“You just keep your hands to yourself!”
“How do I do that?” It was a problem. Wherever I moved them, they seemed to encounter thighs, a magnificent butt, great boobs—- all that yummy flesh.
“I’m warning you!” Randy shook her fist. The rest of her jogged up and down along with it.
“Bouncing like that isn’t going to reduce the level of eroticism.”
“Shut up!” She stopped moving. “Just shut up!”
I shut up. In the new silence, her breasts heaving under my nose made me aware that I was getting hungry. Hell, sex always makes me hungry. I thought about food, which brought to mind a certain breakfast cereal. . . .
The makers of this breakfast cereal used to include a whistle in each box as a free prize. These whistles, when blown, emitted a sound of exactly 2,600 cycles per second—the exact same tone as that coming from a telephone-company tandem when it's not in use!
Some years back, an unknown kid whose hobby was electronics stumbled on this coincidence. He figured out that if he had a friend call him long distance at a specified time, he could “mute” the call with the whistle. All he had to do was pick up the receiver when the phone rang and blow the whistle into the mouthpiece. The call would go through free of charge.
How come? Well, what happens is this:
Say a call is being made from Chicago to Dallas. First the long-distance caller is hooked into the Chicago tandem, which immediately stops whistling. Then the Chicago tandem establishes connection with a trunk line which in turn is connected to a second tandem on the Dallas end. When this happens, the Dallas tandem also stops whistling.
The call is relayed from the Dallas tandem, via local lines, to the specific Dallas number being called. Ordinarily, when the Dallas number answers, the call will be registered as completed back in Chicago. Further notice of it will be taken only when the connection is severed.
But when the phone rings in Dallas, the waiting phreak instantly blows his 2,600 cycle whistle into the mouthpiece. The sound is transmitted through all the lines involved and heard by the computer in the Chicago exchange as a signal from the Chicago tandem that it is once again free. In effect, the Chicago computer assumes that the call has not gone through, that the Chicago caller hung up before it was completed. The computer scratches the call as incomplete and fails to keep a time check on it.
But the Chicago tandem is not free. All the lines involved, including both tandems, are still hooked up. The connection remains in effect, and the parties can speak for as long as they like without the caller being charged. Such is automation that the caller even gets his original dime back!
And all it takes is a giveaway penny whistle. . . .
The thought made me whistle.
“Jesus! Bird calls! What next?” Randy wanted to know. “Card tricks?”
“How about sawing a woman in half?” I threatened.
“Sawing? First you’d better learn how to drill right!”
“Lay off!”
“I will if you will.” She snapped a finger against my groin, punctuation for her double meaning.
“Cut it out!”
“I’d love to! With a rusty razor blade,” she added sweetly.
“If I lose my temper, you’ll be sorry!”
“Shove it!” she told me.
I did.
“Stop that!”
“Just trying to loosen up the tar,” I explained.
“The hell you say! You’re getting hot again!” she accused.
Who? Me? Getting hot? Just because I was buried inside Randy Beaver up to my cojones? “Don’t flatter yourself!” I told her.
“I’m not. I can tell.”
“Look. The problem is to loosen the tar, right? Well, maybe if we ball again, one or both of us might release a solvent,” I suggested.
“We tried that. It’s obviously no solvent for tar.”
I subsided. “This is ridiculous!” I grumbled after a quiet moment.
“You have a gift for understatement, Mr. Victor.”
Formality yet! “I still think—-” I started to say.
“I know what you think. Now you just relax and get your mind off sex.”
“Won’t you even consider—”
“First do it my way. Relax. If that doesn’t work, I’ll consider it. I promise. Now, sit still and relax.”
I relaxed. Well, not really. But I did try to concentrate again on something besides all that Randy Beaver pulchritude I was trapped inside.
I forced myself to think about how sophisticated phone-phreaking techniques had become since the early days of “muting” long-distance calls from the re- ceiving end. I recalled what my electronics buddy back in New York had told me about the big breakthrough. I thought about the Bell Telephone Company engineer who was inadvertently responsible for it. . . .
The engineer had written a highly technical article for an obscure professional journal. Illustrating a point, he cited the multifrequency codings (the dual beeps produced by dialing each digit) used by the phone company. And he listed the actual paired frequencies for each digit!
The disclosure set up Ma Bell for a multimillion-dollar ripoff. A phone phreak stumbled on the article, copied the list of frequencies, and passed it along. In the years since the article was published, the list has been distributed throughout the nation. Today there are tens of thousands of copies in circulation.
One of the first to use the list was a blind Florida college boy. He happened to have perfect pitch. Whistling the code tones into the mouthpiece, he made long- distance calls all over the country before he was caught.
By then, others had discovered that they could reproduce the sounds on an electric organ. For instance, the notes F-five and A-five hit simultaneously produce a multifrequency tone of 900 cycles and 700 cycles per second. This corresponds to the phone company’s beep for the number “1.”
The key factor is that throughout the phone system the computerized machinery doing the receiving can’t tell the difference between sounds produced by its own transmitting equipment and duplications of those sounds by phone phreaks! Thus the phone company’s programmed gizmos will follow the instructions they “hear” from phreaks as readily as they will standard orders!
Say a Boston phone phreak wants to call a friend in Seattle. From any one of a variety of sources which, like the electric organ, will produce the necessary sounds, he prerecords a 2,600-cycle beep and then the series of multifrequency tones corresponding to the digits of the Seattle number. He usually uses a simple portable cassette recorder. Then he dials any “800” number on his telephone.
(All “800” numbers are toll-free. They’re used by companies like car-rental services, hotel chains, airlines, etc. The idea is to stimulate business by encouraging potential customers to call free of charge from anywhere in the country. Most phone phreaks keep lists of “800” numbers.)
When the Boston caller hears the “800” number being rung, he immediately holds his cassette player up to the mouthpiece and broadcasts the 2,600 cycle beep. The computer in the substation receiving the “800” call hears the sound as a signal that the tandem on its end is no longer in use. It assumes (because of the way in which it’s been programmed) that the call has been aborted back in Boston and therefore stops ringing the “800” number.
However, when the cassette player is shut off and the 2,600 cycle tone ceases, the receiving tandem (still hooked into the long-line, which is hooked into the Boston tandem, etc.) is now waiting for instructions from Boston. The Boston phreak plays the prerecorded tones of the Seattle number into the mouthpiece, and the receiving tandem routes the call, which then goes through. When this happens, the computer in Boston notes the fact that the “800” call has been completed. Because “800” calls are toll-free, the Boston computer neither keeps track of the time nor records any charges for the call.