The vermilion box is a hypothetical portable improvised line emulator.
Its function is to spoof not only caller ID but every other aspect of an incoming telephone call, including ringing and DC line voltage. Typically, the user physically disconnects the target line from the telephone network, connects the vermilion box, and then proceeds to create a completely bogus telephone call.
Caller ID spoofing is the practice of causing the telephone network to indicate to the receiver of a call that the originator of the call is a station other than the true originating station. For example, a caller ID display might display a phone number different from that of the telephone from which the call was placed. The term is commonly used to describe situations in which the motivation is considered malicious by the originator.
The vermilion box incorporates three more basic phreaking boxes: the magenta box, which generates the AC ringing signal required to make the target telephone ring; the orange box, which generates caller ID (although it is not a proper call-waiting caller ID orange box that is used but a modified orange box that generates on-hook (idle state) caller ID); and the beige box that is used to conduct the actual conversation. In addition, a DC power source is required to power the telephones on the target's line.
Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. The term phreak is a sensational spelling of the word freak with the ph- from phone, and may also refer to the use of various audio frequencies to manipulate a phone system. Phreak, phreaker, or phone phreak are names used for and by individuals who participate in phreaking.
An orange box is a piece of hardware or software that generates caller ID frequency-shift keying (FSK) signals to spoof caller ID information on the target's caller ID terminal. It takes advantage of call waiting caller ID by mimicking the phone company's central office equipment and sending the call waiting tone followed by the audible caller ID data. An orange box can also be used to spoof Caller ID information sent after an incoming call rings, if the user has direct access to the target's phone line. One proposal to accomplish this involves an orange box used in conjunction with a magenta box, which in combination is called a vermilion box.
In phone phreaking, a beige box is a device that is technically equivalent to a telephone company lineman's handset — a telephone fitted with alligator clips to attach it to a line.
This is a very risky and stealth-intensive technique that requires the user to physically connect to the target line, anywhere between the premises of the target and the local exchange. However, properly applied, it will result in an incoming call to the target line that is completely indistinguishable from a genuine call and which cannot possibly be traced.
The vermilion box is named, following the tradition of naming phreaking boxes after colors, for a color (vermilion) that is similar to a combination of the color names of two of the component phreaking boxes from which this box is made: orange and magenta.
Vermilion is both a brilliant red or scarlet pigment, originally made from the powdered mineral cinnabar, and the name of the resulting color. It was widely used in the art and decoration of Ancient Rome, in the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, in the paintings of the Renaissance, as sindoor in India, and in the art and lacquerware of China.
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A telephone, or phone, is a telecommunications device that permits two or more users to conduct a conversation when they are too far apart to be heard directly. A telephone converts sound, typically and most efficiently the human voice, into electronic signals that are transmitted via cables and other communication channels to another telephone which reproduces the sound to the receiving user.
A blue box is an electronic device that generates the in-band signaling audio tones formerly used to control long-distance telephone exchanges. By generating the same tones employed by a telephone operator's dialing console, a blue box user could route their own calls and bypass the normal toll collection by the telephone company. Developed in the 1960s, the most typical use of a blue box was to place free long-distance telephone calls. A related device, the black box, enabled one to receive calls which were free to the caller. The blue box no longer works in most Western nations, since to prevent this form of fraud, modern switching systems no longer use in-band signaling. Instead, signaling occurs on an out-of-band channel that cannot be accessed from the line the caller is using, a system called Common Channel Interoffice Signaling or CCIS.
A ringtone or ring tone is the sound made by a telephone to indicate an incoming call or text message. Not literally a tone nor an actual (bell-like) ring any more, the term is most often used today to refer to customizable sounds used on mobile phones.
The answering machine, answerphone or message machine, also known as telephone answering machine in the UK and some Commonwealth countries, ansaphone or ansafone, or telephone answering device (TAD), is used for answering telephones and recording callers' messages.
Black boxes were devices which, when attached to home phones, allowed all incoming calls to be received without charge to the caller.
A telephone call is a connection over a telephone network between the called party and the calling party.
Phone fraud, or more generally communications fraud, is the use of telecommunications products or services with the intention of illegally acquiring money from, or failing to pay, a telecommunication company or its customers.
2600 Hz is a frequency in hertz that was used by AT&T as a steady signal to mark currently unused long-distance telephone lines.
Phreaking boxes are devices used by phone phreaks to perform various functions normally reserved for operators and other telephone company employees.
Audible ringing is a signaling tone in telecommunication that is heard by the originator of a telephone call while the destination terminal is alerting the receiving party. Audible ringing is typically a repeated tone that is not necessarily synchronous with the cadence of the power ringing signal that is sent to the called party.
Tip and ring are the names of the two conductors or sides of a telephone line. The terms originate in reference to the telephone plugs used for connecting telephone calls in manual switchboards. One side of the line is connected to the metal tip of the plug, and the second is connected to a metal ring behind the tip, separated and insulated from the tip by a non-conducting material. When inserted into a jack, the plug's tip conductor connects first, followed by the ring conductor. In many European countries tip and ring are referred to as the A and B wires.
Ringing is a telecommunication signal that causes a bell or other device to alert a telephone subscriber to an incoming telephone call. Historically, this entailed sending a high-voltage alternating current over the telephone line to a customer station which contained an electromagnetic bell. It is therefore also commonly referred to as power ringing, to distinguish it from another signal, audible ringing, which is sent to the originating caller to indicate that the destination telephone is in fact ringing.
Call blocking, also known as call block, call screening, or call rejection, allows a telephone subscriber to block incoming calls from specific telephone numbers. This feature may require an additional payment to the subscriber's telephone company or a third-party.
The Panel Machine Switching System is an early type of automatic telephone exchange for urban service, introduced in the Bell System in the 1920s. It was developed by Western Electric Laboratories, the forerunner of Bell Labs, in the U.S., in parallel with the Rotary system at International Western Electric in Belgium before World War I. Both systems had many features in common.
