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Hacker runs up big phone bill for library

July 18, 2008 - 7:10am — Blake

A computer hacker has run up a phone bill of more than $15,000 at the Duxbury public library.

Town manager Richard MacDonald tells The Patriot Ledger of Quincy that the calls last March included one 30-hour connection to India that cost $7,000.

This week selectmen shifted $13,000 in town funds to help pay the bill. MacDonald said the town is still looking into its obligations and may not have to pay.

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July 18, 2008 - 1:51pm — Jon Gorman (not verified)

Ummm, not a computer hacker.

Ummm, not a computer hacker. I'd accept maybe hacker, but the appropriate term is phreaker. You can do phreaking even without a computer. You just need to know the weaknesses of the phone systems. Many telephone and voicemail systems let you do things like call out after calling in when given the right dial tones. It also used to be common for the phone network and switches to be operated by dials and sounds. Many phreakers would order the manuals, figure out the right series of tones and jump around the phone networks. This has been happening for longer than personal computers have been available to people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking

(The big clue here is the person got in via voicemail. It's a pretty common weakness in a lot of voicemail systems.)

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