How do you spring a payphone so it will spill its change box out? How can I get the thing to barf its change for me without taking the damn thing totally appart? The phone is a Pacific Bell, I think that's the brand name.

Payphones are built in a physically secure manner. There is obviously a reason why the would do so, that reason is people like you who wish to steal it's lucrative internals.

The new Nortel (Northern Telecom) phones where I live (the milleniums) require 2 medico locks to be opened simultaneously for the change compartment to open. They require even more if you are forcing it. I don't know about your pacific bell but I assume that if it is new like the nortel milleniums up here are, you will not be able to open it without stealing the whole payphone and taking time to break it elsewhere.

If it is an older phone, you might have a chance by picking the lock, thats one of your few other options (if the phone is old).

I think he means to get the phone to release the change like it does when you put 40 cents in for a 35 cent call... not to force the change out. I don't know how to do it, but I think that's what he means.

Yes thats what I mean. It was on this site a while ago but I have since forgotten.

search around for a "green box" it will ahve instructions, tones. etc. The only problem is that it has to be played by the called party, not you on the payphone. Haven't tried it, but it should work on basic payphones, good luck.

Chances are youde need to find an OLD phone to have that work. That is only if its the phone that detects the signal and not the system. Because if its the entire system the phone is connected to, unless in bum fuck idaho, its gonna be well upto date, in which case a GB wont work. Also, remember you neeed good sound quality for this to work, and it has to be digital. No tape recorders!

So download a GB program onto a friend, who has good speakers' computer, and call him up, and test it out. Most come with a readme.txt file and will explain the usage.

Only slightly off topic...

I'll pose this question to you, SomeEverybodyNobody, since you seem to perhaps know: What is the current state of phreaking? We all know of the great old days of it where all the boxes worked, but now it seems that everything that was possible before is impossible today because of the current security technology in phones. I'm sure boxes like the (i'm not going to even attempt to remember what color it is...) one that removes the light that tells that someone is on the phone still works, but what of the others? I get 2600 whenever I can, but only see articles for hacking and other hacking-like things. Is phreaking done with or has it just crawled back into the underground? What boxes work and which don't, etc. I'm not a phreaker or a hacker or claim to be either, but I have noticed that not much has been talked about in awhile concerning phreaking...

Actually i ahve been wondering this myself, so i did some reasearch. Basically, computers are being used so much in telephone technology, that phreaking is actually closer to hacking. . . For instance, instead of using a blue box to get a trunk, you have to hack into a switch (which runs solaris i think) and do it like that. Phreaking is not dead, i have seen many channels on IRC devoted to it. It simply has evolved, and perhaps merged with hacking. I am personally so interested in phreaking, that I am considering a career in the Telecom business. (im 17. . . )