European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 26, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Phone fraud ends up socking it to every by Kleinfield new York times someone makes a Lon distance collect Call to a Friend at a pay the Friend accepts the but theres no one to a Man Calls Home person person and asks for of course Hes not he leaves word for himself to Call Back at that l passed free of lets his wife know Hes heading i Home on the Calls up a refund control operator on a pay he saying he just lost a Dollar in the a is Given on his Home a person makes a Brief then tells the operator he mind baled the Call vanishes from his someone fees a Call and Bills it to another persons credit card Home someone is Good at so he lids a Blue a contraption that allows the user to in any those Are just a few of the countless schemes to outbox Telephone people have tried them so Many tried in that the american and Telegraph the victim of most Tail was hobbled by a record fraud year in ii e estimates its provable losses at about r the steepest since when fraud hit in it amounted to and that just what is aware it has been edits not much Money stacked next to toll reve which totalled a staggering billion last but b phone company feels that if it didst work hard at Fer out the losses would explode into the Hun of millions of dollars and possibly strangle the e phone fraud remains at a High and you might say its training to burst its says an lawyer who specializes in last e were arrested and 879 convicted some n of loll fraud against Jitney Cost of the theft is actually dug out of the pockets of pne Ryone who has a As Caming puts it toll prod involves the commission of theft of the company that must be borne ultimately by our it at tacks every customers pocket the most notorious fraud device is the Blue taking its name from the color of the original it is the weapon of the so called phone a Loose federation of Whiz kids who Dart free and phantom like through the phone company Lon distance the phone freaks have achieved almost a cult the has proved popular with business film College even High school once is certain a fraudulent Call is in it tapes a Small bit of it for evidence of 653 Blue Box users the phone company has interrogated in the last few nearly half were business the next biggest group was who use it because it leaves no record of an inventive Mit student was convicted of making Blue boxes and Selling them at Bernard Corn the millionaire was convicted of Blue Box so was Lainie the people Arent doing it just for financial Caming there seems to be an Appeal in getting something for the original Blue boxes were three times the size of a the latest models fit inside a cigarette thirteen Pushbutton protrude from a Blue and the user begins with a regular usually to a free then he pushes a Button that emits a High pitched a tone set at cycles per that in seizes a Lon distance after punching out some Call the Blue Box user can then dial anywhere he the Billing machinery picks up Only the original free there Are also Black boxes that attach to a phone and snuff out the signal that reports a Call has been completed All Calls to that phone will be less pop ular red boxes exist that simulate the dropping of coins into a Coin both Black and red boxes also take their names from the colors of the original can prove it is losing million a year from the coloured although it estimates the actual deficit is closer to million or it has been rounding up several Hundred boxes a year since the Early the Federal penalties Are stiff a maximum of five Yean in jail and a electronic theft was in full swing when caught wind of it in by fraud detection equipment turned out by Bell labs was in six toll trunk randomly sampling Calls for irregular in More effective hardware was installed in More cities and began exhaustive computer analyses of Call patterns and trouble still better equipment came out of the labs in the last year or much of the phone system is ceaselessly at bewildering by computerized Machin Ery that picks out Blue Box and Blackboy Calls and almost instantaneously taps out on a teletypewriter the calling number of the once is certain a fraudulent Call is in it tapes a Small bit of it for Evi the Only it it Ever records were like a Searchlight at an Airport that constantly revolves through the Caming with our pre sent any Blue Box or Blackboy Call will surface almost without new York handling fraud riddled new York installed some of the latest equipment last summer and says it has since rounded up some 35 Blue according to the phone the City had been hampered by three Blue boxers who were Selling Calls to poor people at what were supposedly discount Rales they were actually higher than Normal More than 300 people were defrauded before the phone company detected the Calls and charged for them that scared he Blue boxers although they were never caught chinks remain in the All of the phone network is not yet monitored by fraud detection hardware whats it is Tough to catch Blue Box users who work through pay phones and keep their Calls Short but by Phoi Freri Long distance Calls for much of the country across a commo Channel Interoffice f Matlon will travel Over a different path from t conversation and different signalling will be i making Blue Box Calls almost m of no electronic tricks Are played on the i and there not easy to last mates that such endeavours drained it of the he Tiest chunk of the fraud solved the credit card stolen or Bomotti company cards were used to Bill to in a All one has to do is recite the card i unlike the procedure with other used in stores and theres never present the actual j if someone overhears you giving m he could Start charging his Calls to ground magazines like to run articles Dean Taft fabricate credit card or printing of numbers that some phone freaks have focused scanner i conversations Between Mobile phones and it hold of credit card with million i pies the potential for abuse is great unauthorized third number Billing chant a fake number or some real number you have not charging Calls to Cost about n phone freaks have urged people to fed i Calls to places like the Fri or the White says this Hast been a this is Tough fraud to open Tan the United press International be of the redoubtable phone freaks of yesterday now for Joe the Blind since has perfect he can Wattle the tone used by Blue bom to make Lon distance Calls Buemi tones must be within 2 percent of to and their owners used to cd up the Whistler and have him tune Tow boxes by Engressia says that since the age Molj Only wanted to learn More about the company and some Day to work for it m first he had no then he Fauna out about the tones and Blue and he figured that if he got the attention would land him a you can say a lot of Nice things and get a mule to he then can hit it Over the head a couple of Page 14 the stars and stripes