E-C-H-E-L-O-N  M-A-G-A-Z-I-N-E
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NEWS: Series of busts in the Manchester area after the cops raid the
Construction Yard BBS....
-- dynamics
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A series of busts is in progress at present, these all revolve around
the raiding of the Construction Yard BBS in Hadfield.

The part in the story begins at the Construction Yard BBS. The police
raid the board, and arrests and seizures made for "wArEz" offences.
The police then took a look at the board itself. It turns out that the
sysop of the BBS kept call logs, the police read through the postings
and uploads to the BBS and searched the call logs. They took down the
details of those who they thought they could bust. Everyone who has
been busted so far visited that BBS at one point. The busts have all
centered around hacking/phreaking offences.

The first bust is in Glossop, Derbys. NynexPhreak, as usual, enters
the town in order to meet his friends. Except they aren't there. He
decides to call them, he goes into the nearby payphone and just as he
picks up the handset, he hears to cars screech to a halt. On turnining
around, two policemen open the door of the payphone and he is dragged
out and handcuffed after being read his rights.

It turns out that they suspected him of redboxing. His Psion was 
confiscated, and he was then man-handled into one of the cars and taken
to Glossop police station. He was interviewed by the two officers that
arrested him, and released on bail. He was instructed to pick-up any
non-evidential items later on.

His next port of call was the house of his friend, Shadow. To his 
surprise, the same to officers were there and were searching the 
property for evidence of redboxing. In fact, they were so over zealous
that the back of the TV was removed, apparently they suspected 
concealed 0-day codes or something along those lines. Nothing was found
and so the police left the house.

NynexPhreak made his way to school. On return, he discovered that his
house had been raided. The nature of this raid was unethical and 
against civil liberties regulations. No warrant
was shown at the time of raid to any of the residents. The way in which
the raid was conducted was inflamatory and completely unecessary. The
policemen involved went out of their way to cause desruption and 
damage, for instance, his CD-R was used as an ashtray, his dogs were 
let out into the garden in the rain, his bedroom door was kicked down
despite the fact that is wasn't even locked (!), his Psion was torn
appart and thrown under his bed, and his laptop was severely damaged
too. The officers involved even drank a bottle of coke, throwing the
empty bottle onto the floor. They even destroyed a disk containing 
homework and searched his Maths books to make sure he wasn't cracking
c0des !

Shortly after returning, NynexPhreak recieved a call from the police 
stating that the charges had been dropped.

The thugs who did this raid, brainless morons as they are, obviously
found nothing of worth at his house and then took to tearing it appart.
And for what? Nothing, as the charges were dropped.

Unfortunately, the story doesen't end there by any means. Midday on
Saturday, November 13th, 1999, two policemen knocked at his door, with
an apparently valid search warrant. Malpractice again officers... The
warrant had only 2 signatures on it, one from the head investigating
officer and one from the prosecution - a little biased...

The third signature was lacking, a magistrate should have signed the
warrant. Thankfully, NynexPhreak refused them entry on the grounds of
this. In a huff, the officers returned to their car. 

On reading the paperwork given to him, charges were filed for:

- Theft of Electricity, Nicaragua Telecommunications Plc

Two 30min calls to:
505 27-86899

One 45min call to:
505 27-84444

Attempted Theft of Electricity:
505 23-1158

- Payphone Fraud - "Use of an Illegal Access Device"

What is odd is that Nicaragua Telecom is filing these charges. I always
thought that BT filed charges in blueboxing cases.

More attempts were made at the search, with his parents, who again 
refused them entry. NynexPhreak went to work at 3pm, and was harassed 
by these officers on the way. On returning from work, they stopped 
their car near him and began chasing him, for no reason at all. Shortly 
after returning home, his solicitor informed him that the third 
signature had been signed. There was a knock at the door, and the 
officers arrested NynexPhreak. His computer and most other electronic
items were seized.

He was taken for interview immediately. On walking to the interview 
room he passed a room full of telco experts. The whole thing was being
treated like the crime of the century.

Anyone who read the guide to being busted, in F41th 10 will find the 
tactics used in the interview unsurprising. They tried all approaches
possible to get him to admit to the blueboxing charges. Questions such
as: 

PIG: "So, NynexPhreak, how does the phone system work?"
NYN: "Well... You just pick up the phone and dial a number" :)
PIG: "Come on, we know your a clever lad, tell us how it REALLY works"
NYN: "I dunno, I don't do stuff with phones..."
PIG: "OK. All we want to know is how you did it, and then we'll let you 
go. Who knows, you might get a job at the end of this if you come 
clean about it..."
NYN: "I didn't do it, I don't know what you're on about..."
PIG: "Were you working alone, or as part of a team?"
NYN: "I wasn't working at all, I didn't do all this"

[The "nice" pig enters, wearing a tracksuit... :)]...

NPIG: "So, I hear your in a bit of trouble here son. Don't worry about
it, do you want some coffee or cigarettes?"
NYN: "Yeah ok, thanks."
NPIG: "Are you interested in computers then? Do you program?"
NYN: "Yeah I do, a bit"
NPIG: "Do you program viruses by any chance...?"
NYN: "I did once, but nothing serious or destructive."
NPIG: "Well... We found a very powerful logic bomb that could destroy
a lot of data, and a virus that could and did cripple the Acorn network
at your school"
NYN: "No comment."

[A smartly dressed, short, dark haired cop enters - CCU?]

SPIG: "Have you ever made fraudulent calls, you know, blueboxed, ever?"
NYN: "Well I tried once, but it never worked."
SPIG: "I know you did all this, tell me what a guard tone is"
NYN: "No, what's that?"
SPIG: "It's used in the process of making fraudulent calls."
NYN: "Oh thats why it didn't work..."

[Logs, spanning 4 folders, over 4 years are presented...]

SPIG: "We have logs here of your activities over the past 4 years..."
NYN: "uh..."
[logs, showing calls to 0800s and details of routings...]
PIG: "There's no denying all this..."
NYN: "I have nothing to say, I didn't do these calls, who knows, maybe
someone got onto my phone line..."

The interview continued.

A day or so later, his father recieved a call from the police along
the lines of....

"Hello, we have further logs to state that your son has been defrauding
Venezuela and Bahamas. Oh, and we have recovered his copy of bluebeep."
<HANG-UP>

After many days of worry and apprehension, a letter addressed to 
NynexPhreak informed him that ALL CHARGES EXCEPT FOR "ILLEGAL ACCESS 
DEVICE" had been dropped.

This is a complete and utter piss take. The pigs went through all the
expense of busting him for about everything under the sun, treating it
like the crime of the century, only to once again drop the charges.

Still... That isn't the end of the story. A few days later he recieved
a charge sheet. All the charges for redboxing had been re-instated, and
a new set of blueboxing charges (Theft of Electricity) had been added.

Shortly after this, two others were arrested under similar charges.
Shadoh and Tonie, were both arrested with the same value of fraud used on
their charge sheets. All three have been bailed for a court hearing in
May.

It's my prediction that this wave of Theft of Electricity charges
revolves around Venezuela being the "victim" (very tongue in cheek,
blueboxing IS VICTIMLESS), as something about it was mentioned,
although these allegations are of course false to the very best of
my knowledge. NynexPhreak, Shadow and Tony are some of the most law
abiding I know of and I certainly know that they don't bluebox..

It appears as though there is more to come as well. If you ever visited
the Construction Yard BBS (Hadfield 01457) and posted or uploaded wArEz
then I'd recommend you consider leaving the country, or think up a
plausable alibii by the time the CCU (they are involved) and your local
CID reach you....

dynamics

