European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 26, 1978, Darmstadt, Hesse                                So called Blue boxes come in various styles All Are used to make illegal Lon distance cards and third party numbers to some when a rash of fraud shows As card numbers and third party numbers dated among Call patterns Are 1 but admits that an abase Here and i probably slip through its some sophisticated new hardware will be to use within the next couple of the Kazan convicted phone phone company says it should substantially stamp out credit card and third number it is keeping the de tails of the equipment under sundry other like calling collect to Coin phones and code hit with million in losses last it Only picks up on these when they become if a spate of collect Calls pours into a Partick Tor pay atm will circulate that number among its operators and reject collect Calls to the company has prosecuted entire businesses for indulging in code department stores and sales con Cerns using the cover of person person have fashioned codes to order merchandise from someone Calls a supplier and asks for the caller is told Hes out since he Doest the caller says hell Call Back in 30 the conversation could be translated As an order of 30 cases of Ball it happens to be illegal to notify someone that you arrived somewhere safely by arranging to Call at a specified time and letting the phone ring three times before hanging that is passing information across a phone line without paying for admits it is pretty hard to convict anyone of if you Call up refund control and request a the practice is to believe the customer and Grant the if you Start pocketing goodly amounts of refunds like every month will Start checking out your to help Root oat no electronic the Bell system keeps 74 centralized ticket investigation units spotted around the staffed mainly by experienced operators who try to Puzzle out who should pay for until lab a visit to one of the biggest cts was agreed not to disclose the location revealed a fluorescent lit ticket investigators were huddled tickets representing a few were on the along the Wall sat microfiche machines where master lists of All operator handled Calls made in the area could be Consul the Chi a cordial explained the opera we do about investigations a the first thing is to see if theres a simple error a number trans posed from a credit an incorrect area almost half of the tickets Are easily corrected in this investigators seize on possible fraud which crops up in about 10 percent of the cases by rifling through Call patterns and frequently used fraudulent credit card and third party numbers and by resorting to what the director called a sixth sense that these people he said that the general practice was to pass on a fraud Case to Security for final investigation and pos sible prosecution when the amount gets to and there is a or when it hits inspect or one be masterminded by a band of College bad ballooned to Worth of fraudulent Calls a month before it was in late More than a Hundred prisoners at the new York metropolitan correctional Center were caught having made Worth of fraudulent Lon distance using bogus credit Calls and third number the convicts made something like 200 Calls a Day on the jails pay some of them to South the general feeling at is that it will probably always live with the Specter of As in any struggle Between the forces of evil and those who try to Stem gaming there will always he some he guesses that theft will taper off from the 1977 High until it Bottoms out at about million or so a the phone company thinks it can live with thank the average customer is an Security Man Start i de phone company that to Blue Box Herb embassy in Engressia said he was san Francisco radio rang Public was just to be out All t guard at into but the it hire while he Ong polishing phones n phone he i Vej people and Alert them in their system at last Mountain lint As a problem Ana i feel the i think in the bes known phone Freak is Cap talk More properly John he picked a jute name because he whistle from a Jpn Crich Box that happened to Emit i he moved far past the Captain As he likes to be called like anyone now 35 Draper says he no longer con sorts with other phone though he says that there Are tens of thousands of them cutting into the phone because Mohe effectiveness of detection he says that hard Core freaks have junked their Blue boxes and shifted to no electronic Means of although denies Draper feels that the company wants to put him the Whistler and the Captain to Chat a to the Captain still occasionally Calb the Whistler for old now and the Whistler says Tell hey How does it feel to be this one Man against the might of Bell the Captain will e feeling then some w Joe the Whistler Engressia went the and stbipe5 Page 15 1978