Red box (phreaking)
A red box is a
History
The term "red box" to refer to a
Technical details
United States
The tones are made by playing back 1700 Hz and 2200 Hz tones together.[3] One 66 ms tone represents a nickel. A set of two 66 ms tones separated by 66 ms intervals represent a dime, and a quarter is represented by a set of five 33 ms tones with 33 ms pauses. A single 650 ms tone represents a dollar,[4] but this is rarely used.
The system that handles these tones is called the Automated Coin Toll Service, or ACTS. However, since ACTS has been phased out of service in much of the United States, combined with the integration of acoustic filters into many payphone handsets, the practice of red boxing is rarely possible any longer.
Canada
Canada formerly used a US-style ACTS coin phone system with a tone pair which would beep once for a nickel, twice for a dime and five times on receiving a quarter. These phones did not accept $1 coins (or the later $2 coin) and disappeared with the roll-out of Nortel Millennium payphones in the 1990s. The Millennium sets do not use ACTS in-band signalling tones as all coin-handling is automated in the phone itself.
United Kingdom
In the
References
- ^ Diamond, Stuart (October 7, 1973). "Phone Phreaks: they've got Ma Bell's number". The Home News. New Brunswick, NJ. Retrieved February 11, 2021.
- ISBN 9780470474693.
- ISBN 9780802193759.
- ^ GR-506-CORE: LSSGR: Signaling for Analog Interfaces. Bellcore. 1996. p. 249.