Free Telephones
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Free Telephones
Need to make a call, but lack a phone? Short on cash? These tips will help you make your phone calls for free.
Payphones in a Pinch
This method is quite simple, and quite easy. It is quite reliable, since it relies on the greed of corporate Amerika.
Countless companies, groups, and organizations promote their brand/name by plastering it on phonecards, which they proceed to give away for free. They're not terribly generous, typically only 10 minutes, although sometimes as many as 100 at a time, but it's usually enough for a quick call or two. Furthermore, due to the way they're given away (handed out by greeters in stores, free postal shipping, checkout line item, etc.) they can be used to get some anonymous call time (when used with a payphone.) Obviously, you can only use the cards that offer a 1-800 number to call through -- but almost all of them do. Unfortunately, the greedy bastards at AT&T a certain major telecom carrier imposes a multi-unit surcharge for calls from payphones -- but thankfully their cards aren't commonly found as giveaways. Carry a variety of cards from a variety of different carriers -- this way, if one carrier's access number is blocked on it's competitor's phones (or some other similar corporate backstabbing), you'll still be able to make a call.
Whenever you get the chance to stock up on these, do so -- grab handfuls. A pocketful of 10 and 20 minute calling cards will give you a good number of phone calls, and should allow you a chance to communicate no matter where in Amerika you are.
Calling cards must be used carefully, the charges that go back to the company report the phone number and city that they were used from. A basic rule is one card for one phone as usage at more than one phone allows the company or others to build a pattern of your movements. One way to avoid tracking is to buy or get calling cards only in the city you will make the calls, then your movement can't be usefully tracked as you travel place to place. One free calling card to destroy right away is the one sent to you as a gift from ANY company that you owe money to. This is a simple trick to collect the numbers of your friends so they can harass them as well as hopefully finding the phone number of the place you are staying.
Mobility Via Mobiles
Many stores that sell brand new service plans and phones let one make a telephone call for free. Corporate stores set up phones so people can test out the service features, plans, and reliability. Try any number of Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T (formerly Cingular) or Sprint stores to make free phone calls. If one wants to talk for more than a few minutes without attracting unwanted attention, go at busier times of the day. Also, since the advent of the Apple iPhone, the Apple stores are a great place to use their phones to make free calls. The store in Midtown Manhattan is open 24/7 so one can always call 1-900 numbers if they are feeling frisky at 3AM. The Apple stores are also a great place to browse the Internet uninterrupted for free.
VOIP
One way to get free anonymous telephone calls is to head into a store selling VoIP services. For instance, CompUSA sells Packet8, Vonage, etc. Usually each of these providers has a demonstration kiosk set up with one of their phones to try. These are working phones and will dial out to anywhere in the continental United States. You may even find some that will make international calls.
If you have an Internet connection do some research and you should be able to find a free VOIP package to fit your needs. There is even VOIP software for some mobile phones and PDA's! You will either need a headset or headphones and a microphone to use with your computer unless you are using a dedicated VOIP appliance. There are now VOIP phones that look like a mobile but run off of WiFi instead of commercial carriers, you just need to find an open WiFi node.
In addition, there are also VOIP programs such as Skype, these programs allow you to call internationally very cheaply and for nothing calling to another user, in addition most of these programs incorporate a chat service.
Your own Phone Company
A cool way to share phone service is to set up an Asterisk server on a Linux box and connect it to a local phone and/or VOIP line use a dynamic DNS service to direct to your DSL line. Many accounts to share the lines can be made and sharing can be with anyone connected to the internet. If the system gets overloaded just add another local line or VOIP line. Asterisk is free, open, and Linux based http://www.asterisk.org/
Your Own Mobile Phone Company
A device known as a radio-telephone patch or autopatch connects a two way radio base station to the phone system. Another radio with DTMF tone keypad (most ham radio handhelds have this) is used to attach and dial phone calls. If you have a base antenna on a high hill or tower you might get service for many miles. You and a few friends can set up several patches on different frequencies and locations and then connect them to your internet connected community asterisk phone system saving you big money on mobile calls and totally bypassing the phone company for inter-network calls. Unless you set up some kind of encryption (illegal on ham bands) the calls can be listened to by anyone with a scanner.
Phone Taps
A linemans handset, buttset, or home made "beige box" built from a cheap telephone and some alligator clips can help get you a phone call. We have even seen tiny phones as small as a pager with a belt clip and a hands free ear-piece, now chop off one of snap in tips and add alligator clips to the center two wires, perfect! This cheapo lineman's handset will clip into most phone boxes worldwide, you just need to try the wires until you get a dial tone. It might be that the location you are trying to use has a digital phone box this will likely fry your test-set, that is why you make this gadget from a real cheapie. Look for a phone plug in the room you are using or cables attached outside houses and businesses.
In addition to your clip on cable a regular RJ-11 plug cable is useful for punch down boards and phone boxes which have a test jack, many of these boxes are not locked. For homes with the modern phone box, look for something that says "Telephone Network Interface." It has 2 sides, the consumer side and the corporate side. Open the side that belongs to the customer. There will be either one or two standard phone lines plugged into standard phone jacks. If the customers only have one line, one of the jacks will be inactive. Unplug the live one and plug a double phone splitter and your phone into the jack, if you dont have a splitter this temporarily disconnects their home from the phone lines, so they can't eavesdrop, but can't call out, either. That's also why it's best to do this at night. Remember to plug back in the line after you're done.
It might be smart to have a spool of narrow gauge speaker wire in your pack, connect your phone set and lay out wire to behind a shed or into a ditch, you will be free to operate out of sight for a longer time hiding from nosy neighbors. If you are doing some investigations and want to tap the phone line instead of making calls install a switch to disable the microphone on your handset. A 100K ohm resistor inline is useful to add if you just want to tap to the line for information but still allow incoming calls. If you are really paranoid tape a fingernail clipper to your long wire, if a pig shows up clip the line and pretend you are on a cell phone call.... Walk away!!
You can get in legal trouble for this of course but if you keep your calls to 800 numbers and use a calling card you will not increase a home phone bill for your host, we at war with corpgov not Amerikan Sheeple. (Remember to pay for your calling card in cash to help prevent tracing and never use the same card from two locations.) The center white/blue or red green on older cables will be the pair you want to attach clips to on your handset as these are the live pair on single line phones. Now that you have a dial tone you can connect your laptop or PDA modem.
If you can get into the telephone utility box find a dead(unconnected) line pair and splice and redirect it to another house in the area onto their often unused second line pair if you want to keep an ear out on your quarry. Don't do this to your house, since the phone company can easily figure out what you are doing if there is an investigation, but someplace that you can safely access.
Phreaking
Most of the old 2600Mhz type hacks to the bell phone system have stopped working, the last North American in band tone controlled exchange closed in Minnesota in 2006. No more classic phreaking.
GSM/CDMA hacks
Currently, there are no known widespread modifications for modern GSM/CDMA phones. The few systems that used to have free calling workarounds have been discontinued/patched.
Onboard Vehicle Help Services
Services like GM's OnStar are provided on some upper class vehicles so at the touch of a button help can be summoned. The cops are famous for turning this service on fulltime and listening in. Don't be a fool, the built-in microphone means you have tapped your own car, remember this in a vehicle belonging to family and friends of activists. In any case cars can be easily tapped, activists, make sensitive conversation outside even if you don't have an onboard service call system.
Lifeline and Link-Up
These are programs designed to help low-income people with communication. To qualify you will need to have an annual income below a certain amount, or be enrolled in certain corpgov programs such as Medicaid. For more info see http://www.lifeline.gov/lifeline_Consumers.html
Original Free Telephones
Ripping off the phone company is so common that Bell Telephone has a special security division that tries to stay just a little ahead of the average free-loader. Many great devices like the coat hanger release switch have been scrapped because of changes in the phone box. Even the credit card fake-out is doomed to oblivion as the company switches to more computerized techniques. ln our opinion, as long as there is a phone company, and as long as there are outlaws, nobody need ever pay for a call. In 1969 alone the phone company estimated that over 10 million dollars worth of free calls were placed from New York City. Nothing, however, compares with the rip-off of the people by the phone company. In that same year, American Telephone and Telegraph made a profit of 8.6 billion dollars! AT&T, like all public utilities, passes itself off as a service owned by the people, while in actuality nothing could be further from the truth. Only a small percentage of the public owns stock in these companies and a tiny elite clique makes all the policy decisions. Ripping-off the phone company is an act of revolutionary love, so help spread the word.
