***************** A Cellular Guide* By: Downtime * ***************** Contents ~~~~~~~~ 1) Some of the Cellular Phone Basics 2) The reason for the name Cellular. 3) Review of the Cellular System. 4) What goes on during Cellular Calling. 5) Cellular Cloning and Other Features. 6) Basic Test Mode Programming 7) What kind of Cellular is Best? 8) Where is the Cellular Technology Going? 9) Closing _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~ We have all seen them, heard about them, and most people use them. What am I talking about? None other than the Cellular Phone. One of the most interesting things ever that is associated with the Phreaking Community. This guide will not tell you how to do illegal things with your cell but this will give you a basic view of how the cellular phone works. Enjoy! _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 1) Some of the Cellular Phone Basics The main thing to remember about a cellular phone is that it is a radio. It is basically like a hand held walkie talkie except with a cellular phone you have alot more capabilities and can talk and listen at the same time. Remember though that when you are talking on a cellular phone what you say may and possibly will be monitored very easily. There are two main types of Cellular Phones Analog and Digital. 1) Analog: On this the audio is modulated directly onto a carrier 2) Digital: On Digital, these are converted to digitized samples. These are transmitted as 1's and 0's. Then it is converted back to voltage so you get the audio signal. Each Cellular Phone has to identify itself to its cell site before service is allowed. They are identified by what is known as an ESN and a MIN. 1) ESN: This stands for Electronic Serial Number. This is a 32-bit Binary Number if I am not mistaken. 2) MIN: Mobile Identification Number. This is the phone number of the Cellular Phone. 10 digits including area code and all. _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 2) The Reason for the name Cellular. The reason for this is that in each city the Cellular Phone System is divided into smaller sections also referred to as cells. These usually have an antenna on top of a high surface that gives out strong signals therefore giving you clear service. _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 3) Review of the Cellular System. The main system operating in the United States is the AMPS, Advanced Mobile Phone System. The AMPS are composed of two different things: 1) EAMPS: This system has 832 channels. 2) NAMPS: This system has three times the amount with very clear signals. All these have 42 channels that are used to setup calls the rest are for talking over the Cellular Phone. _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 4) What goes on during Cellular Calling. Just imagine if you are stranded somewhere or possibly just want to use your cellular phone to call someone. Have you ever wondered how it worked? Why it worked? If so then I will explain how and why in this section here. Enjoy! 1) Scan Channels: In this step the cellular phone scans for the closest cell site near you so that you can get the strongest signals possible due to your location at the moment. 2) Choose Strongest: As stated above the cellular phone finds the closest site to give you the best performance. 3) Send Message: The phone sends a short message to the cell site verifying the MIN, ESN, and the number that you have just entered to call. 4) Assign Channel: After verifying the above information and they know that you are a legal paying customer, the base assigns a mesage to your phone, telling it where the conversation is. 5) Talk: Phone then gets on that channel and begins to ring. Then you begin to talk like normal. The easiest step of them all. _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 5) Cellular Cloning and Other Features. Cellular Cloning is one of the newest and more popular things going on now a days. What you are basically doing is programming someone else's MIN and ESN into your phone in the process of fooling your cellsite into thinking that you are actually them. Is this legal? Well it depends on which way you use it. If you use it to clone one of your own phones where you can have two phones exactly the same then no, but if you are cloning someone else's then yes it is very illegal. The philosophy of a cellular phone phreak as stated in another text written by John Markoff is to push the machines as far as they would go. The possibilites with a cellular phone are practically endless. You can make one into a scanner as well as many other things. The first step of being able to do ANY of this is getting the cellular phone into what people call test mode. This is where you can practically change the whole phone's features. The main way to get into this is to crack the access code. There is a good site that deals with that at the following URL: http://www.radiophone.com They have great information. Another way to get a cellular phone is by taking the battery pack off of the back and look in the lower corner. Here you will see some little prongs, you can get a small piece of tin foil and place it in the center of the prong like so: |*| then put the battery pack back on the back of the phone. Then turn the phone on and when you turn it on you should see an array of flashing numbers. If so you are in luck because you are in test mode! :)~ _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 6) Basic Test Mode Programming This section will tell you what to do once you get into the test mode. This part comes from 1993 Cellular Subscriber Technical Training Manual. I give full credit to them for this information. I am not going to include all of it because it would take forever. Here are some of the basics. Enjoy! 32# = clear the phone 38# = displays the ESN 55# = test mode programming 01# = restart 13# = power off 16# = setup 18# = send NAM 34# = turn DTMF off 61# ESN transfer That is jsut some of the very basics. Of course there is alot more and if I ever write another article with Cellular Phones I will include some more. Don't want to get very much ahead of ourselves. :) _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 7) What kind of Cellular is Best? There are different kinds of cellular phones for different kind of people. Me personally I have experience so far with only Motorola. I plan to get a Nokia soon. Nokia are very advanced and have many options. There is also the OKI those have been stated to be good. The one that interests me at the moment are these new ones that are Java based. If you would like to read more about these go to the following URL: http://www.nortel.com/cool/norteledge/edge298/N._IP_N.html But as stated above many people like many different things, there is also a new Motorla that is the IDEN I10000. These have two-way radio and alphanumeric pager in one. These weigh in at around 5 oz. as well. They also include: One touch call back, a speakerphone, and a multilanguage operation that displays prompts in one to four different languages. For more information on this you can call: 1.800.453.0920 _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 8) Where is the Cellular Technology Going? This is a very interesting thing to think about including all the things that they already have out and available at this point in time. There is no way to actually predict what is going to come out next due to people having new ideas with each and every passing day. It should be an interesting thing to think forward about. Whatever it is, it will turn heads I am sure! _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 9) Closing We have seemed to read the end of this guide. I hope this has been an informative source and you enjoyed it. I will probably write another cellular guide in the future but am not sure at the moment. Remember "Push the Machine as Far as it will Go!" =) _____________________________________________________________________________ " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " " 10) Shout Outs 1) DarkCyde: Keeping it real! 2) #9x: Great channel 3) Slinker aka _14k4: For getting me interesting 4) T0n3 K1LL4H: For being there for me 5) GrinnDaddy: Helping me along the way 6) Sparky: Being a good friend 7) Twisted Nickel: Sim Digital Fokus Voltage Vyle If I left any of ya guys out, ya know who ya are! EOF