In Phreaking, the green box was a device whose function was to manipulate the coin collection mechanism of payphones. It employed three of the MF (multi-frequency) tones used in the blue box and could be viewed as a subset of that device.
There are three basic functions in a green box, and each one is activated with an MF tone. The green box's designers have noted that it is not possible to use the green box from the payphone being manipulated; it can only be used by the called party.
Green Box MF frequencies | ||
Function | Frequencies | MF Symbol |
---|---|---|
Coin Collect | 700 Hz + 1100 Hz | 2 |
Coin Return | 1100 Hz + 1700 Hz | KP |
Ringback | 700 Hz + 1700 Hz | 11/ST3 |
According to the text file "The Green Box" [1] by "The Blue Buccaneer" and "The Tracker", each of these frequencies should be sounded for at least 900 milliseconds. Each should also be preceded with a 2600 Hz "wink", or an MF "8" symbol (900 Hz + 1500 Hz), of about 90 ms in duration, followed by about 60 ms of silence. Most software green boxes emulate this rather than the MF symbols alone.
The green box was first proposed in the newsletter TAP in 1981 by Ted Vail and Nick Haflinger. [2] While others have written text files about this device, and numerous software tone generators exist which claim to emulate it, it is unknown if any physical devices were actually built (including by Vail and Haflinger). Despite this, any blue box could, with skillful timing on the part of its user, be used as a green box.
With the widespread phase-out of the ACTS signaling system, and indeed the long-completed phase-out of MF signaling in North America, the telephones for which this device was designed are no longer in service. Thus the green box can be considered obsolete.
An early predecessor of the green box with similar usage was the "payphone diode" or "one-armed bandit". This was a cheap silicon low-power diode that was bridged across two signal wires into the phone (polarity selected so that the diode is normally reverse-biased, otherwise it would permanently short the line). This device exploited another weakness in the ACTS on certain phone models (including 3 slot rotary). These models used an electromechanical diverter flap to drop and direct coins from the holding area to either the coin vault or the coin return, based on a signal from the CO. The default position of this flap was to the coin return so no signal was required for incomplete calls. The diode allowed the coin drop on the Collect ACTS signal but kept the flap in the default position.
Besides being illegal for several reasons, access to the lines on payphones is usually limited by conduit or armor, but only for the first few, usually six to ten, feet. Payphones modified with discrete jumper wires for diodes to be clipped on were very popular in the early 1970s. Contrary to the green box, the diode allowed control from the calling payphone. A modified phone with a poor quality diode could be quickly identified by the constant clicking sound produced by the coin return mechanism. The single payphone at Canadian Village (also known as Lake Shore) located on the road to the marina of Huntington Lake in California was well known for this issue. Children would gather in the area to collect coins after a caller left, often to buy candy at the store across the road. Operation required using actual coins and lengthy long distance calls with mid-call Collect signals required deft manipulation of the noisy coins falling to the return, usually by covering the microphone with the hand or simply turning ones back to the phone.
More recent research (2001) on a Flowbox by "Flame0ut & PrussianSnow" on Nortel Millennium payphones in Canada [3] indicate that the Collect signal on many systems is a current reversal. While it is not clear whether this is part of the ACTS specification, it offers an explanation for the operation and success of the Diode.
Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) is a telecommunication signaling system using the voice-frequency band over telephone lines between telephone equipment and other communications devices and switching centers. DTMF was first developed in the Bell System in the United States, and became known under the trademark Touch-Tone for use in push-button telephones supplied to telephone customers, starting in 1963. DTMF is standardized as ITU-T Recommendation Q.23. It is also known in the UK as MF4.
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also referred to as temporal frequency, which emphasizes the contrast to spatial frequency and angular frequency. The period is the duration of time of one cycle in a repeating event, so the period is the reciprocal of the frequency. For example: if a newborn baby's heart beats at a frequency of 120 times a minute, its period, T, — the time interval between beats—is half a second. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio signals (sound), radio waves, and light.
Pulse dialing is a signaling technology in telecommunications in which a direct current local loop circuit is interrupted according to a defined coding system for each signal transmitted, usually a digit. This lends the method the often used name loop disconnect dialing. In the most common variant of pulse dialing, decadic dialing, each of the ten Arabic numerals are encoded in a sequence of up to ten pulses. The most common version decodes the digits 1 through 9, as one to nine pulses, respectively, and the digit 0 as ten pulses. Historically, the most common device to produce such pulse trains is the rotary dial of the telephone, lending the technology another name, rotary dialing.
In telecommunication, signaling is the use of signals for controlling communications. This may constitute an information exchange concerning the establishment and control of a telecommunication circuit and the management of the network—in contrast to manual setup of circuits by users or administrators, for example the sending of a signal from the transmitting end of a telecommunication circuit to inform a user at the receiving end that a message is to be sent.
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.
A red box is a phreaking device that generates tones to simulate inserting coins in pay phones, thus fooling the system into completing free calls. In the United States, a nickel is represented by one tone, a dime by two, and a quarter by a set of five. Any device capable of playing back recorded sounds can potentially be used as a red box. Commonly used devices include modified Radio Shack tone dialers, personal MP3 players, and audio-recording greeting cards.
A dial tone is a telephony signal sent by a telephone exchange or private branch exchange (PBX) to a terminating device, such as a telephone, when an off-hook condition is detected. It indicates that the exchange is working and is ready to initiate a telephone call. The tone stops when the first dialed digit is recognized. If no digits are forthcoming, the permanent signal procedure is invoked, often eliciting a special information tone and an intercept message, followed by the off-hook tone, requiring the caller to hang up and redial.
A payphone is typically a coin-operated public telephone, often located in a telephone booth or in high-traffic outdoor areas, with pre-payment by inserting money or by billing a credit or debit card, or a telephone card. Prepaid calling cards also facilitate establishing a call by first calling the provided toll-free telephone number, entering the card account number and PIN, then the desired telephone number. An equipment usage fee may be charged as additional units, minutes or tariff fee to the collect/third-party, debit, credit, telephone or prepaid calling card when used at payphones. By agreement with the landlord, either the phone company pays rent for the location and keeps the revenue, or the landlord pays rent for the phone and shares the revenue.
A blue box is an electronic device that generates the in-band signaling tones formerly generated by telephone operator consoles to control telephone switches. Developed during the 1960s, blue boxes allowed private individuals to control long-distance call routing and to bypass the toll-collection mechanisms of telephone companies, enabling the user to place free long-distance telephone calls on national and international circuits.
In electronics, ring modulation is a signal-processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, performed by multiplying two signals, where one is typically a sine wave or another simple waveform and the other is the signal to be modulated. A ring modulator is an electronic device for ring modulation. A ring modulator may be used in music synthesizers and as an effects unit.
A telephone booth, telephone kiosk, telephone call box, telephone box or public call box is a small structure furnished with a payphone and designed for a telephone user's convenience.
In telephony, multi-frequency signaling (MF) is a type of signaling that was introduced by the Bell System after World War II. It uses a combination of audible tones for address transport and supervision signaling on trunk lines between central offices. The signaling is sent in-band over the same channel as the bearer channel used for voice traffic.
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.
Hook flash or flash is a button on a telephone that simulates quickly hanging up then picking up again. This action can signal the telephone exchange to do something. A common use of a hook flash is to switch to another incoming call with the call waiting service. Another use is to indicate a request for voice conferencing, for example, a user may use a procedure like the following to initiate three-way calling:
A digital subscriber line (DSL) modem is a device used to connect a computer or router to a telephone line which provides the digital subscriber line service for connection to the Internet, which is often called DSL broadband.
Phreaking boxes are devices used by phone phreaks to perform various functions normally reserved for operators and other telephone company employees.
A guitar speaker is a loudspeaker – specifically the driver (transducer) part – designed for use in a combination guitar amplifier of an electric guitar, or for use in a guitar speaker cabinet. Typically these drivers produce only the frequency range relevant to electric guitars, which is similar to a regular woofer type driver, which is approximately 75 Hz — 5 kHz, or for electric bass speakers, down to 41 Hz for regular four-string basses or down to about 30 Hz for five-string instruments.
Northern Telecom manufactured several different models of Payphone over the years. They were most commonly used in Canada, as well as the United States.
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, or ringing tone, which is sent to the originating caller to indicate that the destination telephone is in fact ringing.
Green box may refer to: