Ü ÜßÝ Ü Ü Ü ßÝ ßÝ Ý Ý Ý Ý Û Ý Ý Ý BLaH Ý ß Ý ÜßÜ Ý Ý File ÝßÜ Ý ÜÝ ÝßÝÜÝ Written March 23th, 1993 #040 Ý Ýig Ýong ÜßÝ Ýnd Ý Ýairy Ý Ý Ý Þ Ý Ý Ý ÝÜß ÝÜÜÝ ßÜÜßÞ ÜÝ ÞÜ Presents Ú ÄÄ ¿ "The Great Phreak Conspiracy" ³ by ³ Lemuel À ÄÄ Ù It's a famous story in the Computer Underground: In the mid-1960s Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal "accidentally" gave out 2600Hz whistles as a "promotion," instantly introducing a generation of phone phreaks to easy blue boxing and giving John Drapier his now-infamous psuedonym. However, when one does more research, it becomes apparent that this is, in fact, part of a larger conspiracy to provide assistance to phone phreaks everywhere. Some incidents previously suppressed by the media involving food products include the following strange events: o As early as 1943 canisters of Quaker Oats were discovered which contained packets of the Icelandic five aurak coin, ostensibly for numismatic purposes. A helpful note on the package reminded kids that "five aurak coins not only help teach you about money and the different cultures of the world, but they can also be used in pay phones in place of dimes." Wilfred Brimley could not be reached for comment. o In 1955 a young New Jersey boy was seriously injured after playing with a device given away free in boxes of Malt O'Meal: a urine box. Apparently he had dialed the local ringback and set the dial to "kill," thinking that it was just a joke. His parents threatened to sue the company, but settled out of court for an undisclosed sum not before BellCo had secured a promise from them to keep quiet. o In 1960 a Swanson's frozen dinner consumed by an Ohio housewife allegedly contained a salisbury steak branded with a strange ten-digit number. After several days of pondering this mystery her husband suggested that it might be a phone number; quickly calling it up, she found to her surprise that it was a prototype Bell REMOB line. Other purchasers of Swanson's dinners around this time reported finding "a piece of chicken stamped with the President's private phone number," "a clump of mixed vegetables who's corn spelled out a local PBX indial," and "a brussel sprout that looked remarkably like Elvis." o A 1976 promotion by Kellogg's Honey Smacks involved a free giveaway of a lineman's test set in every box of cereal. While strange in itself, even more strange were the cartoon panels on the back of the box which showed kids how to "have hours of fun playing 'let's find the junction box'." A recall was ordered because of public outcry stemming from the horrible deaths of several young children who electrocuted themselves after tapping into power relays. o In 1981 a man who choses to remain anonymous discovered an AT&T calling card sandwiched between two strawberry Pop-Tarts he was about to toast. He quickly called AT&T, who insisted that they had no such card number on record. Later that day the man called a relative in Germany from a pay phone using the card and discovered that it was, in fact, valid. To this day it still works without a hitch. Who is picking up the bill? o In 1984 Fruit Loops gave away a free 6.5536MHz crystal in every box of it's colorful, sugary breakfast cereal. This may be dismissed as coincidence, but consider that a small coupon on a side panel offered: "Free Radio Shack Thirty-Three Number Memory Pocket Tone Dialer! Send this coupon and thirty UPC symbols..." o In 1988 boxes of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes were distributed with small electronic devices of unknown origin and function. On the rear panel Tony the Tiger was shown with one "King Blotto" discussing how you should "show Ma Bell you're a tiger" and connect the device to a phone and an electrical outlet and "make all of the phones blow up." Strangely enough, the first boxes containing this promotion were distributed in New York only days before AT&T suffered a massive failure of it's long distance network... o Later that same year a box of Count Chocula was found by a young hacker in Seattle which had a UPC code mysteriously corresponding to the unlisted phone number of the 206 CNA office. Other boxes were later found to have bar codes which were actually numbers to PBXs, 800 extenders, and Northwestern Bell UNIX systems. A shocked mother in Bellview discovered that the bar code on her son's box of Frankenberry exactly matched her AT&T calling card number and PIN. Pure chance? Unlikely. o More ominously, a Chicago-area hacker recently discovered a "professionally-made" FM bug in a package of Jimmy Dean Country Sausage. After hearing of this incident it dawned upon me that breakfast cereals might just be the tip of the iceberg. Using my "inside connections" I was able to gain access to a recently declassified CIA docket including the following information: o According one document in the file, on May 17, 1990 a 23-year-old shopkeeper living in Bombay, India bit into a "small, metallic object" while enjoying some vegetable chutney. This object was later discovered to be "a critical junction element from an ESS7 switching system." But how did it get into his chutney? o A second case is cited in which a Japanese businessman nearly choked on "a piece of cardboard" embedded in a rice cake. After closer examination, the cardboard turned out to be a Southwestern Bell ID badge from a lineman who had disappeared on a fishing trip six months earlier under "unexplained circumstances." o As revealed in the stolen logs of a team of Swiss archaeologists excavating a tomb found near Luxor, Egypt in 1958, an ancient bias-relief found in the tomb's antechamber depicts "a strange Latin figure wearing a long cape and carrying a notched staff or cane" presenting the Pharoh with what appears to be a cellular (or, perhaps, cordless) phone. Small clay models of similar phones were found in other parts of the tomb, apparently included with the mummy to insure that the Pharoh would (as one Hieroglyphics expert later translated) "remain in contact with his concubines during his journey to the spirit world." The tomb was plowed over in the late 1970s by the Egyptian government to supposedly provide space for a new tourist hotel (which was never actually built); one confidential inside source referred to only as "Mr. James Blackwell of 1583 Trent Ave., Parma, Ohio" stated that this was actually a coverup at the behest of certain "key cellular carriers." Mr. Blackwell claimed to posess a document showing secret money transfers from Motorola executives to high-ranking Egyptian officials via the National Bank of Yemen, but the papers were destroyed in an unexplained house fire which also killed Mr. Blackwell. o Another document, much of which was still blacked-out for security reasons, was allegedly uncovered in newly-unsealed KGB archives. It includes interviews with Russian peasants living near the site of the 1908 Tungusta Blast, who claim to have discovered charred fragments of COSMOS manuals, circuit boards, and "red-, green-, yellow-, and black-coated wires" while plowing their fields during the months following the infamous explosion. o Scrawled notes from an unnamed Scottish businessman written shortly before his sudden illness and death in the 1920s reveal that, only minutes before it's destruction by the U.S. government, the Lusitania had encountered "the seaweed-encrusted spires of a magnificent city, barely piercing the ocean's surface -- none other than the reminants of the lost city of Atlantis. Dual tones were heard coming from one the _______ [illegible], and after a short time a short warbling tone was heard several times intersperced with longer pauses." Could this be evidence that the ancients had Touch-Tone(tm) service? o A torn page from an unknown Medieval manuscript was stuffed in the docket. The page recounted that some time during the 15th century English farmers reported to local monks that "Hatts of an Unknowne Materiel felle from the Sky like Raine. These Hatts were of a White Manner and did bear the Simbole of a Church Bell inscribed within a Circle, bothe of the Colour Blaue." o Recent excavations near C diz, Spain have uncovered a series of ancient Phoenician clay tablets which puportedly speak of a device which "sings the 10,000th forbidden name of Muaba'el into the Spirit Device of the Elders, giving those learned in the true and ancient ways unlimited free access to 'the network.'" Other inscriptions, tables of seemingly unreleated numbers, have recently been determined to correspond to MCI rate tables for the Friends and Family plan. A third tablet, though badly damaged, has been determined to be part of an area code map of the United States, *including area code splits which have yet to be publically announced*! Similar cryptic writings have been found carved into the base of the Sphynx, painted into murals on several buildings at Pompeii, illuminated on scrolls found in the forgotten corners of isolated Tibetian monastaries, inscribed on sacred stones recovered from ancient Celtic burial mounds, and chiseled into the stonework of the the High Priest's inner sanctum at the Incan holy city of Tiwanaku. Prehistoric cave paintings in rural France show, in addition to the usual horses and bison, a large structure bearing a striking resemblance to a microwave relay tower; however before more studies could be made of the paintings MCI bought the property and quickly sealed it to outside researchers. o Highly-detailed telephone cabling maps have been uncovered in the British Museum in London, the Biblioth‚que Nationale in Paris, the Vatican's Z collection, and, of course, the Miskatonic University library in Arkham, Massachusetts. (How do they get all of these rare books, anyway?). Many of these maps are centuries old, some predating the development of the printing press. How did such uncannily accurate maps end up in the hands of unknown European cartographers of old? Are we at BLaH the first to notice this disturbing pattern? No. A diary entry made by Syd Barrett in mid-1967 noted that he was "very close to unravelling this massive phone phreak conspiracy." Unfortunately, all subsequent entries are filled with meaningless ranting and disjointed ramblings about Battle Creek, Michigan. As a side note, MI5 records from the same date make occational references to LSD and a cryptic "Operation: Madcap," about which nothing is known. Other records which may hold the key to this clandestine operation were sealed by order of the Queen until the year 2050.) Well folks, clearly there can only be one force behind this eons-old plot: yes, it's the 5Ìþ·$¯¾f]x^ò_` NO CARRIER {---End Of File. But that's not really.. what I am---} "Welcome my son, Welcome to the Latrine.." BLaH ts The Battle Of Evermore <312>476-1508 The Obloid Sphere <708>965-3098 Nun-Beaters Anonymous <708>251-5094 He's the sun god, and he's the fun god, and he's the ONE god... {--They know EVERYTHING...---}