Phreakers in the modern age!

Posted at 1:08 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by dandin1

$20 says that the hole = default password.

Posted at 1:36 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by rivetgeek

I’m sure the name of the contractor will come out in due course. But, for those that want to speed that process, a bit of web search on FEMA, PBX, voicemail, and either the “Emergency Management Institute”, “National Emergency Training Center”, the “U.S. Fire Administration”, “Chenega Federal Systems” (a contractor), or anything else at 16825 south seton avenue, emmitsburg, md 21727 should provide some leads.

Posted at 2:03 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by cmholm

does anybody know exactly what “hole” they’re alluding to? could it be the tech didn’t change the default password after the upgrade?

Posted at 2:07 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by mash

A better question would be, how did he manage to rack up that big a bill. It would need an average of about $30 per call…..

Posted at 2:14 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by blizzarddemon

Bush was given fair and advanced warning about Osama’s people flying a hijacked plane into a building on US soil. If anything, the FAA cut back on security. Gov’t laptops go missing every month. Voting machines fail to record the votes of citizens. FEMA is in the shitter. Yeah. Vulnerabilities have not been addressed.

Posted at 2:34 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by BigD145

And I thought the phreaking age had long since passed.

Posted at 3:11 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by hazrd

who knows what the truth is. likely much worse than reported. irs misplaced 500 laptops. was probably more. our tax returns on CD are probably being sold by street vendors in tashkent

Posted at 4:03 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by mash

thats a callmaster iv. to enable mute press select mute *87 1 to enable then mute again. pull out the head seat first

Posted at 5:26 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by r1cebrner

Phreaking, hacking, whatever one calls it, this is a stupid activity to engage in this new era. The era of be afraid, VERY afraid, the industrial military complex depends on it. No doubt they know who the contractor was and what hole was plugged. That information is only for those who need to know. The people, in the government by the people for the people, aren’t those who need to know.

Posted at 9:16 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by static

So at the average price of $30 per long distance call, this can go along with those $640 toilet seats and $400 hammers. Your tax dollars at work!

That’s also 400 calls over 48 or so hours, meaning that if the one guy avoided sleep, he’d have to make over 8 calls an hour.

I think he had help. And why can’t The Canadian Press do some basic investigative reporting/math?

Posted at 9:57 pm on Aug 21st, 2008 by Standard Mischief

I am going with the default password idea as well.

Posted at 9:04 am on Aug 22nd, 2008 by Jim

On older phone systems you could call a voice mail box, wait to the announcement to play, wait until the system was done recording your message, then you could transfer out and make calls.

Posted at 9:55 am on Aug 22nd, 2008 by 3R1C

I remember those days of analog cellphones and voicemail boxes with default passwords. At the time, cell phones cost over $1,000. Remember writing basic code to tumble through a callingcard template or credit card. Remember threatening people by using above method to call local operator to place a call anywhere. Nothing they could do then.

Posted at 1:13 pm on Aug 23rd, 2008 by KaOS