The "blue box" how EARONS might have made calls
Feb 20, 2018 18:00:04 GMT
rkz, nick, and 2 more like this
Post by looking4justice on Feb 20, 2018 18:00:04 GMT
There has been speculation that EARONS might have tapped into phone conversations to overhear potential targets as well as to make phone calls that couldn't be traced. A couple of weeks ago, someone posted an inquiry about potential cross-talk in the "gonna kill you" phone call. Please note that the poster was referring to possible voices other than that of the tv movie playing in the background. I searched for the post in order to respond but I think it might have been deleted.
In any case, last night I was talking to my Father and he was reading me the wiki page on Steve Jobs. The page described Jobs' prankster use of the "blue box" in order to make free phone calls that couldn't be traced. Apparently the blue box was used as well by many criminals for obvious reasons during the 70s and 80s. It involved using specific Hz. tones in order to gain phone line access for calls. Quoting from the wikipedia page:
"The operation of a blue box is simple: First, the user would place a long distance telephone call, usually to an 800 number or some other non-supervising phone number. For the most part, anything going beyond 50 miles would go over a trunk type susceptible to this technique.
When the call began to ring, the caller would use the blue box to send a 2600 Hz tone (or 2600+2400 Hz on many international trunks followed by a 2400 Hz tone). The 2600 Hz is a supervisory signal, because it indicates the status of a trunk; on-hook (tone) or off-hook (no tone). By playing this tone, the user would convince the far end of the connection that they'd hung up and it should wait. When the tone stops, the trunk would go off-hook and on-hook (known as a supervision flash), making a "Ka-Cheep" noise, followed by silence. This would be the far end of the connection signalling to the near end that it was now waiting for routing digits."
Please see the Wikipedia page on it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box
The blue box worked great for international calls, domestic calls were more complex and often included a lot of cross-talk with various phone lines in proximity, requiring the blue box user to essentially narrow-down their call to the desired phone number.
There were counter-measures taken by the phone companies to prevent blue-box use:
"Electronic switching systems maintained logs of all calls made, including calls to free numbers. This earned the nickname "electronic surveillance system" as telephone company personnel would use this data to locate unusual patterns (such as lengthy, repeated calls to information or national hotel reservation numbers) and wiretap the affected lines. In one 1975 case, the Pacific Telephone Company targeted one defendant's line with the following equipment:
A CMC 2600, a device which registers on a counter the number of times a 2600 Hz tone is detected on the line;
A tape recorder, activated automatically by the CMC 2600 to record two minutes of telephone audio after each burst of 2600 Hz activity; and
A Hekemian 51A, which replicates the functions of the CMC 2600 and also produces a tape print-out of outgoing calls. Ordinary calls were recorded in black ink and destination numbers called via the blue box were recorded in red ink."
Thoughts:
1) Could this have been how EARONS called potential victims and survivors and listened in on their conversations?
2) If so, he might have been targeted for countermeasures, which means there might be records on blue-box countermeasures undertaken to/from calls in Sacramento.
In any case, last night I was talking to my Father and he was reading me the wiki page on Steve Jobs. The page described Jobs' prankster use of the "blue box" in order to make free phone calls that couldn't be traced. Apparently the blue box was used as well by many criminals for obvious reasons during the 70s and 80s. It involved using specific Hz. tones in order to gain phone line access for calls. Quoting from the wikipedia page:
"The operation of a blue box is simple: First, the user would place a long distance telephone call, usually to an 800 number or some other non-supervising phone number. For the most part, anything going beyond 50 miles would go over a trunk type susceptible to this technique.
When the call began to ring, the caller would use the blue box to send a 2600 Hz tone (or 2600+2400 Hz on many international trunks followed by a 2400 Hz tone). The 2600 Hz is a supervisory signal, because it indicates the status of a trunk; on-hook (tone) or off-hook (no tone). By playing this tone, the user would convince the far end of the connection that they'd hung up and it should wait. When the tone stops, the trunk would go off-hook and on-hook (known as a supervision flash), making a "Ka-Cheep" noise, followed by silence. This would be the far end of the connection signalling to the near end that it was now waiting for routing digits."
Please see the Wikipedia page on it here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box
The blue box worked great for international calls, domestic calls were more complex and often included a lot of cross-talk with various phone lines in proximity, requiring the blue box user to essentially narrow-down their call to the desired phone number.
There were counter-measures taken by the phone companies to prevent blue-box use:
"Electronic switching systems maintained logs of all calls made, including calls to free numbers. This earned the nickname "electronic surveillance system" as telephone company personnel would use this data to locate unusual patterns (such as lengthy, repeated calls to information or national hotel reservation numbers) and wiretap the affected lines. In one 1975 case, the Pacific Telephone Company targeted one defendant's line with the following equipment:
A CMC 2600, a device which registers on a counter the number of times a 2600 Hz tone is detected on the line;
A tape recorder, activated automatically by the CMC 2600 to record two minutes of telephone audio after each burst of 2600 Hz activity; and
A Hekemian 51A, which replicates the functions of the CMC 2600 and also produces a tape print-out of outgoing calls. Ordinary calls were recorded in black ink and destination numbers called via the blue box were recorded in red ink."
Thoughts:
1) Could this have been how EARONS called potential victims and survivors and listened in on their conversations?
2) If so, he might have been targeted for countermeasures, which means there might be records on blue-box countermeasures undertaken to/from calls in Sacramento.
