===============================@============================================ THE SYNDICATE REPORT Information Transmittal No. 18 (Part 2 of 2) Released November 30, 1988 Featuring: Abbie Hoffman at Democratic National Convention Job Screening Over the Phone Tapping Phone Lines (Voice/Data) by Agent Steal Syndicate Report Brief Notes/2 by The Sensei ===============================@============================================ Exposition: TSR Once again, TSReport now excepts outside sources. Anyone can write/provide information to The Syndicate Report. Articles/Information may be provided through RADIO WAVES Bulletin Board System 612-471-0060. Any info such as Busts, Phreaking, Hacking, Data / TeleCommunications, and new developments on any the previous mentioned specialities will be: accepted, labeled, and given full actual credit by the article/info provider(s), or writer(s). -- ** All articles have been presented by me unless shown at the end of the article as the information provider(s), or writer(s). ============================================================================ Author's Note: TSR Happy Holidays! Syndicate Report is back for another Telecommunications Transmittal. It's been about 1 year or so since the Report was last published (Dec. 30 '87). I stop writing it for a few reasons: The Interstate Police , Minneapolis Cops, and CIA kept interupting my computer activities. Info. about the visits are in previous TS Reports. ** Future issues of TSR may include a section devoted to telecommunications vocabulary. This index will cover around 10-20 words every Transmittal. A vast vocabulary is any sense is powerful. -Enjoy...and spread the word and file of The Report! Thanks. ============================================================================ ABBIE HOFFMAN AT DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION: TSR (t.c 11\27) (This is just a outline/converstion to Abbie Hoffman at the Democratic National Convention.) Standing on the up escalator at the Convention, I spot Abbie Hoffman, alumnus of the '68 Democratic National Convention, standing on the adjacent down escalator. Abbie Hoffman. Flamboyant member of the Chicago Seven. Former fugitive from justice and plastic surgery patient. Author of: 'Revolution for the Hell of It' -- 'Steal this Book' 'Steal this Urine Test' ...and most recently, a comrade-in-arms of college protester Amy Carter in the well-publicized legal battle with the CIA over its campus recruitment tactics. Abbie's hair and beard are graying and his color is sallow. He wears a red lifeguard shirt and shorts. There is a big plastic cast on one hand and a bandage on one foot. Reaching the uppper level, I go to the railing and watch Abbie get off the escalator on the floor below. Unlike many of the notables I have seen, Abbie does not walk with a rushed, purposeful, type-A gait. He strolls casually up to a souvenir table and begins looking over the merchandise. He picks up a white baseball cap with "DNC" written across the front, tries it on, and, still wearing it, wanders odnw to the other end of the table to look at more souvenirs. Abbie seems approachable enough. I take the escalator down, and when I reach him he is standing away from the table, looking around. I introduce myself and extand my hand, grabbing and shaking the plastic cast he is wearing on his arm. He studies the press credentials around my neck, "Where you from?" he says. "Georgia, by way of Minnesota," I say. "Who you writing for?" "Twin Cities magazine." "Oh, yeah," Abbie Hoffman says, nodding, "I heard of them." Abbie scans the crowd distractedly. He tells me he's here for Vintage Press, writing a book on the convention. He's also doing an article for 'Playboy'. Then he grins at me for the first time and laughs. "I'm gonna take a big bite outta Bush!" I smile, nod politely. Abbie looks down at his lifegaurd get-up. "Thought I'd dress up for the occasion," he says. "Yesterday I was wearing the T-shit that said, 'No Bush, No Bullshit!' " He laughs loudly at me again. Suddenly he grows pensive and looks around at the crowd some more. He tells me that he's gotten separated from his photographer and asks if I knew some easy way to get across the street to where the satellite dishes are located behind the Omni, because that's where he and the photographer pahked the cah. "You mean over near the CBS trailers?" "Yeah." I think about it. "The only way I know is to walk," I say. "Yeah, but I got a broken foot!" he says, pointing. I look down at his foot. "What happened to you?" I ask. Abbie shrugs. "I got in an accident with this truck in New Jersey," he says. He spots an escalator off to the side, heding down to another floor. "Maybe down there, huh?" He walks over to it, ets on. "Take care," I call to him. Abbie looks back, raises his cast in salutation, and descends out of sight. I head back to the other escalators, and, going up, wonder breifly if Abbie Hoffman paid for the white Democratic National Convention baseball cap he was wearing. ============================================================================ JOB SCREENING OVER THE PHONE: TSR (mod.tech 11\27) With the passing of the Employee Polygraph Protection Act by President Reagan on June 27 banning lie detector, companies wil now have to look for new methods to screen future job applicants. One company offers a unique solution that complies with the new law. TeleScreen, Inc. (Atlanta, GA) has developed a computerized, self-administered telephone interviewing method that lets applicants respond to answers using a touchtone telephone. The testing process, also called TeleScreen, is a series of 150 prerecorded questions convering such areas as previous employment, absenteeism, past criminal record, and substance abuse. Applicants answer by pressing the "1" key for "Yes," the "3" key for "No," and the "0" for "Not Applicable." The interview is conducted from a toll-free 800 number and takes twenty minutes. TeleScreen's creators claim people are less likely to lie with this method that with traditional tests. "People are more inclined to be truthful to a machine than to another human being because the telephone is not intimidating," says Charles Lambert, vice president of TeleScreen. "All questions are asked with the same non-threatening tone of voice," he continues. "TeleScreen shows consistency and inconsistency in their answers. Applicants cannot look back or see how they answered before." The test has been used by over 225 firms. :::::::::::::::::::Information Provided by Bitmaster / 713:::::::::::::::::: ============================================================================ TAPPING TELEPHONE LINES (Voice/Data) BY AGENT STEAL: TSR (a.s 11\28) ...For phun, money, and passwords - Or how to go to jail for a long time. Information included in this article: Equipment Needed, Where to buy, How to connect it, How to read recorded data, How I found a Tymnet Node, And how I got in. The Equipment: First thing you need is an audio tape recorder. What you will be recording whether it be voice or data will be in an analog autio format. From now on, most references will be towards data recording. Most standard cassette recorders will nork just fine. The two types of recorders I would advise staying away from (for data) are micro cassette recorders and the standard cassette recorders that have been modified for 8 to 10 hour record time. The speed of these units are too unstable. Next item you need, oddly enough, is sold by Radio Shack under the name "Telephone Recording Control" Part #43-236 $20-25.00 Page 88 1988 Catalog. How To Connect It: The telephone recording control (TRC) has 3 wires coming out of it. #1 Telco wire with modular jack. Cut this, and seperate into red and green, and attach some alligator clips. #2 Audio wire with minature phone jack (not phone). This plugs into the microphone level input jack of tape recorder. #3 Audio wire with sub minature phone jack. This plugs into the "REM" or Remote Control Jack of the tape recorder. Now all you need to do is find the telephone line, connect the alligator clips, turn the recorder on and come back later. Whenever the line goes off the hook, the recorder starts. Its that simple. Reading the Data: This is the tricky part. Different modems and different software respond differently but there are basics. The modem should be connected as usual to the Telco line and computer. Now connect the speaker output of the tape player directly to the telephone line. Puck up the phone and dial the high side of a loop, or silent terminal so your line doesn't make any noise. Now, command your modem into the answer modem and press play. The tape should be lined up at the beginning of the recorded phone call. Natually so you can see the login. Only one side of the transmission between the host and terminal can be monitored at a time. Going to the originate modem you will see what the host transmitted. A couple problems may occur with garbled characters. Try connecting the speaker output to the microphone of the handset to your phone. Use a 1 to 1 coupling transformer between the tape player input and the TRC Audio Output. These problems are usually caused when using A.C. powered equipment. 1200 baud was difficult to read, but it is possible. It's nice to have an excellent modem, also. How Crazy I Am: Passwords Galor! After numberous calls to several Bell Offices, I found one that handled Tymnet's Account. Here's a rough transcript: OP: Pacific Bell Priority Customer Order Dept. How may I help you? ME: Good morning, this is Mr. Miller with Tymnet Inc. We're interested in adding some service to out X town location. OP: I'll be happy to help you Mr. Miller. ME: I need to know how many lines we have coming in on our rotary and if we have extra pairs on our trunk. We are considering adding ten additional lines on that rotary and maybe some FX service. OP: Okay, what's the number this is in reference to? ME: XXX-XXX-XXXX (loca node #) OP: Hold on....ok, Bla Bla Bla etc. Well, you get the idea. After asking a few more questions I asked her the address. No problem, she didn't hesitate. This all could have been avoided with a touch of CNA, but they don't just give out addresses in my area. Dressed in my best Telco outfit. Pac*Bell baseball cap, tool belt and test set I was out the door. There it was, just an office building, even had a computer store in it. After exploring the building for a while, I found it. A large steel door with a push button lock. Back to the phone, and I found that service tech. number and chatted with the mgr. MGR: Hell, this is Joe Moron. ME: Hi, this is Miller ( I like that name ) with PacBel. I'm down here at your x town node and we're having problems locating a gas leak in one of our trunks. I beleive our trunk terminates pressurization in your room. MSR: I'm not sure, how can I help? ME: Well, could you have someone meet me down here or give me the entry code? MGR: Sure, the code is 1234. ME: Thanks, I'll let you know if there's any trouble. So I ran home, got my VCR (Stereo) and picked up another TRC from Trash Shack. I connected the VCR to the first to imcoming lines on the rotary. One of each channel (left,right). Since the volume of calls is almost consistant, it wasn't neccesary to stop the recorder between calls. The VCR was placed under the floor, in case a tech. happened to come by for problems. These nodes are little computer rooms with air conditioners and raised floors. The modems and packet equipment are all rack mounted behind glass. Also, most of the nodes are unmanned. This is what I got: A lot of above 300 bps connections, Credit Card verifications, and the rest as follows: Easylink, Compuserve, Quantumlink, 3MMail, People Link, Dow Jones, Homebanking, USPS, Crystler Parts Order, Yamaha Parts, & Ford Parts When I went back down there the code had been changed. Why? Well I didn't want to find out. I was out of there! I told a couple people who later I found could not to trusted, oh well. Better safe the sorry. If you need to reach me, dial Lunatic Labs at 415-278-7421. :::::::::::::::::::::::::Information by Agent Steal::::::::::::::::::::::::: ============================================================================ ::SYNDICATE REPORT BRIEF NOTES:: //MCI Sets up Network for Facsimiles// Hoping to do for the facsimile market what it did to electronic mail, MCI announced last week a dedicated network for high-speed fax transmissions. Subscribers to the MCI Fax service, which will start at the end of the month, will be able to transmit fax messages at speeds of 9600 bps and higher over a digital fiber network. MCI Fax will work with all fax equipment - including PCs with fax boards - and will support non-fax methods such as telex and electronic mail. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- //Top-Secret Satellite Readied// Engineers at Cape Canaveral, Fla., have readied a top-secret satellite. It will be placed on the space shuttle Atlantis this week on the launch pad. Blastoff is targeted for Nov. 29. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- //AT&T Wins Pentagon Computer Competition// The American Telephone & Telegraph Co. has won a spirited competition to provide thousands of new computers to the Defense Department, establishing its position in the industry for years to come with what has been described as the computer contract of the century. The contract was worth $929.1 million. AT&T officials said its value could ultimately exceed $1 billion, depending on the options exercised. The Air Force, which acted as the agent for the other services in overseeing the bidding, said an AT&T subsidiary, AT&T Technologies Inc., had been selected over five competitors and would now be expected to deliver some 20,000 mini-computers over the next five years. :::::::::::::::::Information Provided by The Mercinary / 718:::::::::::::::: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- //Brain Enrolls in School// An obnoxious brain recently found its way onto the University of Houston campus. The Pakistan micro-computer virus, which displays the word "Brain" on the disk it infects, was found in the university's College of Business, says Computerworld. The virus did no real harm, school officials said. It has also appeared at Bowie, Md., State College and Providence Journal Co. in Rhode Island. ============================================================================ \ This transmittal's monthly statement: "Beware - 'rsh' Restricted Unix Shell System." =================================================@========================== TSR will accept additional sponsor/support Systems. If you have a certain interest in the Report, and wish to provide support to TSR -- Leave your BBS number - and any other information on Radio Waves / Rockin' Alliance Systems ================================\=========================================== Official Syndicate Report Sponsor System * Radio Waves / System #1 ::: 612-471-0060 * * Lunatic Labs ::: 415-278-7421 * ============================================================================ This concludes this Transmittal No. 18 (Part 2 of 2) by The Sensei of The Syndicate Report Released November 30th, 1988 ============================================================================