I thought redboxing was dead. It worked for me!

[sniper606 2]

I installed the Phonal Tonal boxing app for my iphone today, it costs 99 cents from the app store. Went to an Alltell payphone, dialed the operator and told her I was blind and asked her to dial a number for me. She asked me how I wanted to pay and I told her I had quarters. So she tells me to insert the money and I beep 3 quarter tones. Thank you have a nice day and my call was connected. It fucking worked.

[rbcp 8]

It never stopped working for local call and in-state long distance. Some people have claimed they can still red box across the country, but I haven't managed to make that happen in nearly a decade now. I keep an mp3 of a quarter on my iPhone, just to show friends how it works when we happen to be near a compatible pay phone. I'd never heard of that app before. I just bought it and it's awesome.

[sniper606 2]

It never stopped working for local call and in-state long distance. Some people have claimed they can still red box across the country, but I haven't managed to make that happen in nearly a decade now. I keep an mp3 of a quarter on my iPhone, just to show friends how it works when we happen to be near a compatible pay phone. I'd never heard of that app before. I just bought it and it's awesome.

It is a nice app. I have had my iphone for around a month now and it is the first app that I actually decided to pay money for.

[JmanA9 12]

Some people have claimed they can still red box across the country, but I haven't managed to make that happen in nearly a decade now.

If it's still possible, the calls definitely aren't going through AT&T. I vaguely remember someone saying that in a city where an ILEC owned the OSPS tandem rather than AT&T, it was still possible. Maybe it was a QWEST area in the midwest?

OP, red boxing is likely to work on pay phones that have the phone company's name on them. This isn't always true, because some pay phones are owned by the phone company, but use a computer to count coins instead of the phone switch. On pay phones that are owned by someone other than the local phone company, red boxing will not work.

Edited May 3, 2011 by JmanA9

[nyphonejacks 31]

cause some pay phones are owned by the phone company, but use a computer to count coins instead of the phone switch. On pay phones that are owned by someone other than the local phone company, red boxing will not work.

but beige boxing will... on COCOTS, which i assume you are talking about...

[JmanA9 12]

but beige boxing will... on COCOTS, which i assume you are talking about...

Yes, I was talking about COCOTs, but I didn't want to get too technical since the OP only has a few posts.

[sniper606 2]

I live in east ky, the 606 area. I'm going out today to try it on more pay phones. I'll let you guys know the results.

[dmine45 17]

Red boxing, as others have said, still works IF you find a CO controlled payphone that is connected to TOPS. The AT&T coin based LD network that used OSPS went away about 10 years ago. I think OSPS is used in Qwest territory - IF - you can actually find a CO controlled pay phone there it should work.

Though to keep the telco from really getting on your case, I suggest you deposit a real nickel in the phone to complete a circuit. It shows that at least a coin is in the hopper. Otherwise it may raise red flags, if you know what I mean!

[sniper606 2]

Red boxing, as others have said, still works IF you find a CO controlled payphone that is connected to TOPS. The AT&T coin based LD network that used OSPS went away about 10 years ago. I think OSPS is used in Qwest territory - IF - you can actually find a CO controlled pay phone there it should work.

Though to keep the telco from really getting on your case, I suggest you deposit a real nickel in the phone to complete a circuit. It shows that at least a coin is in the hopper. Otherwise it may raise red flags, if you know what I mean!

So are you telling me that the operator could see that something wasn't right but probably connected the call anyways?

[systems_glitch 98]

So are you telling me that the operator could see that something wasn't right but probably connected the call anyways?

Most people don't give enough of a shit about their job...we have QA managers who will re-measure components under inspection until they find "right" values rather than dealing with the paperwork for a QA fail.

[sniper606 2]

What does it mean when you hit 0 on a payphone to dial the op and it says error 49?

[JmanA9 12]

What does it mean when you hit 0 on a payphone to dial the op and it says error 49?

Sounds like you've found one of those computerized pay phones I was talking about earlier. They're called COCOTs - Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone. Normally, when you dial 0 on one of these, you don't get the operator you would normally get when dialing 0. Instead, the phone almost always dials a toll-free number in the background which connects you with the supplier's operator center. Sometimes you can hear the number being dialed out in the background.

Try dialing *0. On certain models, that gets you the "real" operator, or the one you would get by dialing 0 from a home phone.

[ic0n 6]

What does it mean when you hit 0 on a payphone to dial the op and it says error 49?

Sounds like that was a Protel model COCOT you found...

Error 49 Call Denied - Phone is set up to deny calls placed to this destination number.

protel.error.list.pdf

Edited May 6, 2011 by ic0n

[nyphonejacks 31]

What does it mean when you hit 0 on a payphone to dial the op and it says error 49?

Sounds like that was a Protel model COCOT you found...

Error 49 Call Denied - Phone is set up to deny calls placed to this destination number.

Error Code Listing

nice list... seems like redboxing should result in an error 61

[sniper606 2]

I haven't tried any more fones that aren't COCOT's yet. I thought I would throw this in here though. I was playing with project mf

http://www.projectmf.org/ and while dialed into it on the iphone you can pull up the Phonal Tonal boxing program and it will recognize the tones right from the iphone. It's pretty fun to play with. Now that I discovered this it makes me even more sad that livengood died.

[phonetrovert 1]

Still works for me! Tried it this morning.. No payphones are verizon operated around here (they're all owned by 2 smaller independant companies), but it seems to work when I get an operator. Haven't tried without the op tho.

 

EDIT:

 

OK I guess I went overboard.. redboxing is dead for me again lol. The operator wont let me give her quarters anymore, she keeps telling me to hang up and make the call the normal way or to find another phone. I guess the fun's over..

 

That's the difference (I think) with these small independent operator service people, and what was the bell system: I think theres only a small number of operators for this company and word travels fast. They also started saying that it didn't register on their end, so I guess previously they werent checking well enough?

 

SECOND EDIT:

 

I called into my asterisk box and recorded the line in one instance, it's feasible that they literally can't make out my tones, or what I'm saying to them, These payphones are in horrid disrepair nowadays, the lines are on a scale from terrible to unusable. But at least for phreaking posterity's sake, I can say that redboxing did indeed work for me in 2015. Pretty cool.

Edited October 22, 2015 by phonetrovert

[ThoughtPhreaker 118]

Yeah, Verizon is partially to blame for the state of the outside plant. There's a lot of heat on them for this sort of neglect though, and the more they get, the better. Maybe tell the COCOT company the phone line needs to be fixed?

 

In any case, usually the way to redbox is to get a call that routes to the local TOPS tandem. That usually means an in-LATA toll call. You'll probably hear something like this; http://thoughtphreaker.omghax.ca/audio/tops_ss7nis.ogg

 

Supposedly, I heard a while back that at least when Verizon was operating New York payphones, you could get the TOPS tandem on pretty much any long distance call.

Edited October 22, 2015 by ThoughtPhreaker

[phonetrovert 1]

Yeah, Verizon is partially to blame for the state of the outside plant. There's a lot of heat on them for this sort of neglect though, and the more they get, the better. Maybe tell the COCOT company the phone line needs to be fixed?

 

In any case, usually the way to redbox is to get a call that routes to the local TOPS tandem. That usually means an in-LATA toll call. You'll probably hear something like this; http://thoughtphreaker.omghax.ca/audio/tops_ss7nis.ogg

 

Supposedly, I heard a while back that at least when Verizon was operating New York payphones, you could get the TOPS tandem on pretty much any long distance call.

 

 

Yeah I definitely didn't get a TOPS tandem, And Im skeptical that these operators have any extra connection to the payphone other than a regular phonecall (I called 0 on the  payphone, but Im pretty sure I made out faint DTMF tones and waited for a while to be transferred to the operator), I must have just tricked them those few times. Hasn't worked at all since, they end up hanging up if I want to pay with quarters.

Edited October 22, 2015 by phonetrovert

[Rambozo the clown 1]

AT&T doesn't accept coins for

long distance calls since 2002/2003. You can see more here: http://www.phonelosers.org/redbox/

[phonetrovert 1]

Any calls that connected were all local, and it was an outsourced operator from a COCOT, so in hindsight I think the redbox tones and/or the piss poor line quality allowed me to trick the op personally. That same afternoon a different operator wouldn't do it for me anymore at all.

 

Edit: Are there verizon payphones anywhere anymore? For certain not in the Metro NY area that I have seen.

Edited February 27, 2016 by phonetrovert

[yuu 3]

I was able to use ToneDef on a Verizon payphone after calling my own toll free number and getting disconnected, then blowing into the phone while it was hanging up. I got an unmuted mic and a dial tone and was able to place a call. This was a few months ago and the phone is sadly dead now  

[ThoughtPhreaker 118]

AT&T doesn't accept coins for long distance calls since 2002/2003.

This was done (or so I heard) via an adjunct on a 4ESS toll switch. There's other things that accept ACTS tones, like the TOPS tandems. Of course as everyone else pointed out, the real trouble is finding a phone that isn't a COCOT in a lot of places . You'll have much better luck with some independent companies (Frontier, Windstream, etc) .

[JmanA9 12]

People actually use payphones in Frontier territory:

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.0666479,-80.722401,3a,19y,15.59h,83.01t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saWLdYBrKkx_e40l9aAlFCQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1

Frontier doesn't seem to be in any rush to rip out their payphones.  Further up the street there are two phones side-by-side.  Now that's a rare sight!