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72 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
72 lines
4.0 KiB
Plaintext
The Total Lowdown on COCOTs
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by: Bungalow Bill
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Thanks: Count Zero
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Hello: Liquid Jesus, Damm
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Groups: Fargo 4A, LoD, PhoneLine Phantoms, Lunatic Labs
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Note: If you want to cut through my ramblings on how a COCOT actually
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works, and just learn how to phreak from them, just read what's in
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between the *s.
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Ok, you've all seen the comercials on tv talking about NYNEX telephones,
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and how other phones are unreliable, and charge lots more, etc etc etc.
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And you might think, "Yeah sure, there's no such thing as a non-NYNEX
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payphone." Well, just because you've never seen one, doesn't necesarily
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mean they don't exist. These other phones are the COCOTs. COCOT stands
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for Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone. All a COCOT is is a phone
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that a private owner rents, leases, or buys from a company. The COCOT is
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hooked into the regular customer loop, as opposed to the seperate data
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loops NYNEX payphones operate on. What that means is, when you dial a
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local call, you put in a quarter, and the owner just gets his monthly
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bill from NYNEX. He get's fifteen cents for each call you make, because
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it only costs him ten cents for the call. So when you get a COCOT, the
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company sends you a phone, a key, and instructions. Whenever you need
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some change, you run to your COCOT, open it up, and get the change out.
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So you're probably thinking, "Yeah, great, cut the bullshit and tell me
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how to steal calls from one." Ok, here's the info. When you pick up the
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handset, the dialtone you are hearing is not coming from the CO, but
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rather, from inside the COCOT. So in essence, what you are hearing is a
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fake dialtone. Aurally, you can't tell the difference. But before you get
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to the real dialtone, you must put in a quarter. Here's the catch. By
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law, 800 numbers (ie, toll free numbers) must be free from payphones. So
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here's what you do. *Pick up the phone, and dial any 800 number. Try,
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1-800-loan-yes. When the person answers, just sit there quietly, until
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they hang up. Or, if you're feeling particularly, evil, tell the
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operator, "Oh, sorry, I meant to dial 1-800-usa-loan." When she hangs up,
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wait for a few moments. You will most likely hear some clicks, hissing,
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or other noise. Then you will get a dialtone. This is the real, unsuped
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dialtone. Any call you make now is being billed to the customer's loop.
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So if you call a 900 number, or long distance, he will see it on his
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bill. Ok, so now you start hitting keypad numbers to dial, and "Hey, I
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don't hear anything!" Well, on many COCOTs, the keypad is disabled until
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it knows there is a quarter in there. There is no way around this, unless
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you have your trusty Rat Shack tone dialer (and you'd better, or you
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stink). Just hold this up to the phone and dial away.* But that's not all
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that's interesting about COCOTs. You will notice that the COCOT doesn't
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have the number for it anywhere on it. There is a great reason for this.
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It's because if you dial into the phone, it won't ring. Instead, you get
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a synthesized voice reading you a menu of the phone's maintenence
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routines. These can be very useful, because you can do all sorts of
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interesting things with this, not the least of which is to access the
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COCOT's 300 baud modem. Yeah, there's a modem in there too. I'm not sure
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what it's used for, but if we could reverse-engineer it, then maybe we
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could tote a laptop down there w/out a modem and still dial up boards.
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Granted, it'd be damned slow. If you want the number for the COCOT, pick
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up it's handset, and dial 1-800-my-ani-is. You will hear a recording that
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tells you the phone number for the phone. Whoopee! That's all for this
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file. Look for more knowledge and wisdom from the Omega bbs's co-SysOps,
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Epidemic and Bungalow Bill. The information below is brought to you
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courtesy of Count Zero.
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COCOTs at the Rat in Kenmore Square:
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617-247-8195, 617-247-7913, 617-247-8208, 617-247-9437
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Two others I know of:
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617-720-4430, 617-233-9872
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Here is a company that deals with COCOTs. Try out your social engineering
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skills on them:
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Cointel, Inc.
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130 Broadway St.
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Somerville, MA
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02145
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1-800-322-7741 |