PLA Issue #33

If you haven’t already, you should download the PLA95SUM.ZIP which
is the first edition of the Phone Losers Fone Directory. It’s got a
lot of phone numbers in it that you’ll never have any kind of need
for! In this issue you’re going to learn how to run your
neighborhood as well as the history of phone phreaking and tips on how to be
a real honest-to-god phone phreak! I’ve also included a classified
ads section where you can advertise anything you want. If you’d like
to place an ad in the PLA classifieds, e-mail me today.

I received a call from the Sprint Billing Office the other day concerning my
overdue $300 phone bill. I learned through my expert social engineering
techniques that I can’t use Monopoly money to pay for a Sprint phone bill but
it is alright to use someone else’s stolen credit card to pay for it as long
as I have the actual name on the card. I told him to accomplish this I would
have to go out and mug a yuppie and steal his wallet and his only reply was
that “That wouldn’t be good.” Never once did he tell me not to do it so I was
thinking that maybe I could mug a guy and if I get caught I could blame it all
on the Sprint operator. I told the guy that if all goes well with the mugging
I should have the check in the mail by Friday.

A big hello goes out to the “PLA Troy Division”, the little 8th graders in
Troy, Illinois who’ve taken it upon themselves to print out all the PLA issues
and sell them to the kids who aren’t a part of the amazing information superhighway. Another hello goes out to Moondog, also of Troy who gave me their names
and phone numbers. (Thank you!) And last but not least, Mr. Joseph who changed
his number, made it unlisted and password protected the account just so we’d
leave him alone. His new unlisted & protected number is 618-797-1156. His wife
actually started calling and saying, “Ha ha” after they changed it and we
couldn’t call. Then she said, “What does PLA stand for anyway? Penis Lickers
Anonymous?? HAHAHAHAHA!” All this from a thirty year old welfare mom. Sheesh!

After reading this you will probably think that I am a sick and deranged man
who enjoys to be…..anti-social…..at best. Anyways…I’m going to tell you
how to run your neiborhood. Yes, yes, yes…I’m sure all of you have seen
text files on the basic skills of anarchy, but here’s another, so pay attention
and sit up straight!

One night, when you have nothing better to do, just grab an old rag that just
happens to be soaking in motor oil and walk down your street to the local
gossip’s house….you know….the one who told your parents about when your
girlfriend climbed through your windows and then told them all the things that
you and her shouted out in that evening of pleasure. Take that rag and jam it
up the tailpipe of the car. After a few monthes, she’ll either have bad lungs
or worse. While you’re there, just grab a couple of the bushes and other plant
life that you can rip out of the ground, trees included if you are one of those
buff people, and throw them on the roof. It will make quite an impression on
the night before the neighborhood contest for the prettiest lawn and land-
scaping.

Of course, it would be silly to just stop there…just look around for some
nice roadkill, there’s always a possum here and there, and stuff it in the mail
box. If you’re really clever, you would have a sticker handy that said
‘Special Delivery From Our Oven To Your Home’ and have a little picture of Mrs.
Baird or something. Before you leave, make sure you have a nice can of
gasoline and pour a big puddle on the porch and make a trail to the side of
the house. Next, go ring the doorbell and run to the side of the house and
light the gasoline from there. When she opens the door she will see a huge
trail of flame turning the corner and running up the front walk right for her.
Usually after she slams the door you can here loud cussing followed by intense
prayer. It’s a real eye-openner.

In case there is no neighborhood gossip, you don’t have a girlfriend to sneak
in, or if you’re just not one of those religious types, just grab some threaded
pipes, some caps for them, some baby food jars, rocks, baking soda, vinegar,
gasoline, and of course matches, and head down to your local church. One of
the first things to do is to grab a monk outfit and stand by the cross. It’s
good to have little contact explosives with you. I don’t quite remember the
recipe, but it involves a cookie sheet, petroleum jelly, black powder, and one
or two other things but they are really cool to toss around.

Hopefully this church has statues of Jesus, his mom and dad, and those three
wise guys that you can stand with so you don’t look too out of place. As
little kids or old ladies walk by toss one of those contact explosives at their
feet. Make sure it’s a small piece because a good sized one will knock out a
brick wall. After everyone is inside, grab a threaded pipe and put some rocks
in it. Next fill the baby food jar with vinegar, then fill the pipe with
baking soda, but not too much. Then put the caps on the pipe REAL tight. Do
this a couple of times to get a good supply. Next, pour gasoline on the cross
and light it. Scream about how Alla will forgive their evil ways and toss the
pipes into the parking lot. Inside the pipe, the baby food jars should break
and the baking soda and vinegar will mix, bubble heavily, and the pipe should
explode sending pieces of metal, rocks, glass, and liquid in all directions.
Now, since you’ve been seen you should uproot a bush and hold it behind you and
run away so they will think you are a terrorist from Iraq and no one will think
it was you.

Well, I hope that gave you all good ideas on how to spend your Saturday nights!
Just don’t forget to carve PLA in one of the big trees around what ever you…
visit….just so everyone knows that the Phone Losers are out to get them.
Below the initials you might want to put a note saying that all bills will be
covered by Chris Tomkinson and leave his address.

Are you ready to be in the 3733178 Phreaking & Hacking scene?? Well, for all of
you beginers, I’ve compiled all of the best text files along with my own
extensive know-how to teach you, the novice, how to become one of the big guys
in the scene.

Every real phreaker in the scene knows his history so here’s a brief summary of
how it all began and how it’s progressed through the years… In the begining,
there was one phreak who started it all. His name was Bob and every phreak in
the world could eventually trace their origins to Bob. Bob, born in Tribune,
Kansas, was a homeless man who was rummaging through a dumpster by the phone
company building looking for the night’s supper and some alluminum cans (Bob
was an earth-conscience wino) when he came across a large blue manual labeled
“Southwestern Bell’s Blue Manual of Phone Company Tones E911 That Ordinary
Citizens Should Never Never Never Ever Never Have Access To!” Gee, thought Bob,
I could use this very large manual tonight to cover myself up with while I
sleep on the park bench.

That night, while having a little trouble sleeping (Bob had a bad case of
insomnia), Bob began to read this manual and began to think about all he’d
found and the next morning, sitting on the City Hall’s steps used a Campbell’s
soup can, some string and various other electronic parts and assembled the
world’s first “Blue Box.” With it, Bob was able to call anywhere on the block
by using his blue box to mimick the phone company’s own tones. Later that winter
he met a man named John Draper who was in town for an anti-smoking conference
who discovered that with a simple modification, Bob’s blue box could call any-
where in the world.

A year later, in 1978, a lot had happened to John Draper. One morning he was
looking around in the kitchen for his Frosted Flakes and was pissed when he
found out that his room mate had eaten them all so he had to settle for Froot
Loops instead. He ate four bowls so he could finally get to the bottom of the
box to get the toy surprise, which was a plastic dildo for kids! After playing
with the dildo for several hours, he found that when he blew into the end of
it, he would hear a sound very close to 26,000,000 Htz, the same tone that his
blue box made to control the phone company! John immediately adopted the handle
Capt’n Crunch to throw the feds off and set out to Kroger’s to buy out their
entire suppy of Froot Loops.

Eventually, word spread about the blue boxes and many other boxes began to
be built by “phone phreaks”, each one serving a different form of phone fraud.
One of the more well known phreaks was a man named Joe Engressia, a deaf man
who lived in Tennessee. He was eventually able to cause the pay phones in his
college to give out free calls to the other students by whistling country songs
into the phones. He found that when he whistled anything by Wayne Newton he
could get a free call but since he was deaf, he had to get a friend to talk on
the phone to whoever he reached for him. Joe was finally busted in the early
eighties and sentenced to death in the state of Florida.

In 1983 the controversial movie, War Games came out and gave birth to a new
generation of computer hackers and phone phreaks. Starring Tom Cruise as a
teen-age hacker, this movie told the story of a kid who came close to starting
Operation Dessert Storm when he used his computer to call up the library and
erase his outstanding overdue book late fees.

In 1986, Erik Bloodaxe and Gail Thatckery started a publication called Phrack,
which was run out of Erik’s garage on his Timex Sinclair 1000 computer. Phrack
continued to be the nation’s leading hacker magazine until an investigator for
Pacific Bell ate beans for supper and bought a 14.4 Hayes Accura modem and
Phrack was shut down until the controversial E*32 article was found to have
actually been written by Steve Jackson who ran a super-underground bbs called
P-80 Systems.

Today the scene is still alive and kicking. Hacker Kevin Mitnick was located
and arrested for writing anarchy files detailing how to crash airplanes into
the White House and how to make Drain-o bombs and Wal-Mart continues to give
full money-back refunds to people who give them modem casings full of crushed
Pepsi cans. No one has heard from Bob for over twenty years now.

Now that you know all the history of the underground, it’s time for the
technical stuff. Below I’m going to list a few of the acronyms that the phone
companies use.

COSMOS – Computer Operations Mattel Or Something, I think. This is the system
that the phone company uses to print out their paychecks

LAC – Local Area Con. The phone company uses this term to inform people that
there’s a hacker conference in town.

RBOC – Regional Big Office Center. This is where the big offices are located
that the employees work in.

Of course there’s a whole lot more but I think that I’m too eleet to tell you.
It’s not really because I don’t know myself. I know everything.

One of the phone phreaks major sources of trading information is the phone
companys’ teleconferencing services. When you hook into one of these systems,
you can talk with over two people at once! The phone company’s technical term
for this is three-way calling and the underground is currently working on ways
to get this service so they can use it on their home phones. In the old days
it was really easy to do with a Kitty Litter Box and everything but with the
advancing technology and the 5EFF switching system, it’s a little bit more
complicated.

Getting a hold of credit card and calling card numbers is a phreak’s most
important task. Every real phreak in the country has set up their home
answering machine as a “code line” and then created an 800 number to their
house and advertised the number on bbs systems and local newspapers for people
to call. When you reach a code line, the owner will read off a bunch of good
codes and then at the tone you leave your own. NEVER set up a code line on a
VMB system you’ve infiltrated!! YOU WILL BE CAUGHT!! Always set up the code
lines from your home phone. This is the proven safe way.

We all know that using your home phone is the best place to use stolen calling
cards and credit cards from, but sometimes it’s necessary to use a pay phone,
usually because a phreak is locked out of the house and didn’t have his lock-
picking anarchy filez on him. To get free calls on a pay phone, all you need is
a “black box”. This box mimicks the sound of slugs going into a pay phone and
gives you free calls. If a phone company employee approaches you while you’re
black boxing, always smile and be friendly and show him your black box. It
impresses the hell out of them when they learn about these things and most
likely you’ll make a new friend.

Another little known trick is all of the Bell pay phones secret commands. Go
to any Bell or GTE phone, pick up the handset, deposit a quarter and dial
“24998-24001-29190904675971-87-429087” and just watch what happens! All of the
money came out of the phone, right?? That’s right, since Knight Lightning
published that pay phone key schematic in his CoTNo magazine, the phone
company stopped using keys altogether and use this access codes on all of the
phones across the United States. (Of course, this only works on Bell and GTE
phones.)

Well, that’s gonna be it for this issue. Perhaps in the next issue I’ll speak
a bit more on the new 5EFF switching systems, cellular hacking, putting your
home fone in test mode and field phreaking.

FOR SALE: One (1) GTE Public Pay Phone ripped off the wall from Ed’s Bar &
Grill in Waverly, Iowa. In good condition aside from a few scrapes and some
grafitti here and there. Features touch tone dialings, volume control, rigged
for free calls, filled with $200 in quarters that I can’t manage to get out.
Weighs about 900 lbs and I’m asking $2.00 for it. Call me at 801-855-3326 if
you’re interested. WARNING: This product is equiped with a GTE Homing Device
(tm). If you buy this phone and live in GTE territory, they will drive a bunch
of trucks around your neighborhood and find you. Any buyers?

WANTED: Any kind of fone answering machine that doesn’t have remote access
capabilities. I really need an answering machine cheap but I can’t have
RedBoxChiliPepper always listening to all my messages. Call Chris Tomkinson
at 618-258-0357.

FOR SALE: One kidnapped AT&T operator. Old, wrinkly, wears glasses and an
operator headset all the time. Answers to the name of Kay. Abducted earlier
this week from the AT&T building in Portland, Oregon on Stark Street. Not really
a very friendly type but she likes to answer the phone. Anyone interested,
please send a self addressed, stamped envelope to 4361 Vine Street, Cincinnati,
Ohio, 69842 or call 1-800-328-2120.

FOR SALE, GODDAMMIT: One cocksucking cordless phone. $30 obo or 15 packs of
Marlboros. No longer needed because those dickweeds keep listening in on my
fucking conversation but just let ’em fucking try it again. I got the *32 all
rigged with the phone company and I’ll find the little bastards. I know who
you are, Roy. Call Dean Allsman, 618-xxx-xxxx.

GARAGE SALE: 1021 Broadway, Highland, IL. Sat & Sun, rain or shine. Clothes,
toys, Wangs, Mainframes, red boxes, blue boxes, lineman’s handsets, nick knacks,
old crossbar switches, 500 meg hard drives, phone company technical manuals,
electronics, lots more!

First, get a phone with a cord. Cut the jack off. Put roach clips on the wires.
Find a box. Use it.

PLA is proud to be the first to bring you the Roy, New Mexico telephone
directory. Below is the number of every listed person in Roy’s September 1995
telephone book. Also included are a few phone conversation transcripts from
when I called up residents of Roy and interviewed them. None of them are made
up, these are actual conversations that I transcribed from tapes. Residents of
Roy are awaiting your calls!

Their phone company is called Enmr Telephone Cooperative, Inc. Their business
office’s number is 1-800-432-2369 and repair service is also 1-800-432-2369.

Cactus Flower Gifts: I called here and a very nice lady answered the phone.
Their phone number is 485-2626 so it’s obvious that this is Emanuel Goldstien’s
Roy Headquarters for 2600 Magazine.

HER: Cactus Flower Gifts.
ME:: What kind of flowers can I get there?
HER: Well, we don’t actually have any flowers available right now.
ME:: Isn’t this a flower shop?
HER: No, it’s a gift shop.
ME:: Like sort of a souvineer shop??
HER: Yeah.
ME:: Hey, cool, do you have anything with “Roy New Mexico” printed on it?
HER: Hmmm, well, we have coffee mugs and some magnets.
ME:: How much are the magnets?
HER: They’re $2.10, that’d be $2.22 with tax.
ME:: Do you think I could send you a money order and you could mail it to me?
HER: No, I don’t think that’d be a problem.
ME:: Okay, could I get your address there?
HER: It’s P.O. Box 98, Roy, New Mexico, 87743.
ME:: Do the magnets have “Roy” printed on them? Any with a cactus on it?
HER: (Rummages through her magnets…) Yeah, here’s one…It’s got a cactus, a
road runner and has Roy, NM printed along the bottom.
ME:: Cool, well, I’ll send you the money and a little extra for postage first
thing in the morning then!
HER: Okay, well, thank you.

Funny, not once did she act like it was weird that I was calling to mail order
something, nor did she ask me where I was calling from. Unfortunately I was
making all these calls on July 4th so I wasn’t able to talk to the police
station. But several stores were still
open and a lot of residents were home to
talk to. I was able to get ahold of Travis
Wood and have a few words with him:

TRAVIS: Hello?
RBCP: Hi, I’m with the Los Angeles Daily news in California. We’re just
doing an interview to the residents of Roy, New Mexico concerning
the recent UFO sightings over your town.
TRAV: Oh. Well, I don’t know about any UFOs being sighted over the city. Have
you had any reports of ’em?
RBCP: Oh, tons! It’s all over the news and the papers over here. And also in
New York where I’ve been doing some work.
TRAV: I’m not aware of very much. Of course, there’s been some reports here,
I know.
RBCP: Yes, and there was a lot around Wagon Mound, too.
TRAV: Yes, uh huh.
RBCP: Have you heard anything about this?
TRAV: Not recently, no.
RBCP: Okay, well I’ll just call some other people in the book here. Thanks a
lot for your time.

Then I called up Herman & Helen and let Zak speak a bit on the same topic:

HELEN: Hello?
ZAK: Is this Helen?
HLN: Yes it is.
ZAK: This is Alex from the New York times in New York City.
HLN: It’s who?
ZAK: The New York Times, the newspaper in New York City…Hello?
HLN: Hello?
ZAK: Yes, I’m with the newspaper. The big one in New York City.
RBCP: New York City??
HLN: I’m not interested in it, I don’t think…
ZAK: No, no, we don’t deliver out there, HELL no! I’m calling about the UFO
sightings over your town.
HLN: Well I just don’t know nothing about it.
ZAK: Hmmmm, well last night there was a big UFO sighted over your town and it’s
in all the newspapers and on T.V. You didn’t see anything like that?
HLN: No sir, I sure haven’t.
ZAK: Well, the reports here say that they came for those neat little magnets
with the cactus and the roadrunner on them. And they wanted to kidnap
people named Herman. Do you know anyone named Herman?
HLN: Yes, I know someone.
ZAK: Who do you know named Herman?
HLN: I know someone named Herman, yes.
ZAK: Who is it?
HLN: It’s my husband.
ZAK: Oh, you should probably hide him because, you know, the aliens might get
him.

It ended up that Herman was also on the phone listening in and the phone call
ended kind of lamely. Our next phone call was to Bob Hicks. I had to talk to
his wife about my bubble mower being stolen by two danged kids.

ME:: Hello, is Bob home?
HER: I think he’s around somewhere but not very close. Can I have him call you?
ME:: Well, this is Ross. Ross Glaze. And some kids just came over here and

stole my ridin’ mower! Have you seen ’em drivin’ around your house there?
HER: No, I haven’t. Who’d you say this is?
ME:: Two stupid little kids drivin’ my ridin’ mower all over the place. This
is Ross Glaze, down the street, cross town, ’round the bend.
HER: Where are you from?
ME:: I’m here in Roy.
HER: Well, there hadn’t been anyone around here.
ME:: Well, if you see ’em you give me a call back, okay?
HER: What’s your number?
ME:: It’s 2525.
HER: Okay, I will.
ME:: Thank you, bye!

Leon Payton was a fun person to call because he wasn’t home and I got to talk
to his answering machine. Me, being the amazing unbelievable hacker that I am,
was able to conquer his one digit passcode on his answering machine, listen to
his messages, erase them and then change his greeting.

OLD MESSAGE:
“Hello. This is Leon. I am unable to answer the telephone right now, but if
you will leave your name and telephone number, I will return your call.”

NEW AND IMPROVED MESSAGE:
“Hello, this answering machine has been infiltrated by the Phone Losers of
America. You HAVE reached the PLA headquarters in Roy, New Mexico. Leon no
longer owns this machine or the house. It’s all been taken over by the PLA.
Unfortunately no one is here to answer your call, but if you leave your name,
number and a message, we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you
for calling…”

Retired Switchboard Operator Recalls Listening In – 3/26/94 broadcast news

DANIEL ZWERDLING, Host: In the 1940’s and ’50’s Veladie Parker worked as a
switchboard operator in the small town of McGreggor in East Texas. And Parker
says that like most telephone operators, she would occasionally pass time
listening in on people’s telephone calls.

VELADIE PARKER: We knew everybody who was doing things they shouldn’t be doing.
We knew boyfriends, girlfriends, oh yes, we knew. And we talked about it among
ourselves, but we didn’t make gossip of it. Because you know, when I was in
Waco and they trained me, Miss Mamie trained me, and she said, now, I’m going
to tell you it is not against the law to listen in, but it is against the
federal law to repeat it, and you know information begs to be told. Never
would forget that, never will, a hundred years ago. [laughter]

[music]

MS. PARKER: There was a killer out, it has been a long, long time ago, and he
broke out of jail and I was working on nights and he killed about six people
in East Texas, I think, and he was out. I just happened to pick up a call
where he was, and, boy, it hit me like that. And I pondered and pondered and
pondered over it, you know. And so, I finally called the Texas Rangers and
told them and, so, he was done away with pretty quick after that. That was one
thing that’s been on my mind all my life.

[The following is a news transcript I found in the library computers and
thought it was interesting. I used to really be into the chat line scene,
but not in the 515 area. This article is really accurate about how people
get addicted to these things…RBCP]

Dateline NBC Friday Dec2, 1994

BRYANT GUMBEL reporting: Good evening. It’s a fact of life that kids,
especially teen-agers, spend a lot of time on the phone. So it should come as
no surprise that so-called ‘chat lines’ have become the latest craze of some
young people. The lines seem innocent enough, but there is a downside. We
found teen-agers who became obsessed–in one case even running away to live
with strangers from the chat line. Here’s Lea Thompson with part three of our
DATELINE investigation. DIALING FOR DOLLAR$ [<-they think they're eleet]

Offscreen Voice: (From telephone) What’s up? You’ve reached the rap line.

ALEXIS: It really gets you addicted because you want to keep calling these
people.

LEA THOMPSON reporting: (voiceover) It’s a totally teen phenomenon.

Ms. KYLE BURGER: I got hooked on it, and I kept calling it.

Offscreen Voice: (From telephone) Welcome to the line with you in mind.

ALEXIS: I spent almost 24 hours a day on that line.

THOMPSON: Anyone can join this party line of the young and the restless; half
a dozen can share conversation on one line. It’s advertised as free but it can
be very expensive and dangerous.

ALEXIS: I never thought it would lead to this. This never crosses your mind
when you pick up a phone. I mean, it’s a phone. Who would know it could tear
your family apart so much?

THOMPSON: What did you talk about?

ALEXIS: Anything. There was–you could say anything and everything.

THOMPSON: But you talked for hours at a time?

ALEXIS: Oh, god. I talked for days at a time!

THOMPSON: Alexis says she got addicted to chat lines after she changed schools
and started having a lot of trouble fitting in. What did the chat line do for
you that you couldn’t get from your friends?

ALEXIS: I guess more acceptance, you know. I was always a very insecure person.

THOMPSON: For Alexis, the cost of this long-distance belonging was very high,
higher than anyone could imagine.

ALEXIS: I admit I was totally hooked on that line.

THOMPSON: Every time things heated up at home over the phone bills, the 14
year old would take off across the country to live with adults, men and women
she’d met on the chat line.

ALEXIS: There was, ranging from 19 years old to–I think the oldest I was with
was twenty-five.

THOMPSON: And she did it not once or twice but six times. You just blindly
went off and met these people without a second thought?

ALEXIS: Oh yeah, no thought at all. It was just, you know, I’m getting away
from my problems. I’m–it’s always in the TV or newspapers that yes, you know,
this person’s been raped and killed or so and so; but it never occurred to me
that it could actually happen to me.

THOMPSON: But it occurred to her father, Bill, who was desperately trying to
find her.

BILL: Yes, we were worried every time she was gone.

THOMPSON: And Alexis had run up more than $4,000 in long distance bills. When
her father couldn’t pay, the phone was disconnected. But that isn’t supposed
to happen. Two years ago, Congress wrote a law to protect families from phone
nightmares like this. The law says that services like chat lines are supposed
to be on 900 numbers, numbers parents can have blocked. It says you can dispute
a 900-call charge without being disconnected. To get around the law, chat lines
have moved their services onto regular long-distance lines, and that strips
parents of the power to protect themselves and their kids. As a result, Bill
had no recourse when Pacific Bell disconnected his service, and he was reduced
to calling Alexis’ chat-line friends to try to find her.

Offscreen Voice: (from telephone) A place to talk to girls and guys from all
over the hood…

BILL: We spent hours at pay phones calling people on the chat line.

THOMPSON: It worked and he brought her home. But then he almost lost her for
good. Alexis says her life was a disaster, and the bills and the anger and the
guilt were too much.

ALEXIS: And I attempted suicide and ended up in intensive care on my birthday.
And that was, like, one of the worst times in my life.

BILL: It’s been a pure hell. Nothing mattered to her as much as being on the
phone.

Offscreen Voice: (from telephone) Hey, everyone, thanks for calling. You’ve
reached the most raging party line in the country.

THOMPSON: Seventeen-year-old Kyle Burger was also lured into the chat-line
scene, much to the dismay of her mother.

Ms. MARY BURGER: It makes me angry because the kids don’t know any better.

KYLE BURGER: My friend gave me the phone number. That because my new set of
friends.

THOMPSON: Mary Burger says kids often get started after reading the dozens of
chat-line adds in magazines like Rolling Stone or Spin. The ads say it is ‘hip’
and ‘hot’ and ‘sexy’ and ‘free’–free.

THOMPSON: Did you think it was free?

KYLE BURGER: The introduction to the party line was misleading.

THOMPSON: With her mother’s permission, Kyle showed us how to get to her
favorite chat line. It’s a 515 area code.

Offscreen Voice: (from telephone) This is…(unintelligible)…the one and
only, your personal connection to the hottest free party lines around.

THOMPSON: It said ‘free.’

KYLE BURGER: It did.

THOMPSON: Do you believe you were doing enough to try to cut her off?

Ms. MARY BURGER: I was locking up the telephones. I would lock them in the
trunk of my car. And you have to understand, too, that by the time I had my
first bill, we were halfway into another billing cycle, so, you know, probably
$3-$400 worth of charges already in place before I found out about it for the
very first time.

THOMPSON: Mary also found out that Kyle was hearing more that just idle chat
on these lines.

KYLE BURGER: Hello? Do I have any daughters? No.

THOMPSON: When we heard the man on the other end of this call tell Kyle he was
watching a child porn film, we cut it off. Kyle’s mother went on a crusade to
track down who was behind all of this. It turned out to be a complicated trail,
full of surprises. You might think her search would take her to Las Vagas, New
York, LA, but that 515 area code on her telephone bills led her to this small
town of Jefferson, Iowa. It’s become the unlikely crossroads for hundreds of
chat and sex lines. This area may be known as the home of corn and cattle, but
now chat lines are a major cash crop. According to public records, in the two
years since the small Jefferson Telephone Company hooked up with the chat and
sex line operator, its profits have jumped from $352,000 a year to $2,216,000
a year.

BILL: It’s amazing. I mean, obviously they’ve latched on a gold mine.

THOMPSON: The Jefferson Telephone Company first told us it had severed its
relationship with the company that actually programs the chat lines. Jefferson
Telephone refused to be interviewed on camera, but in a letter to Dateline
said, ‘because some people find parts of the programming objectionable, we did
the right thing in terminating the contract.’ But Kyle Burger had no trouble
getting Jefferson’s 515 party line. Jefferson admits the contract with the
company requires it to keep the lines open for up to one year after giving
notice. And who is that contract with?

Ms. MARY BURGER: His name’s *** *********.

THOMPSON: When Mary Burger complained to the Jefferson Telephone Company, she
was sent to and **** *********.

Ms. MARY BURGER: And I said, ‘I’m not going to go away. I want you to know that
I’m going to be your worst nightmare.’

THOMPSON: The man in the Rolls Royce is **** *********. *********’s business
took in more than $63 million a year, according to documents filed in court in
1991 by the IRS. He then was running 72 separate corporations, almost all in
the phone-entertainment business. ********* gained national attention in the
late ’80s when he ran a TV ad encouraging kids to call Santa Claus on a 900
pay line. It instructed children to hold up the phone to the TV. Then the
commercial played the telephone tones and the call was automatically connected.

The IRS has investigated whather **** ********* underreported his income. The
agency raided his Seattle offices in 1991. No charges have been filed. Mean-
while, the elder ********* has passed the chat-line business off to his son,
***. We wanted to talk to **** and *** *********. They wouldn’t respond to our
request for an interview, so we tried in person.

(Thompson waiting by car as man leaves car)

THOMPSON: Mr. *********?

**** *********: Yes.

THOMPSON: How do you do? I’m Lea Thompson from DATELINE NBC.

**** *********: Hi. How are you?

THOMPSON: I wonder if I could talk to you a little bit about your business.

**** *********: I’m afraid not.

THOMPSON: (seconds later, *** showed up for work) Are you Mr. *********?

*** *********: You are?

THOMPSON: Lea Thompson from DATELINE NBC. I wonder if I could talk to you a
little bit about you and your father’s business. We’d like to talk to you about
the chat lines. People say that you’re running ads that say the chat lines are
free, and then they get these huge bills, and they want to know how you can
call your chat lines ‘free’?

While *** ********* didn’t answer, industry insiders say the chat is free
because you only pay the long-distance charges. So how do people like the
********** make so much money? Well, Jefferson Telephone says it gives the
********** a cut of what it collects. We went to the Federal Communications
Commission to ask if it was legal for a phone company to do that. Now the FCC
is asking questions, too.

KATHLEEN WALLMAN (FCC): We’ve commenced an investigation of the Jefferson
Company, including an audit of its books, and that compensation arrangement is
one of the things we’re looking at.

THOMPSON: People like Mary Burger never heard about chat lines until eight
months ago. Now she says they represent expense and exploitation that never
seems to end.

MARY BURGER: I felt victimized by the *** ********** of the world, and I felt
victimized by the phone companies, and I felt victimized by my own daughter.

THOMPSON: What did it do to your family?

MARY BURGER: It made enemies out of us. I’m sorry.

THOMPSON: It tore your family apart.

MARY BURGER: It put my daughter in touch with people that–that I felt weren’t
good for her. It brought a lot of hatred and animosity into my home. It’s not
been easy to deal with.

GUMBEL: If you feel that your child is spending too much time on chat lines,
try calling your local phone company. They can’t help too much, but there are
a few that will block the number for you.

Below is the current list of listed Phone Loser distribution sites. If you’d
like to become a PLA distribution site or already carry the PLA files on your
board, fill out the application form attached below. (Especially if your area
code isn’t in the below list.) Please note that some of these boards aren’t
“offical” sites, but just boards that happen to carry our files on them.

206-859-9469 Dark Side of the Moon…………………….Seattle, Washington
208-466-1679 King’s Domain………………………………….Nampa, Idaho
301-884-5012 Studio 54…………………………..Mechanicsville, Maryland
303-343-4053 Hacker’s Haven……………………………..Aurora, Colorado
303-932-1195 Twenty Miles North of Nowhere……………………….Colorado
312-528-5020 Ripco…………………………………….Chicago, Illinois
319-234-3654 UnderDark……………………………………Waterloo, Iowa
360-297-4049 The Coven………………………….. …Kingston, Washington
405-341-9361 Phreaks of the Industry……………….Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
405-720-1666 Dissident……………………………Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
503-636-3855 The Bin……………………………………Portland, Oregon
510-743-0603 Terminal Drift………………………….East Bay, California
512-458-3409 The Sprawl……………………………………Austin, Texas
512-790-8989 Aurora Magellan……………………………..Rockport, Texas
512-851-8317 Sonic Youth Systems…………………….Corpus Christi, Texas
512-883-7543 Whombat Communications…(RBCP’s Lame BBS)..Corpus Christi, Texas
514-725-0189 Sillicon Underground………………………..Montreal, Quebec
616-373-5885 Larcenist’s Keep…………………………Kalamazoo, Michigan
618-797-2339 Roy’s Place (PLA Original WHQ)………….Granite City, Illinois
619-451-2174,,11,11 Sea of Green…………………….San Diego, California
703-362-9629 The Other Side of Reality…………………………..Virginia
717-788-7435 Cyber-Sphincter………………………….Drums, Pennsylvania
810-348-0421 Daddy Hill House………………………..Northville, Michigan
907-780-6760 Syenergy…………………………………….Juneau, Alaska

So, you’d like to be one of the “official” distribution sites for the Fone
Losers of America? Why?? You know, when everybody finds out that you’re
pathetic enough to carry PLA on your system they’re all just going to
laugh at you and make fun of you and have your home phone turned into a
pay phone but if you really, really insist, here’s the application…

Really, there’s no application about it. Anyone who wants to can become a
distribution site, all you have to do is apply. What do you get out of it?
Well, you get put on the Distribution List. Other than that, nothing really
special happens to you and you still won’t have any friends, you’ll just
have a bunch of crappy files on your hard drive.

PLApplication

Name of Your BBS:________________________________________________________

Podunk Town & State You Live In:_________________________________________

Telephone Number(s):_____________________________________________________

Your Handle:_____________________________________________________________

Internet Address:________________________________________________________

How Long Has Your BBS Existed?_____________Cactus?_______________________

Alternative Means of Contacting You:_____________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________

Here’s how it works: Send this form back to the PLA and you’ll be added to
the distribution list. You can send this back via internet or by calling
one of the PLA Systems, listed at the end of this file. If for some reason
you can’t contact us in e-mail, you can leave a voice request on the PLA
voicemail box. If all else fails, U.S. mail will be fine.

If you have an e-mail account, you’ll get the issues within 24 hours of
their release. If you call one of the PLA Data Lines, you can also get it
pretty quick. If you absolutely can not call long distance, let us know and
we’ll call your system and upload the files periodically. Keep in mind, if
you’re unable to call long distance for free, we’ll be making fun of you
behind your back all the time, but we’ll still be nice enough to upload the
issues to you, maybe. (Especially if it’s a board I frequent.)

• You have to designate a section in your files area that is only for PLA
  texts, graphics, etc.
  
• Every user, no matter how lame he is or how much you despise him or even
  if he used the PLA hacking technique on your BBS, must have access to the
  PLA section of your system.
  
• If any member of the PLA is to log on to your board, you must give him
  full & complete access, which includes, but is not limited to access to
  all of your text files, all your illegal warez, utilities, your Telix
  .FON directory with your bbs list and passwords, your personal Doogie
  Howser diary, personal mail, word processing files, financial records,
  etc, etc, etc…
  
• If a PLA member continues to call your bbs, you must
  start sending him/her lots of money in the mail and telling everyone how
  cool he/she is.

Well, that’s about it. If you really think I’m going to try and enforce any
of these rules, you’re on drugs. This is just what I prefer. I mean, it’s
not like PLA contains any kind of valuable information to the point of you
needing to only let the elite users have access to it. So, mail off this
application ASAP and you’re on your way to fame and fortune.