will have one of two things. You will have 2 separate wires with 2 wires in each part (one pair for left channel, and the other set for right channel), or you will have 1 wire with 3 inside it. If you have the 2 pairs of wires, take them, and strip all 4 wires (remember, 2 on each side). If you can't strip them cause you don't know how or are a total dumb fuck, take a match or lighter and try to melt the insulation off them. Now twist the 2 common wires (usually the same colors) together, and now twist the left and right channel together. Now we went from 2 pairs of wires to 1 pair. Now take your RCA jacks and do the same thing. Common lead twists to the common lead, and the left channel twists to the right. Take a cable in each hand, and beat yourself with them! I hope you really didn't do that, if so.. oh well, do it again! Now that you have each cable, twist the common channel from the headphones into the common of the RCA. Twist the left/right channel wires of the headphone jack into the left/right channel of the RCA's. PRESTO! Now you have a Headphone to RCA patch cable. Plug the headphone into your soundcard, and the other into the AUX or INPUT (whatever you may have) of your stereo. 9.3 Headphone To Headphone Take your headphones and splice the wire. Now you will have one of two things. You will have 2 separate wires with 2 wires in each part (one set for left channel, and the other set for right channel), or you will 1 wire with 3 inside it. If you have the 2 pairs of wires, take them, and strip all 4 wires (remember, 2 on each side). If you can't strip them cause you don't know how or are a total dumb fuck, take a match or lighter and try to melt the insulation off them. Now twist the 2 common wires (usually the same colors) together, and now twist the left and right channel together. Now we went from 2 pairs of wires to 1 pair. Now do this to the other headphone jack... Now take the two separate cables and twist the common wires together. Take the left/right channel wires to both of them, and twist them together... Now take the patch cable and beat yourself in praise! If you did that.. damn... Take one headphone jack and plug it into your soundcard, and take the other and plug it into your recorder. 9.4 Dubbing Now that you have your computer hooked into your recording device, we are going to have to prepare for recording. I like to take a nice clean, computer generated Quarter Tone (get it off the net, or use Cool Edit to produce it) and have a 1 second gap in the beginning or end. What the gap does is allow me put my computer on loop, and it will keep playing the tone repeatedly, without me having to keep clicking. If you have a tone and it doesn't have a 1 second gap, you can make one by opening it in sound recorder (comes with Windows 9x) and unplug your Mic (or turn it off) and just record for a second or 2 after the tone has played. Now if you have a decent sound card, it will have some spatial or 3D sound to it. This is not good! We want a RAW tone, no filtering. This is what will make all the difference on playback. I am not going to walk you through your computers sound card settings, since there are thousands of them, and I don't know any of them except a few. Just look in your system tray for your soundcard settings (not the little yellow speaker that Windows uses to control the sound). Turn all of your 3D sound off. Take off all DSP effects. If you have a REVERB or a SPATIAL filter, turn them ALL off! If you don't know how, I don't suggest you go any further until you figure out how to do so. Now that you have the sound card set up, we have to set up the recording device. If you have a simple panasonic recorder, or a Walkman, and it has no filters, (bass Boost or anything) just keep the volume at 50% while recording. If you DO have any types of filters like Noise Reduction Control (NCR) or bass boost, turn it all off. If you have a manual graphic equalizer, keep it all at zero. I can't stress this enough, if this shit is on, the tone will fuck up at playback! This will take some time to play with, but once you get it right; it is easy to reproduce, cheap, and effective. 9.5 Walkman Tips & Tricks "Tune" the walkman to the phone. Play the tone into the headset before dialing, and if u hear a crisp tone with no problems, go ahead and go for the gold! -Make a custom external headset. All headphones have a different - -impedence level, which might make it have a bass boost, or make it a little less loud. My suggestion, go and get a speaker out of an old -phone, and use the patch cable that you built to wire it into your - -walkman. -Don't rewind your tape when you are done. Keep on playing from where - -you left off. If you rewind all the time, the beginning of the tape -will wear out a LOT faster. -When recording, try different volume levels to your computer, don't -just blast it. The recorder can only handle a certain amount of sound -coming from the computer, and once that limit has been reached, you -will start do hear distortion. Keep adjusting it until it is JUST right, -or JUST good enough to playback. One you get this down pat, you are - -set 9.6 Pros & Cons Pros * Cheap as hell! * Adjustable volume * Can record actual music on the other side of the tape. * Somewhat small Cons * After time, the tape wears out, and it will fuck up. * There will be white noise (sounds like a Hissss) on the tape at all times. * Takes a long time to dub the tape. * Try and fool an Op, watch what happens (cool if you are looking for a laugh/scare) NOTE: If you have a Micro cassette recorder, don't use it, it's not worth the trouble! Stop trying to be like the dicks from the movie hackers 10 The Discman The discman could be used just like the Walkman. The only problem is that you will NEED a CD-R device. All that you need to do is convert the tone you need into CD Audio format and burn. Once again, don't forget to take off any filtering properties when burning the CD, and when playing back on the Discman. 10.1 Pros & Cons Pros * All digital, never wears down * Might be able to fool an OP. * Can have music as well! Cons * Need a CDR * Need to know how to convert the tone into CDA format * You have to know how to use the damn CDR and its software! 11 Digital Recorders Digital recorders are becoming increasingly popular, and the price is dropping quite a bit. If you want the easy way out of a Red Box, get one. I honestly think it is the easiest one to do with the best quality. 11.1 Making the cables To make a digital Red Box, you will have to build a patch cable that will connect to the digital recorder... Take your headphones and splice the wire. Now you will have one of two things. You will have 2 separate wires with 2 wires in each part (one set for left channel, and the other set for right channel), or you will have 1 wire with 3 inside it. If you have the 2 pairs of wires, take them, and strip all 4 wires (remember, 2 on each side). If you can't strip them cause you don't know how or are a total dumb fuck, take a match or lighter and try to melt the insulation off them. Now tie the 2 common wires (usually the same colors) together, and now tie the left and right channel together. Now we went from 2 pairs of wires to 1 pair. If you have the 3 wire one, just tie the left and right channel together. Now take some alligator clips and attach it to each wire of the cable (there should be ONLY 2, if not, you fucked up like the fuckup you are!). I think the most common digital recorder was the Yackback, but because they were so damn expensive, people didn't by it. They soon forgot about them, and Yes Gear sopped making them. If you are lucky, like me (which I doubt you are) you can probably get them for about 3 bucks. Hey marked down from $25, I think that's a good price! If you cant get one, go to rat shack and get a keychain recorder. The quality KICKS ASS!! I have one, and I can fool any OP, all the time. 11.2 Getting the tone to the recorder To get the tone onto the recorder, you WILL have to open it up. The first thing you do is look for the Microphone (It's a small silver thingie). Once you have found it, you will have to rip it out. I suggest taking the wires leading into the Mic, and bend them back and fourth a lot, real fast, but you can use cutters or scissors. Splice the wires and attach the alligator clips. One for each wire (remember, there are ONLY 2!!) Just like the walkman, you will have to turn off all the filters to your computer. Im not going to tell you how cause I don't know what kind of piece of shit computer you have, so go and read the manual or fuck with it until you got it. I usually turn the volume and wave Output down to 25% before I record. But JUST like the walkman, you will have to experiment to get the tone JUST right. Many people have claimed that Hallmark has a greeting card that you could record your own message for the asshole you got it for. I haven't seen any. I have gone to several hallmark stores, and most of the old fart clerks say that they have been gone for almost 5 years. I don't know if that's true or not, and I don't care, if you get one, good, use that. Just treat it just like everything else. If you DO get it, you will have to modify it with a switch for Record/Playback. I have never seen these cards, so I cant tell you specifically how to do it. Use the little bit of common logic that you have to rig the fucker up. 11.3 Pros & Cons Pros * If you can DUB a good tone, you can fool OPS * Small! * Never Wears Down * Can erase the tone very easily if caught (like that would EVER happen) Cons * Might not be loud enough, you might need an acoustic condenser (Yakback's only) * If the record button is not disabled, you can very easily erase the tone. (Radio Shack Keychain Recorder 23-161) * If the battery goes dead, or comes out, you don't have too long until the tone gets erased. 12 ELECTRONIC DEVICES Well, this is very advanced, all I will is give some schematics, and a description, the rest is up to you! If you don't know anything about electronics, skip this. 12.1 DTMF Tone Encoder based This particular model was redeveloped by me (Foxx D'Gamma). It uses a Holtek HT900b DTMF Encoder chip. The DTMF Encoder chip is what is in the tone dialer and all phones to make DTMF tones. What this circuit does is, instead of making the regular [*] tone via the regular 3.57Mhz Resonator, it will make the Red Box tone via the 6.55mhz Crystal. This works the same way the Tone Dialer Red Box does, but this one is louder, and WAY smaller. This thing can be made as small as your pinky! How this works is, the 555 chip (a timer IC) is set to make a pulse every 33ms. So now every 33ms a pulse is sent to the 74HC4017 chip, which is a decade counter. The way the 74HC4017 is hooked up, it will count to five and then stop. When the 74HC4071 chip gets a signal from the 555 chip, it will send a pulse to the DTMF encoder IC, which is then wired to make the Red Box tone. Since the decade counter is set to count to 5, it will press the * key 5 times, for 33ms each time, which is the exact quarter tone. The hardest part of this circuit is to get the DTMF encoder from Holtek. Its only $1.12, but the cost for shipping is $5, so its really not worth it, unless you get some friends together and get one big order. Or do like I do, mass produce them, and sell them at schools and whatnot. The estimated cost of this model is about $6, and if you sell it for $20, you make a $14 dollar profit... As of now, the only place I can find a DTMF encoder is from Holtek, I cant find it from Rat Shack, Mouser, or DigiKey. They stopped selling them a while ago. If you are not electronically pussy whipped unlike most of the people I know, you may want to try this: Get an old phone, and look for a 14-16 pin IC chip. Since all phones have a DTMF Encoder, you can use this one. The main problem is that the pinouts to this chip is not the same as the one from the schematic I showed you. Tho figure out what goes where try and read the printed board, tracking all of the connections. The easiest ones to find is the * key pins, and the Resonator pins. I will take it that you know what a Resonator looks like, if not, read the ToneDialer Red Box section. Now mark down what pins do what. The Resonator will take up 2 pins ONLY, always. The * key is maybe 2-4 pins tied together. Look at the keypad, trace the * key all the way back to the IC. Now those are your pins to make the * tone. The hardest part now is to find the power. If you want to do it the easy but long way, trace all the pins of the chip. Most of them are used for the keypad, and 2 are used for the resonator. Now all that has to be done is find the power, and the tone output pins. Usually, one of the tone output pins is connected to a 8 pin chip, which is an small amplifier. The other may connected to the amp chip as well, to ground, or the speaker. The power pins will be connected to some raw circuitry, and things like resistors, capasitors, and transistors. Just like the Tone Out pins, the negative pin is usually connected to the ground. I am not to sure if this will work for ALL DTMF Encoders chips, but if you don't want to break down the cash for the Holtek one, or cant find another one, this is your ONLY option, so take it up the ass like the little bitch you are and tough it out. If you were actually smart enough to figure all of this out (which I DOUBT you are) you will have to replace the IC that you have, with the IC that is in the original circuit. To make your life a little easier (but not much), here are the PINOUTS for the HT9200B chip. This is straight out of their Technical Reference manual for this specific chip, so don't give me any shit. Notice how Pins 6,7, and 9 are hooked into the Decade Counter. These pins ate used to make the * tone. As you can see, there is only 2 pins to the decade counter, and 3 pins of the DTMF IC. All that has to be done is to tie 2 pins of the 3 together. Whatever the * pins for your IC are, you will have to tie them into the 12 and 14 pin of the counter, just like you see in the schematic. 12.2 Modified Phone/Beige Box This is one of my favorite mods to pull off on ANY phone I use as a Beige Box. Show this to your friends and watch them piss their pants in envy. In EVERY phone there is a chip that makes DTMF tones. This chip needs a 3.57Mhz Resonator/Crystal to generate the tones, JUST like the tone dialer. If you replace it with a 6.55, you can press the * key to get a nickel. But what about quarters you say? Press * 5 times, then hold the reset button, it will play the * key back 5 times, just like the quarter. Sounds slow you say? It might not be the quarter tone, but its 5 fast nickel tones, so its -almost- the same thing. What about power you say? Use two 9-volt batteries in series to get a nice LOUD tone! Keep the 3.57 Resonator in there and you have yourself a tone dialer. Here is how to hook it all up: 1. Locate, De-soldier, and remove the original Resonator from the main board 2. Buy a small SPDT switch. As small as you can get it. 3. Soldier the Crystal to one end of the switch, and the Resonator to the opposite end, leaving the middle one bare. 4. Soldier a small wire, about 4" long to each bare end of the Crystal, The bare end of the Resonator, and the middle post (bare as well) of the switch. 5. Soldier the Resonator and the Crystal pins together, and soldier it to where the Resonator would be on the main board. 6. Soldier the wire from the switch to the main board. 12.3 Pros & Cons PROS * Can fool OPS * Can be small if you are smart enough * Totally electronic means no wearing down, or having to put the tone back on when the batteries are pulled out. * No distortion CONS * Can be a bitch to build * Parts can be rare/discontinued * Ya gotta know electronics! (DAMN!) 13 Tips And Tricks The Sweet Spot Sometimes when you build a Redbox, it wont work because its not in the right case, or because the tones are resonating off of objects, The most common problem for me is what I like to call the sweet spot. I use a Rat Shack digital recorder (23-161) as a Red Box. The main problem with it is that is can not get past level 2 security payphones. As stated in the security section, level 2 requires the tones to be over 30dB. The only two solutions are, make it louder, or find the "Sweet Spot". It is obvious that you can not make it louder, so we will have to find this so called Sweet Spot. The sweet spot is the ONLY place on the entire Mic that will let a Red Box tone go through. I don't know why it will let it go through, but it does. Be careful when you hit it, if you move just a hair, it will no longer work, and then you are beat out of a phone call. Acoustic Condensers Acoustic condenser, sounds complicated! Well, its not, its just the rubber thingie on the tone dialers ass. You can get them at mouser electronics for a little over a buck each. If you have a Yack Back digital recorder, or an external headset made form an old telephone headset, its worth spending the cash to get one (but its not worth spending the shipping if you are going to get JUST that). What this little rubber piece does is make a somewhat solid connection from the speaker to the Microphone of the headset, blocking you as much background noise as possible. Overpowering If you have the tone dialer or an electronic based Red Box, and the tone wont go through a level 1 or 2 secure payphone, you can add a little more voltage to it. Sometimes this will make the tones come out a little louder. Be far warned though, if you overpower ANY circuit, you might burn it out, so if you can, make an Overpower Button when you need a boost in power. Overpowering ANY electronic device is never good, so only do it if you know how to fix your Red Box when it blow/wears out, or have the cash to get a new one. WARNING! Don't bitch to me that your Red Box blew up cause I told you to pump up the voltage on the fucker, cause I am NOT telling you to do it, use this method ONLY as a last resort. The Tape If you have tired to use a Micro cassette recorder or what not to Red Box, and u did all that you can to get THE best tone you can, don't feel like a total dick yet. I will now throw some real complicated shit at you, and make you feel like a moron... When a speaker is housed inside of anything, the actual sound waves will be impeded by the surrounding environment. Because most of the time, the case material is plastic, the sound waves will resonate off them. Now if you look at any playback device, it will have a piece of plastic with holes in it. The holes will let the sound escape with less resistance. If you think of it, the dynaMics of the plastic case will somewhat distort the tones. If you place some electrical tape across all the holes, it will impede the tones, but will equalize it to a normal wave, and thus eliminates the reverberation. Damn complicated, isn't it?! The jist of it: the electrical tape is made of rubber, so when the sound hits it, it can stretch and contract with no problems. Now that the tone isn't bouncing off the plastic of the casing that the speaker is in, its gonna go through, and its not gonna fuck up as much. Don't take me wrong, it will fuck up, but I am telling you, this does work on some Micro cassette recorders, Yakback's, and some digital recorders. Try it out, what do you have to loose? A Nice Set of Tits I dedicate this to my beloved girlfriend Bunnie Galore. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have found this out If you use a nice sized tit (like Bunnie's 36 D) it will smooth out even the WORST Red Box tone. If you don't believe me, go to your bitches (or your own) tits, press the speaker to the clevage of the miraculous wonder of the tit, and let the tones rip! I swear to god, that is the best tone I have ever heard! Just don't ask me how to sandwidge the headset, tit, and Red Box together with a 36 D... and don't ask me what happens when you do this in public... 14 The Theory of use There are at least 2 things to look for when Red Boxing. Some things to look for are: Blow into the Mic, if you hear the PFFFT in the headset nice and loud, you have a virgin phone, and it will work 100%, if there is resistance, you might have some trouble. If the Mic has some resistance on it, it will dull out your tone, and it won't go through. This is where the 30dB rule comes in. The only thing that has to be done now is to make the fucker louder. Make sure that you are not on a level 2 type phone. If so, you are fucked! If you actually read this entire document, then you would already know that a level 2 payphone would listen for the 1700+2200hz tone, and cut off the Mic as you play your tones. If you are lucky, you will register maybe a nickel at a time, but it's almost guaranteed that you will invoke a bitchy redneck OP. 14.1 How To Use The Damn Thing Now you know almost every way to make a Red Box, now go and put it to use. Remember when I said AT&T owns acts? No? Well they do you are a burnt out ass-crack! We will have to get onto AT&T systems to get into ACTS. How do we do this? Well, normally Bell Atlantice, GTE, or Ameritech is the local service. For me, its Bell, but GTE is gonna take over soon, but that's all bull anyways. A Red Box works on AT&T, so to get into them, we have to invoke a their long distance system... We dial our friend in ButtFuck New Jersey. I dial 1-201-123-4567. A synthesized voice somes on and says "Please deposit as much as we can charge you for one stupid call, that will cost nowhere near this actual price, and would most likely pay for tolls and gas to get to the persons house, IF you would dive there" Well, actually, to Jersey its something like $4.90 now (like the voice said... as much as they could charge!)I start by putting the speaker of the Red Box on the Microphone of the payfone, and "depositing" 20 quarters with my Red Box. The computer says "Thank you for letting AT&T rip you off, you have 10 measly cents towards overtime." And ca-lick, I'm put through. But what if you wanted to make a local call. I am in the 718 area, so I cant dial 1-718-whatever, the phone will say to deposit 25 cents for the first 3 minutes... we need to invoke ACTS. Since AT&T owns all the 10-10 numbers (10-10-321 and whatnot) we can rout the call through there. Like they said, use it for ALL your collect calls! So I dial 10-10-321 1-718-my bitches phone number that you WISH you had! Lo and behold, the ACTS system comes on and asks for money.. and all I do is send out the Red Box tones. Of course, there is more of an art form to it, but that cant be taught, that has to be developed. Just keep trying out new stuff, and see how far you can dial. I know of I try to dial Canada, its over 8 bucks, and you HAVE to go through an OP. 14.2 AT&T ACTS Numbers AT&T has an acts system on ALL 10-10 numbers. Chance is if you dial 10-10 and any 3 digits, it will be acts. Here is a list of the numbers I use. ---------------- 10-10-321 ---------------- ---------------- 10-10-220 ---------------- ---------------- 10-10-345 ---------------- ---------------- 10-10-880 ---------------- ---------------- 10-10-123 ---------------- ----------------- 101-6868 ---------------- I like 10-10-321 the most, it was the first one I used to Box off of. All of these numbers will get you to the same place, an AT&T ACTS system, so it really doesn't matter which one you use. There are a shitload more, but I don't feel like typing all of them up... Look around for more of them if you need, but 10-10-321 should be around for a long ass time. 15 Security There are 6 levels of security I have seen. This is not an official chart of payfone security levels. This is just what I have seen. If you If you encounter anything besideds this, let me know! Level Description 0 Mic is Uncut, no resistance on Mic, loud tones (Virgin) 1 Mic has some resistance across it, Regular tones 2 Mic has more resistance on it, need at least 30db 3 Mic/Computer can detect tone, sounds like pulse - Louder tone Works 4 Mic/Computer can detect tone, sounds like pulse - Louder tone doesn't work 5 Mic is Uncut, tones are heard loud and clear, but are unregistered totally 6 Mic is cut If this is NOT a COCOT, and is a Telco phone, and you have performed the tests on it, it's probably going to be boxable. But just think, if Red Boxing has been around for over 20 or so years, and the Telco looses over 30 billion a year, (according to Bell atlantic Toll Fraud department) that's $6 trillion they have already lost! Think they would do something about it? Well, they have. Here is some of the latest security on the phones. If the payphone does not pass the tests, try it anyway. I have come across many payphones that didn't pass any of them, and I was still able to pull it off. The simplest thing is to cut the Mic. The thing is, the Telco wont do it, most COCOTS cut the Mic, so people with auto/tone dialers that legally use it can't. The first line of security is a Mic that is sensitive to the Red Box tone. What will happen is that the Mic will cut off whenever a 1700 + 2200 Hz tone is heard, that's why if you try to Box sometimes, it will not go through and sound like tapping or pulse dialing. This might happen because of the software that controls the actual phone (inside the phone itself) or it might be hardware controlled. I do believe it is software controlled, but I might be wrong. Look for this in more detail later. Lets say you want to be a showoff and try and Box the call on your own instinct. You dial the digits, and ACTS asks for whatever amount. Now for some sick reason of retardation your tones don't get through or fuck up. Now you are fucked! It is a guarantee that an OP will come on. Remember, we don't like most Ops. I can't say all, cause I have talked to some ops for hours about the ACTS systems, and how they were so easy to rip off. But lets say you get a bitchy, obese redneck whore that cant get laid and has PMS (I have gotten QUITE few!). Usually if the OP knows that you are boxing, they will be pissed, if not, they think that you are just a Joe Shmoe making a call and ask for some cash. If you think you are a bad ass enough to fool an OP, go for it, but most likely your are not as much of a bad ass as me, and won't be able to pull it off. After you try and fool them, and fail, the OP will most liely say some shit to scare you, like she is going to call security some shit, or if you just suck that much, they will make fun of you (there cant be anything more depressing than having an OP make fun of you, you pathetic loser!). Who cares, do like I do and piss them off. Ok, now you have pissed off an OP, and hung up. You go to call your friend back, and the Mic is now cut off.. WHAT THE FUCK!? What happened?! What happened was the OP called the payphone, and actually logged into it with a computer, and gave it the command to up the security, and cut off the Mic. Right now you are probably confused, well, that's cause you are a dick... Most of the Telco or COCOT payphones have a computer with a modem inside, I am not sure of the speed today, but its not faster than 14.4. I think it is more in the 9600 baud range. Why do they have a modem in the fone you ask? Well, what they do is log into the fone and make sure it works, and to see a log of what its has been doing, and to see how much cash SHOULD be in the coinbox. They can also tell the phone to do things like cut the Mic, or even shut off for a given amount of time. It would be stupid to cut the Mic permanently from then on, or turn off the payphone permanently, cause now all of those people with legit dialers and would actually pay for the call cant, and that's what separates COCOTS from the Telco. If they cut the Mic of for lets say, 20 minutes, I doubt that you will stand there and wait until it turns back on. If they cut the phone service itself, they are probably logged into it themselves at the moment, or have told it to shutdown for a given amount of time. Sometimes, if u hear squealing from the payfone headset, even though its hung up, that's them logged in. you can even pick up the headset and listen! If you know what your local ringback number is, try it on the payfone, I have done this once and a while, and the payfone picked up and whaled a carrier tone down the line, all while it was on hook. If you are a computer geek and know how to dial into systems (use Hyper terminal that comes with Windows) dial into the payphones and see what happens. How they know. How did they know you were Red Boxing? Well, that's cause you can't do a damn thing right, you fuck up! What happened when you put the tones through, it went out of the ACTS tolerance, which means your tones were so fucked up, ACTS couldn't hear them right, and switched you into an OP. If the OP thinks you are Boxing a call, the first thing they will do is return your money. Sometimes they do this before they even say anything so they can catch you off guard. When they return your money, all the coins that are supposed to come out are supposed to make the tones of each respected coin. If you put in 4 quarters, when the bitch OP returns it, she is supposed to hear 4 quarter tones as they come out. They do this so they can count how much money has been put in the totalizer. They will usually ask you how much you put in, but if you say, $1.25, when you only put in say, $1.00, they know something is wrong. Then when they see that the coins are not returning, they get even more suspicious. Basically, when real cash is put in the phone, it makes the coin tones, and when they come out, the also make the coin tones. All of this happens so the ops can keep track of how much money goes in and out of the payphone when they are on. ACTS doesn't keep track of the cash flow, it just counts it. There have been times that an OP would say "The tones sound exactly right, but for some reason when I try and have them return, nothing happens.". What happened there was I was busted boxing, but tried to fool her, and this was obviously an experienced OP, cause when she returned my money, she got no return coin tones. Believe me when I tell you, this OP was confused as hell at what was happening, and i had a long ass conversation with her while my friend was on hold listening in on the whole thing (Much thanks to s33k for staying on the line!). If you have a shitty Red Box, or something that doesn't have EXACT tones, do NOT try to fool an OP. 16 Getting Busted The actual chances of FBI or local telco security coming up to you with their guns raised in your face, and screaming at you to "put it down!" are slim to none. Even if for some reason an OP DOES call security, what are they going to do, arrest you over the phone? The smartest thing to do when you get busted by an OP when Red Boxing is to 1.Piss her off 2.Social engineer some info out of her 3.Hang up as soon as she comes on then find another phone. If you want to piss her off, don't just say "Fuck You" and hang up, that's immature, and lame. Do something more creative, like act as if she called you. If you want, act like you are a total moron and ask "Where do I put the money" and profusely tell her that there is no place to insert the cash, and tell her to put the call through. Another good one I like to do is to explain, in explicit detail on what you are doing, and how it is done. Remember though, if you piss off an OP and she DOES call security, sometimes they actually do come, and if you are on the phone with the OP who called them, you are giving security time to get there, and bust you. Social Engineering info out of an OP If the OP isn't some old pissed off hag, and she just thinks that you are a Joe Shmoe making a call, an she says something like "The tones don't sound right to me..." ask her what the hell she is talking about. Remember that you are a regular Joe Shmoe, and you don't know a damn thing about Red Boxing. If you do pull this off, you can learn a lot of new stuff, or at least what is wrong with your Red Box. This is how I learned everything I know about ACTS and Red Boxing (well, not everything, but how the system works at least) If you really don't care for pissing them off just hang up. WOW, that was a hard one! That really took a lot of thought! 17 License Agreement You may format this article as you wish, with only 2 exceptions: 1) The disclaimer, and license agreement must be in the final document, weather digital, or printed form. 2) All credit is given to whom deserves it. If I catch someone putting their name on this just because they changed the file extension, I will be pissed. If you decide to copy ANY information out of this document, give the respected author credit. All copied, infringed, or rewritten text in this document, full credit is issued to the original author, and is stated. Any modification is allowed, as long as who the original author is has been stated before the text, and where the article has been taken from. All pictures are original, and have been produced by me (Foxx D'Gamma). Pictures may be used freely however you see fit. IF the pictures are used to recreate this document (In HTML form perhaps) please state the origin of the pictures, I don't want to be a prick and have to write my name on a kick ass pic, just so the rest of the world cant use it... In the jist of it, don't be an idoit and just copy this document, and call it yours. Give me credit, I spent I good while writing this so you can be just a little bit smarter and dangerous to the world. If you decide that you want to cut anything out, go ahead. Put stuff in if you want, just give whoever wrote the text credit (even if it is yourself). YOU MUST KEEP THE DISCLAIMER AND LICENSE AGREEMENT IN ANY FORM OF THIS DOCUMENT! No ifs ands or buts, I don't want to hear any shit, keep it in, or don't modify it! SHOUT OUTS TO ALL THE ASSHOLES! I would like to say hell-fucking-oh to... Bunnie Galore, StealhFone, FonePhlux, Weeve, s33k, ShortChange Nixx, and all the cool people in #Telconinjas, #ConfWhores, and #PhreakCentral on DALnet, you know you are... too bad no one else does! HAH!