Phreakers are hackers who specialize in telephone fraud. What type of telephone fraud/attack makes use of a
device that generates tones to simulate inserting coins in pay phones, thus fooling the system into completing
free calls?
A.
Red Boxes
B.
Blue Boxes
C.
White Boxes
D.
Black Boxes
Explanation:
A red box is a phreaking device that generates tones to simulate inserting coins in pay phones, thus fooling the
system into completing free calls. In the US, a dime is represented by two tones, a nickel by one, and a quarter
by a set of 5 tones. Any device capable of playing back recorded sounds can potentially be used as a red box.
Commonly used devices include modified Radio Shack tone dialers, personal MP3 players, and audiorecording greeting cards. BLUE BOX An early phreaking tool, the blue box is an electronic device that
simulates a telephone operator’s dialing console. It functions by replicating the tones used to switch longdistance calls and using them to route the user’s own call, bypassing the normal switching mechanism. The
most typical use of a blue box was to place free telephone calls – inversely, the Black Box enabled one to
receive calls which were free to the caller. The blue box no longer works in most western nations, as modern
switching systems are now digital and no longer use the inband signaling which the blue box emulates. Instead,
signaling occurs on an out-of-band channel which cannot be accessed from the line the caller is using (called
Common Channel Interoffice Signaling (CCIS)). BLACK BOX The black box (as distinguished from blue boxes
and red boxes), sometimes called an Agnew (see Spiro (device) for the origin of the nickname), was a device
built by phone phreaks during the 1960s and 1970s in order to defeat long distance phone call toll charges, and
specifically to block the supervision signal sent by the receiving telephone handset when the call was answered
at the receiving end of the call. The act of picking up the handset of a telephone causes a load to be put on the
telephone line, so that the DC voltage on the line drops below the approximately 45 volts present when the
phone is disconnected.
The black box consisted of a large capacitor which was inserted in series with the telephone, thereby blocking
DC current but allowing AC current (i.e., ringing signal and also audio signal) to pass. When the black box was
switched into the telephone line, the handset could be picked up without the telephone system knowing and
starting the billing process. In other words, the box fooled the phone company into thinking no one had
answered at the receiving end, and therefore billing was never started on the call.
WHITE BOX The white box is simply a portable Touch-Tone Keypad.HARRIS, Shon, All-In-One CISSP Certification Exam Guide, McGraw- Hill/Osborne, 2001, Page 654.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_box_(phreaking)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box
http://www.bombshock.com/archive/Phreaking_and_Phone_Systems/Box_Plans/