(AOH Staff Note - this portion of Pranks, Revenge, and General Mayhem #12 is
excerpted with Fixer's permission.  Due to liability concerns we no
longer carry Fixer's full Pranks series here on AOH - but you can still
find it by Googling for it...)

PROPOSAL:  THE FISH BOX

(I will be building one of these in early 1988, it has not been tried
yet to my knowledge).

A while ago some friends and I were talking about gaining Calling card
codes by eavesdropping at payphones and listen to the codes that the
saps verbally told the operators.  Well, we came across a problem.  Now
that you can directly dial a calling card call without going through the
operator, it is rare that someone will still use a calling card verbally
these days, and so standing around eavesdropping didn't sound very
productive anymore.

Well, at the time some of us were playing with bugs and wiretaps, and
the thought came to me:  What if I were to install a bug in a fortress?
I could tape record everything said on the line plus I would have every
touch tone dialed!  This sounded fine until I got to the touch tones.  I
for one am tone deaf; I couldn't tell what tone was what number if I
tried.  So, why not run the tones through a DTMF receiver? Sure, then
every single digit dialed on the pay phone would just appear on my
computer monitor...this would not only include calling cards but also
any extenders that anyone might legitimately use, plus accounts to ADS
systems.  The potential to gain phreak codes in this manner is
enormous.. Anyways, now you can see why I call it the FISH box; you are
essentially fishing for codes and if you are persistent eventually
someone will bite.....

PROBLEMS: - Getting the bug into the payphone can be a problem but we
are working on it... - You still have to be relatively close to the fone
in order to get good reception of the bug. Don't sit around for hours,
find a place to stash your tape recoder and bug receiver where no one
can find it and come back for it later.  If there are lockers nearby and
they are not made of metal they will do fine.


Anyways, I will be writing the official box plans next month.  If anyone
has any luck with this project before then, let me know how you made
out.

-=( The FIXER )=-

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