Defeating Trap Tracing
by Lord Thunder
This article should be of interest to those of you who are accustomed to receiving telephone calls by individuals who are not necessarily paying for the calls they make. Oftentimes, these people are called phone phreaks, but most of us know that a calling card does not a phone phreak make. Anyway, you receive an illegal call from someone:
Is it your responsibility to help the telephone company deal with this offender?
Do you keep track of every call you receive, when, and from who?
Should you have to deal with telephone security personnel harassing you?
Of course the answer to all three questions is "NO" and that is what this article is all about.
Let me tell you a story... From time to time I have been known to receive calls from telephone company security personnel asking me about who may have called me on a particular time and date. However, it seems like I can never remember and find myself unable to answer those questions. This does not mean I do not have fun antagonizing those individuals foolish enough to ask stupid questions. One incident in particular went something like this...
(The names have been changed to protect the innocent.)
R-R-R-I-I-N-N-G-G!
LT: Hello.
TA: This is Ms. Tammy Amesy from Pacific Northwest Bell, and I'm calling to find out who called you from the Portland, Oregon area at 7:43 pm on June 17, 1989.
LT: Lady... I have no idea and if I did, I would not tell you anyway!
TA: What! That person made an illegal call and if you do not tell me who it was I'll have the charges billed to your number.
LT: (Hee Hee... This idiot just screwed up bad!) Oh, O.K., who is this again?
TA: Ms. Tammy Amesy of Pacific Northwest Bell.
LT: Why don't you give me your supervisor's name and number and I will speak with her.
TA: (Ah-Ha! I have him scared now [she thinks].) Sure, Lisa Algart at 503-XXX-XXXX.
<CLICK!>
R-R-R-I-I-N-N-G-G
LA: Hello.
LT: Is this Lisa Algart?
LA: Yes. Who is this?
LT: Are you Ms. Amesy's supervisor at Pacific Northwest Bell?
LA: Yes I am. Who am I speaking with?
LT: Hello. My name is Lord Thunder [No, I didn't really use my handle]. Did you know that an employee of your company just committed several federal felonies?
LA: Oh my god! Please tell me what happened.
LT: (I explain the call to her and told her that Ms. Amesy committed extortion and fraud threats on an interstate communication carrier and also, because she was acting in the capacity as an official representative of Pacific Northwest Bell, she has left her company open to civil and criminal charges for threatening to reverse charges in order to illegally extort information from me, and I was planning on calling the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Public Utilities Commission (PUC), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to press charges.)
LA: Please, I'll talk to Ms. Amesy and make sure nothing like this ever happens again.
LT: O.K., but I want something. I want a signed letter of apology from: Ms. Amesy on Pacific Northwest Bell stationery.
Two days later I received the letter on Pacific Northwest Bell stationery:
"In reference to our conversation on June 23, 1989 regarding calls made to your telephone number, I apologize if you felt inconvenienced or offended. Please fell free to call if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Ms. Tammy Amesy
Service Representative"Now that was just one example of an attempt by the phone companies to perform trap tracing. I think code abuse is juvenile to begin with, but I do have a few things to point out on both ends.
- Do not call someone illegally who is going to screw up and mention your name when the telephone company calls to check it out.
- The telephone company only checks into the lengthy calls on bills with excessive costs. Keep your calls to a minimum of numbers and length to avoid being looked into.
- Do not call relatives or personal friends that are not involved with phreaking with illegally obtained codes.
A few other things to mention.
Some of the companies, like U.S. Sprint are more likely to call you up just to verify that you do not know the actual card holder. This is their way of making sure that the calls that the cardholder says are not his really are not his. I have been contacted by some of the companies (U.S. Sprint among them) a full six months after the calls were placed to answer these types of questions.
I had another interesting incident with a lady known as Julie of TMC. Some of you might remember her from a few years back. Anyway, I had been talking with a friend of mine for 45 minutes or so on a Thursday evening and on Friday afternoon I received a call from TMC Security demanding to know who I spoke with for 45 minutes the night previous. I was not about to tell them what they wanted, but it still was a little difficult to not remember who I spoke with the night before.
I whipped up a story about running an anonymous login in AE line or something. It lacked a little imagination, but it worked. Another idea you might want to try is say that you have one of those long-play answering machines that does not turn off until the caller stops talking. Then mention that you had some long obscene call on there that filled up most of the tape and you wished you could find out who it was too.
So that is all I have to say about trap tracing. If you must use codes or calling cards illegally to call people, at least know how to protect yourself from security by letting your friends know what not to say when these people call to inquire.