Ocean County Phone Punx Presents OCPP04 October 26, 1997 Contents Intro - Mohawk PNM Plus - Mohawk Test Numbers - Doctor Seuss Merger Madness - Mohawk Credit Card Numbers - The Carder Phone Cards - Mohawk Busted - Mohawk Letters News Intro-Mohawk We made it past the third issue. We just keep growing and our popularity has grown tremendously. We knew we would gradually gain readership but not at that rate. As always we owe it all to our readers. Thanks to the people that put the link to our page on theirs and to those people that e-mailed us. These past two months have been very hectic. Phear is back from his little .. um.. vacation, the Assassin's legal trouble mounts (more on that later), another semester of college started, work, on tour with the band and every thing else. Nevertheless we have a new issue with what is probably one of our best articles that will ever be written. An article about the Payphone Network Manager program for COCOT's. Also in this issue we have 2 new sections: Busted and Letters. These sections are small because they were a last minute addition. In the next issue they should be alot bigger. Speaking of out next issue, OCPP05 which will be out in December, should be one of our biggest issues so far. If everything goes right, OCPP will be published monthly starting in January. To deal with this we need a more complete staff. We mostly need writers but we also need people for public relations, editing, news, and many other positions. For information on a position mail us. PNM Plus-Mohawk You call up a COCOT, it rings and rings. Your about to hang up and you hear those oh so familiar tones. A modem? On a COCOT, but what for? The answer is for the Payphone Network Manager, or PNM. PNM is a program that works right off your PC to help the owner of the COCOT manage his payphone network. The version we will be talking about is called PNM Plus for use on Elcotel payphones. PNM Plus provides automated support for many of the essential business functions required to manage and maintain a network of intelligent payphones. I will be discussing various aspects of the program. Minimum System Requirements IBM Compatible 486,33mhz 8MB RAM 10 MB Hard Disk Memory Modem 1200 baud -note your higher speed modem will work just as well The built-in features of PNM Plus enable you to: · Examine the operating conditions and parameters of your payphones · Transmit operating parameters and rate information to your phones · Upload key status information from your phones for use in managing the phones · Establish and manage poll lists to automatically manage your phones · Maintain important information about the organization of your phone network, including routes, sites, technician assignments, customer names, and contract information · Record and track problems associated with your phones · Record and track expenses and revenues associated with individual phones · Calculate commission payments The four main components are Poll Manager: The Poll Manager manages the communications functions required to automatically manage your payphone network. The Poll Manager receives and processes all incoming phone calls from your payphones as well as initiating calls to your phones on a scheduled basis. The Poll Manager can handle multiple modem and telephone lines at the same time. Report Generator: The Report Generator enables you to build management information reports based on your database of payphone information. Utilities: The Utilities module provides the tools necessary to manage the database PNM Plus uses to store information about your payphones. The Utilities include tools to back up and restore key files and programs used by the system, tools to import and export information to or from other applications, tools to purge unnecessary information from the system, tools to clean up existing databases, tools to upgrade existing databases, and tools to change the ANI of a group of phones. The Operator Console: The Operator Console is the primary user interface to PNM Plus. The Operator Console lets you manage the daily operation of your payphone by providing you with access to the majority of PNM Plus functions. PNM Plus functions include phone management, entry of business information, maintenance of poll lists, tracking of payphone problems, and management of operational files for the payphones. The Functions of the main menu are: Payphone Administration, Business Administration, Poll List Maintenance, Service Management, and Configuration Management Payphone Administration Payphone Administration includes all phone database administration, including all payphone and associated site, customer, contract, technician, and route information. It enables you to: Enter and modify information about your payphones Maintain information about the sites where the phones are installed Assign and modify Register and Options settings for your phones Assign sites and phones to routes Maintain information about your technicians, including access numbers and route assignments Business Administration Business Administration includes all data relating to the Customer and related Contracts, Commissions, and account management. It enables you to: Enter and maintain information about your customers, including names, addresses, and telephone numbers Record information about the Contracts for your phones Record and track expenses and revenues associated with individual payphones Maintain commission plans and formulas for calculating commission amounts Calculate commissions based on selected payphone expenses and revenues Poll List Maintenance Poll List Maintenance includes definitions of poll list commands, phones, and scheduling of polling. It enables you to: Make Poll Lists that perform updates or collect information from your phones Determine the dates and times the lists will be performed by the Poll Manager Review and charge the list of phones on a Poll List Service Management Service Management includes payphone servicing, Customer complaint management, and the help desk It enables you to: View reported alarms from your payphones View lists of phones that could not be conducted during polling View the history of contact information for each payphone Open work orders and track repair actions to resolve maintenance problems Record Customer complaints and refund requests View diagnostic information collected from your payphones Configuration Management Configuration management allows you to customize PNM Plus to your needs It allows you to: Edit Register and Option templates Edit Rate files Create and edit Speed Dial files Create and edit Priority parsing files Create and edit custom call processing macros for your payphones Make charges to a group of phones Customize the operation of your system The Poll Manager The Poll Manager is responsible for contracting your payphones and uploading and downloading information. The Poll Manager is also capable of receiving call initiated by payphones in response to alarm conditions or local telemetry requests. Information obtained during information exchanges with the payphones is stored in the database for use by other PNM Plus applications. It operates by managing all polling processes for all Poll Lists defined in the Operator Console. The Poll Manager runs separately from the Operator Console, but requires the poll data that is entered through the Operator Console. The management functions in Poll manager include: Configuration of the serial ports connected to modems Configurations of the Poll Manager System Poll List Information online display, including description and status of the poll lists and the status and progress of the communications to the phones in the poll lists The Report Generator The PNM Plus Report Generator consists of a collection of report templates payphone information. PNM Plus Reports can be processed at any time and can be scheduled at any time. You have the option to select the destination of the report, a PC monitor, file, or a printer. The Navigation Screen The Navigation Screen is where you can add, update, and delete payphone information. It provides you with a summary view of each major component of managing a payphone environment, which includes: The ANI of your payphone The site where the payphone is located The technician assigned to the site and the route he has assigned to the site The customer who owns the site where your phone is located and the status of The contract between you and the customer Setting Payphone Registers and Options Registers and Options are the instructions you want the phone to follow. You can instruct your phone to report specific alarms and to disallow 976 calls. Registers are instructions you assign a numerical value, and Options are instructions you can turn on or off. You can set the current phones registers and options to look like those of another phone of like those of a template. Reasons for setting a phones registers and options to match another phone: You are adding a second phone to a location and need to make it identical to the first except for the ANI and Phone ID. You are installing a new phone in a neighborhood where another phone has worked well with its registers settings, so you want to start the new phone with the same values as that phone. Settings of a phone have been changed and you want to set the registers and options back to the values in a template or to that of another phone. Assigning a Program File If you need to upgrade your phone to a newer version of software, you can replace the chip in your phone containing the software. However, with PNM Plus you can write over the chip through the Phone Detail Screen. Elcotel On-Line Bulletin Board (EOL BBS) Elcotel On-line is an electronic bulletin board service for the use of Elcotel customers and is accessible through PNM. It's main function is to download rate files. It also provides access to software uploads, technical information, industry news, as well as access to the technical support department. Summary Elcotel payphones provide the ability to perform the following tasks: Detect alarms and conditions that place the phone out of service Reconfigure the way the payphone operates Set new rates for various call types Diagnose problems on the phone Ways to control the phone: Directly pressing keys on the phone's keypad to set the phone's options and features Calling the phone and sending commands to the remote phone from the local keypad Calling the phone from PNM Plus and sending electronic commands and data to the payphone PNM Plus allows you to: Send new rates to the payphone Send new priority parsing information Send new Speed Dial patterns and prices to the payphones Update the phone's program version Update the payphone's Registers and Options values Collect alarm and status information Collect SMDR information Test Numbers-Doctor Seuss Well its finally happened, another batch of area codes have run short on numbers. So again, Bellcore has decided its time to shave some LATAs off the older NPAs and assigning them to new area codes. While POTS lines usually have no problem swallowing these changes, PBX equipment is notoriously flaky for stalling while trying to get through to new area codes. To try and identify problems, RBOCs set up test lines which terminate in recorded announcements; confirming that the new area code was reached successfully. 1-240-999-8378 1-246-809-4200 1-250-372-0124 1-268-268-4482 1-281-792-8378 1-320-252-0090 1-330-783-2330 1-334-223-0600 1-352-848-0517 1-360-532-0023 1-423-283-4424 1-423-594-9040 1-423-634-1928 1-441-295-7606 1-443-999-8378 1-450-443-1836 1-450-443-2739 1-520-782-0100 1-530-444-0530 1-540-829-9910 1-541-334-0057 1-561-615-8484 1-562-317-0317 1-573-792-8378 1-626-777-0626 1-630-204-1204 1-650-777-0650 1-664-491-0025 1-773-838-1204 1-757-627-1615 1-758-785-8242 1-760-200-0760 1-760-400-0760 1-760-600-0760 1-765-281-6988 1-770-666-9999 1-773-904-1204 1-787-756-9399 1-847-958-1204 1-860-203-0950 1-868-809-8378 1-941-959-1650 1-949-777-0949 1-954-236-4242 1-970-241-0022 1-972-792-8378 Merger Madness-Mohawk The telecommunications industry looks to be following in the footsteps of Bell Atlantic and Nynex. This time however everything isn't so cut and dry. MCI has placed itself on the auction block. As of now GTE, Worldcom and British Telecom have all made bids to take over the telecom giant. But who wins and who loses in all of these mergers? What are the effects it has on the industry and the customers? Obviously the company who wins the bid wins and the ones that don't lose. But is goes far beyond the companies who made the bids. The customers can also feel the effects of a mega-merger. New and better technology is one thing to be gained as the combination of ideas and technology yield better products and services. However, mergers of such proportions can lead into monopolies thus eliminating Competition. This in turn raises prices. The FCC says they will regulate the industry to provide fair competition, but so far progress of long distance companies entering the local market and Baby Bells entering the long distance market is moving at less than a snails pace. When such mergers occur, those companies who are bidding and the companies that they are bidding for must higher small investment banks to advise them throughout the bidding war. These small companies are the biggest winners by far. They have to determine how much a business is worth and how to pay for it. Even though they get only 1/2 percent of the deals value, the fees are still staggering. The bell Atlantic/Nynex merger generated fees of 60 million. The MCI merger could generate fees of over 100 million. As of now MCI is still weighing it's options. They will comment on all offers made to them. Once the MCI deal is done, look for other companies such as ATT, Sprint and any companies who bid for MCI but lost to try to find a company to merge with. Will we ever see a telecom industry just go out of business or will they simply merge with another company to become a new household name. Sadly it is the latter, but how interesting would it be to see ATT say "were closing"? We will cover the merger as it progresses in future issues. Credit card numbers-The Carder (I wasn't going to publish this, but I figured it is a good example of how someone can trick you into giving away your info when people claim how the safe the internet is. This proves that you never know who you're dealing with no matter how real it may seem) We all want good credit card numbers, right? Sure we all do. Wait is that the money store? Anyway, Credit card numbers are a much sort after prize. This can be a very tedious task as well as risky. Wouldn't it be great if people just emailed you their credit card numbers with all their info? Yeah, like that would ever happen. Well it can. First off, you need to find a product that everyone is buying. Fads come and go so it shouldn't be hard to find something, especially around the holidays. Once you have that, find a web page that sells it. Download the whole page and all it's graphics. You need to know a little bit of HTML but if your clueless there's tons of documents to teach you. Change it to a text file and edit the URL's and email address to match the one's you'll be using. Also change the prices if you can to about 25% lower than the original price. Don't make it to low or people will get suspicious. Upload the page and graphics to one of those free webpage services, there's plenty to choose from. Now you need an email address, Same thing as the webpage, find a free email service and set up an account. Make sure you changed the email address on the your page to go to your new email account, that tends to help. Now you have to advertise. Flood the hell out of every Newsgroup you can. If you have one of those mass email programs that works well, if not just rip off some mailing lists from all that spam is your mail box. Never advertise off the net. That helps the cops figure out where your located. After you got a decent amount of CC numbers delete the page and email account. Never get greedy. Phone cards-Mohawk (Since I published the previous article I figures I should tie it into phreaking someway or another. Might as well expose another system flaw) Just about every gas station and convenience store has one of those phone cards you where you pay 10 dollars for 30 minutes. Now they even have International phone cards. Buy the cheapest one you can get. On the back of almost all of them there is a 800 number you can call to add more time. You can usually add as much time as you want. Use your new credit card numbers to add a few hours. Now you can call all over the world without worrying if your box will work. Make sure you go to a payphone when you do it. Busted-Mohawk In the busted section we will report on hackers/phreakers who have recently been busted. All reports will be in much detail as possible. At the end I will point out what he did wrong and how he could of avoided it. As seen on channel 7 (exact transcript) A long island college student, is under arrest tonight charged in a phone scam, it looks like his get rich scheme did nothing but get him in trouble, NJ Burkett has details NJ Burkett - Scott Vanpalla is a 21 year old community college student, charged tonight with harassment and fraud. He hid his face from photographers, yet smiled for his official police mug shot. Investigators say he was smart but not smart enough. Prosecutors say he set up a 540 number and told NYNEX he wanted any one who called it to be charged 95 cents a call. Then police say he got his hands on literally hundreds of pager numbers. Prosecutors say it went on for over 2 months. Denis Dillon (Nassau county district attorney) - He called mostly the doctors that went to a hospital at one night and of course when they went to the hospital the next day and started comparing notes you know what a strange night they had they got this call, they thought it was a heart attack victim or whatever and the other doctor's would say I had the same thing happen. NJB - No one caught on until detectives say they paged the wrong guy namely Ray Heppern a white collar crimes investigator in the DA's office. Ray H - I returned the call and I got a busy signal. NJB - the busy signal made ray suspicious after a little bit of digging he says, he figured out the Scott Vanpalla had programmed his personal computer to page people at random all day and all night. DD - I think he's an Imaginative kid unfortunately it a bad use of his imagination If he keeps using it that way he'll be spending a good part of his time in state prison. NJB - Scott Vanpalla could face up to five years in prison prosecutors say he made up to $4000 in just ten weeks and they say they're still trying to figure out where he got all those pager numbers NJ Burkett channel 7 eyewitness news. That's pretty damn slick. I don't remember seeing that anywhere so I wonder if he made it himself or he read it somewhere in a zine of something. The way I see it if he was smart enough to think this up he would of been smart enough not to get caught. This is a good example of why we say for informational purposes only. As far as where he got all those pager numbers OCPP01? If he did he didn't read OCPP02. He would of known not to get greedy. Also don't do stuff like this from your house. He could of used a payphone to page people. If he would of payed 20 cents a phone call for 95 cents a minute he still makes 75 cents and if you find a 1-800 number system like 1800 mcipage it would of been free. If you ever do something like this don't do it for ten weeks strait. While were talkin about getting busted, the Assassin's legal trouble mounts. He is kind of like our hitman. He is the one that thought of the gas station scam in OCPP02. Well if anyone was considering trying this, he has gotten caught. He did it for a while and then stopped after making over a thousand dollars. He started again but was really sloppy about it. He got charged with theft by deception instead of credit card fraud because he knew the cops. There has been no court date set. We will keep you posted if any of you are still alive by the time this actually goes to court. Letters Announce meetings, tell an intresting story, ask a question, respond to questions/articles or whatever, just send us your letters. Make sure you provide your handle and if you would like your email address to be posted, please specify it. We answered and deleted most of our mail because this was a last minute addition. Upcomming issues will have more and better letters. Connecting to the Internet Does any body know how to connect to the Internet for virtually nothing. I live only 250 meters away from a university. I have seen all their satellites and radio transmitters. What are they for? how does the university connect all its computers to the Internet. Is it by radio? If it is can somebody tell me how I can connect to it as well. [Steal an account? Are you that cheap that you can't afford 10 bucks a month? Thier transmitters are probably for thier radio and TV station. Internet by radio?] Found some stuff Wassup i just had a nother line put in when the guy was screwing around in the attic i ganked 3 thick phones they got 4 switches on them labeled test,tone,volume,control so i hooked it up to my out side box and i was funin around with the switches the test makes a series of beeps and the tone goes from pulse to tone to some weird other shit that when i hit somthing like the # then a number it takes me to some thing where people call me like an operator? this was kinda kool cause i did this at a fortress by splicing their wires and cussing people out n e ways do you know what else i can do with it went to a big lite green box that was missing the lock so i opened and it had 5 rows of silver bolts and 10 bolts per well i looks like this X5 ROWS i think each 2 digonal \ bolts is some ones lines! and another thing i got a box thing with phone buttons or the numbers on one and 4 things lead out a thick phone chord 2 wires with metal poles on the end red and green and a regular phone chord! [This is the most poorly written letter I have ever gotten. I'll try to decipher the broken english. It sounds like he stole some lineman handsets. I'm not gonna sit here and explain how to use them, if you don't know how to beige you shouldn't be here. As far as the green box it sounds like he's talking about a pedestal terminal. He included a bad ascii drawing of one. As far as what to do with that, read Dust's file on Beige boxing located in the text file section.] News From Lucent Technologies Today Solution to the Millennium Bug?- A 14 year old New Zealand boy claims he has designed a program to topple the millennium bug. Nicholas Johnson, a kid who has tinkered with puzzles since he was a toddler, is keeping his information under tight wraps and will not divulge how the program works, pending a patent. Andrew Siddall, a computer analyst, studied the solution and considers it "a remarkable breakthrough." Sprint Logical Choice for Merger By Margaret Stafford Associated Press Writer -- In the recent spate of mergers, buyouts and rumored deals involving the nation's telecommunications companies, Sprint Corp., the third-largest long-distance carrier in the country, has been conspicuously missing. A law passed in February 1996 that largely deregulated the U.S. industry has prompted several blockbuster telecommunications deals, such as a bidding war between GTE Corp., British Telecommunications PLC and WorldCom Inc. for MCI Communications Corp. Rumors also have circulated that AT&T Corp. was discussing purchasing GTE Corp. Sprint's absence from that game could end in the next year or two, analysts said Tuesday. "I will hardly be surprised if in the next 12 months or so we hear about a deal for Sprint or involving Sprint in some big way," said Scott Wright, a telecommunications analyst with Argus Research in New York. The holdup for Sprint may be that France Telecom and Deutsch Telecom each own 10 percent of the company. Until the end of 1998, that gives those companies disapproval rights for any major acquisition or divestiture that Sprint contemplates. As Europe begins to deregulate its industry, the French and German companies might try to raise their stake in Sprint, said Raghu Ram, senior vice president for telecom research for Wheat First Butcher Singer in New York. Ram said foreign ownership rules require reciprocal markets in U.S. and foreign countries before international deals can be finalized. For example, British Telecom was able to bid on MCI because that country's markets are more open to U.S.companies than either France or Germany, he said. When the World Trade Organization Agreement takes effect in January of 1998, those rules will be relaxed and markets in all countries should be more open, Ram said. "That means we can look at Sprint as a logical choice to be involved in some sort of deal toward the end of 1998 or early 1999,'' he said. Ram said it is possible a U.S. company could be interested in Sprint, but any major company probably will wait to see how the other communications deals work out. Sprint has not been sitting idle in recent years. It has made acquisitions of its own, such as a buyout in May of Paranet,and has instituted a nationwide wireless phone network, Sprint PCS. It also has started Global One with the French and German companies and recently formed a partnership in China. But it may be most attractive to a suitor because of its strong long-distance network, growing share of the local phone market and a reputation as a well-managed company, Ram said. Bill White, a spokesman for Sprint, declined to speculate on a potential national or international acquisition. But he said company officials believe they have built a strong portfolio to keep shareholders happy and compete with the two larger companies, AT&T and MCI. "We really feel good about where we are," White said. "We are very well positioned to create a significant amount of value for our shareholders if we execute well in the future." Wright said Sprint's position as the third-largest long-distance carrier also might make it attractive. "There are only three main entrees into the U.S. market, and one of those (MCI) is already on the block," he said. "AT&T is a big bite. Sprint might not be quite as big a bite, and it would bring immediate good markets to anyone who took it over or became a partner." But all the speculation may not be meaningful in the new world of telecommunications, Wright said. "The sky is absolutely the limit in this industry now," he said. "None of the companies are too big and there is a lot of available capital that might choose to fund huge mergers, rather than invest in high-risk overseas ventures. "All the pieces are in place to assure that for the next couple of years at least, there will be a number of large and small deals,including some bidding wars." AT&T tests new '00' INFO directory assistance service Directory assistance the way customers really want it BASKING RIDGE, N.J. -- AT&T today announced a market trial of its new AT&T "00" INFO(sm) (Double-0 Info) national directory assistance service that allows AT&T customers to obtain a telephone listing for any place in the United States with one simple phone call -- even if they don't have the area code or exact city. The "00" INFO service trial begins today in Seattle, Denver, Phoenix, Minneapolis, and Portland, Ore. In marked contrast to the industry trend to provide fully automated directory assistance, AT&T "00" INFO Service features personal, courteous, helpful service from specially trained AT&T information assistants who will stay on the line for the entire call. From the moment they greet the customer by introducing themselves, AT&T assistants are there to help customers simplify their lives, by searching for a directory listing with as little information as a partial name and a locality or state. And AT&T assistants will stay with the customer through the end of the call when they provide the requested information. "We're providing directory assistance the way customers really want it," said Howard McNally, vice president of AT&T Consumer Markets Division. "AT&T is bringing back the personal touch. Not only will we stay on the line with our customers, but we'll do everything in our power to meet their needs -- using enhanced search features to find the listings they want, and even the address and zip code, if that's what they need." AT&T "00" INFO takes directory assistance to a higher level of customer service, providing a renewed emphasis on personal service that is supported by several new search capabilities: A new expanded search capability allows AT&T information assistants to extend a directory search to surrounding communities when they can't find a requested listing in a designated city or town -- even if the caller doesn't know what those communities are. A keyword search function allows AT&T information assistants to search for a business listing when the caller doesn't know the full or exact name of the business. This search will find the listing if the keyword appears anywhere in the name. AT&T's new "00" INFO Service makes it easier for callers to use directory assistance. They no longer need to remember multiple numbers for directory assistance. And they don't need to know the area code. Customers need only dial one simple number to reach an AT&T information assistant who will help them find telephone listings anywhere in the United States. During the market trial, AT&T is offering the new AT&T "00" INFO Service at the same 95-cent price that it charges for conventional directory assistance. With "00" INFO Service customers can get unlimited listings per call, but pay 95-cents for every two listings. AT&T customers in the five test markets can use "00" INFO from their home phones, or when they are away from home, by dialing 1-800-CALL-ATTŪ (1- 800-225-5288). The AT&T "00" INFO directory assistance service trial is limited to listings in the United States. AT&T extends '00' Info service trial to 23 states and AT&T Calling Card users AT&T Brings Back Personal Service to Directory Assistance BASKING RIDGE, N.J. -- AT&T today announced that it will extend the market trial of its new "Double-0 Info" national directory assistance service to 23 states and to all AT&T Calling Card customers nationwide. The new AT&T "00" INFO(sm) Service allows AT&T customers to obtain a telephone listing for any place in the United States with one simple phone call -- even if they don't have the area code or exact city. The extended "00" INFO residential service trial begins today for all AT&T customers in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. In addition, all AT&T Calling Card customers can use "00" INFO by dialing 1-800-CALL-ATTŪ. Cell Phone Service links toll free calls Toll free calling is finally coming to wireless phones more than a dozen years after the first cellular network was launched. Most consumers now pay an average $1 a call for the 1-800 and 1-888 calls they place with wireless phones, and that adds up to billions of dollars a year. The reason: Most carriers in the highly fragmented wireless sector have been unable to offer toll free service because they can't set standard prices or share 800 numbers. The cost of a wireless call varies from company to company, market to market. A new company called Toll free cellular has been testing it's service for 2 years. Now it is taking its service nationwide with a new billing system. It sells it's service to over 1000 companies. Customers can use it as long as their carrier they subscribe to has a contract with them. Payphone Companies can now charge any fee A new law allows payphone companies to charge whatever they want for coin-operated local calls. In the near future I could cost 25 cents to use a phone on one corner but 50 cents across town. The law also allows pay phone companies to charge by the minute for local calls, something most state regulators had banned until now.