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Mysteries of the Las Vegas Telecom System

Posted by michael on from the your-call-cannot-be-completed-as-dialed dept.

Reverend Raven writes "This is from Security Focus and deals with how some people believe a group of uber-hackers controls the Vegas telecom system. Interesting read, indeed." A follow-up to this old story. The case seems to be still winding its way through the bureaucracy.

6 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. ARGH! wrong wrong wrong wrong!! by phunhippy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Its not uber-hackers!!!

    IT's PHREAKERS

    Why can't anyone figure this out correctly?

  2. No - the switch has been hacked. by Innominate+Recreant · · Score: 5, Informative
    I write telephony software. It's not the hacking of hotel telephone exchanges - it's the hacking of the swtiches at the telco. When you make a telephone call, the telco not only sends the ANI (caller id - phone number) it sends infodigits - a two-digit number identifying the type of phone from which you are calling - a residential phone, a hotel, payphone, prison, etc. It's very easy to program a switch to reroute calls to a particular DNIS based on infodigits so that if someone at a payphone calls 800-555-1234 the call goes through, but if someone from a hotel calls the same DNIS, it gets routed to a different DNIS, or goes to reorder. It's equally easy to create a conference on the switch, allowing a third party to "listen in" to call - explaining the appearance of one his competitor's "dancers" at a customer's hotel room.

    This is what the plaintiff in the story is alleging - that Sprint's switches are being reprogrammed by uberhackers in the employ of the Mob or some other competing organizations.

  3. Re:Uberhackers==police? by Frank+T.+Lofaro+Jr. · · Score: 3, Informative

    Prostitution is illegal in Las Vegas, and in fact in the whole county (Clark County).

    You have to go to other counties in the state to be where it is legal.

    --
    Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
  4. Re:telecom security by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 3, Informative

    You must have been mis-informed by the media. That happens. The only places in the USA that have power problems are the ones that haven't built any additional power capacity in the last 10 years due to environmentalist protests.

    --
    Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
  5. Re:telecom security by Rasta+Prefect · · Score: 3, Informative

    I do not understand why more people/corporations in the USA do not take legal action against their electric power suppliers. You guys suffer brown-outs, interupptions, and so on. Why, one slashdot poll was "how many surge protectors do you own?" or something like that.

    I'm not sure what media coverage of us is like over where you are, but don't get the wrong idea. I've never suffered through a brown out, or non-weather related blackout(Tornados and Thunderstorms destroying power lines really isn't their fault). Yes a certain section of the country did last year - mostly because they built no new capacity for years and compounded the problem with a regulatory cock up.

    Anyway, as far as surge protectors go, they're nessecary. Really, it's not the power companie's fault that your electricity isn't 100% clean. Things are going to get a little messy when your neighbor fires up his arc welder for a little heavy duty car maintnance. Or for that matter, when the de-humidifier I have sitting in the corner kicks in and dims the light. Hence, we have surge protectors.

    --
    Why?
  6. Re:Kevin Free by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Free as in Beer:

    This expression refers to the product being available for free, but its receipe (source code) may be closed. You can download it and use. So long as the binary satisfies your needs you're gonna be happy.

    From: http://ringlord.com/legal.html

    Enjoy.