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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Section F -- 2600 =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
F-01. What is alt.2600?
Alt.2600 is a Usenet newsgroup for discussion of material relating to
2600 Magazine, the hacker quarterly. It is NOT for the Atari 2600
game machine. Len@netsys.com created the group on Emmanuel
Goldstein's recommendation. Emmanuel is the editor/publisher of 2600
Magazine. Following the barrage of postings about the Atari machine to
alt.2600, an alt.atari.2600 was created to divert all of the atari
traffic from alt.2600. Atari 2600 people are advised to hie over to
rec.games.video.classic.
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F-02. What does "2600" mean?
2600Hz was a tone that was used by early phone phreaks (or
phreakers) in the 80's, and some currently. If the tone was sent down the
line at the proper time, one could get away with all sorts of fun stuff.
A note from Emmanuel Goldstein:
"The Atari 2600 has NOTHING to do with blue boxes or telephones
or the 2600 hertz tone. The 2600 hertz tone was simply the first
step towards exploring the network. If you were successful at
getting a toll call to drop, then billing would stop at that
point but there would be billing for the number already dialed
up until the point of seizure. 800 numbers and long distance
information were both free in the past and records of who called
what were either non-existent or very obscure with regards to
these numbers. This, naturally, made them more popular than
numbers that showed up on a bill, even if it was only for
a minute. Today, many 800 numbers go overseas, which provides
a quick and free way into another country's phone system
which may be more open for exploration."
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F-03. Are there on-line versions of 2600 available?
No.
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F-04. I can't find 2600 at any bookstores. What can I do?
Subscribe. Or, let 2600 know via the subscription address that you
think 2600 should be in the bookstore. Be sure to include the
bookstores name and address.
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F-05. Why does 2600 cost more to subscribe to than to buy at a newsstand?
A note from Emmanuel Goldstein:
We've been selling 2600 at the same newsstand price ($4) since 1988
and we hope to keep it at that price for as long as we can get away
with it. At the same time, $21 is about the right price to cover
subscriber costs, including postage and record keeping, etc. People
who subscribe don't have to worry about finding an issue someplace,
they tend to get issues several weeks before the newsstands get
them, and they can take out free ads in the 2600 Marketplace.
This is not uncommon in the publishing industry. The NY Times, for
example, costs $156.50 at the newsstands, and $234.75 delivered to your
door.
Editors Note: The newstand price is now $4.50.
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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Section G -- Miscellaneous =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
G-01. What does XXX stand for?
TLA Three Letter Acronym
ACL Access Control List
PIN Personal Identification Number
TCB Trusted Computing Base
ALRU Automatic Line Record Update
AN Associated Number
ARSB Automated Repair Service Bureau
ATH Abbreviated Trouble History
BOC Bell Operating Company
BOR Basic Output Report
BOSS Business Office Servicing System
CA Cable
COE Central Office Equipment
COSMOS Computer System for Main Frame Operations
CMC Construction Maintenance Center
CNID Calling Number IDentification
CO Central Office
COCOT Customer Owned Coin Operated Telephone
CRSAB Centralized Repair Service Answering Bureau
DID Direct Inbound Dialing
DDD Direct Distance Dialing
ECC Enter Cable Change
LD Long Distance
LMOS Loop Maintenance Operations System
MLT Mechanized Loop Testing
NPA Numbering Plan Area
PBX Private Branch Exchange
POTS Plain Old Telephone Service
RBOC Regional Bell Operating Company
RSB Repair Service Bureau
SS Special Service
TAS Telephone Answering Service
TH Trouble History
TREAT Trouble Report Evaluation and Analysis Tool
LOD Legion of Doom
HFC Hell Fire Club
TNO The New Order
ACiD Ansi Creators in Demand
CCi Cybercrime International
FLT Fairlight
iCE Insane Creators Enterprise
iNC International Network of Crackers
NTA The Nocturnal Trading Alliance
PDX Paradox
PE Public Enemy
PSY Psychose
QTX Quartex
RZR Razor (1911)
S!P Supr!se Productions
TDT The Dream Team
THG The Humble Guys
THP The Hill People
TRSI Tristar Red Sector Inc.
UUDW Union of United Death Workers
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G-02. How do I determine if I have a valid credit card number?
Credit cards use the Luhn Check Digit Algorithm. The main purpose of
this algorithm is to catch data entry errors, but it does double duty
here as a weak security tool.
For a card with an even number of digits, double every odd numbered
digit (1st digit, 3rd digit, 5th digit, etc...) and subtract 9 if the
product is greater than 9. Add up all the even digits (2nd digit, 4th
digit, 6th digit, etc...) as well as the doubled-odd digits, and the
result must be a multiple of 10 or it's not a valid card. If the card
has an odd number of digits, perform the same addition doubling the even
numbered digits instead.
This program, presented in C source code form, will perform this math
for you. Feed it all but the last digit of your credit card number, and
it will give you the last digit. If it gives you a last digit different
from the one you have, you have an invalid credit card number.
#include <stdio.h>
/*
* Return last digit of a bank card (e.g. credit card)
* Receives all the digits, but the last one as input
* By Diomidis Spinellis <dds@doc.ic.ac.uk>
*/
int bank (u)
char *u;
{
register i, s = 0;
int l, t;
l = strlen(u);
for(i = 0; i < l ; i++)
{
t = (u[l - i - 1] - '0') * (1 + ((i + 1) % 2));
s += t < 10 ? t : t - 9;
}
return 10 - s % 10;
}
void main (argc, argv)
int argc;
char **argv;
{
while (--argc)
printf ("%d\n", bank (*++argv));
}
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G-03. What is the layout of data on magnetic stripe cards?
This FAQ answer was written largely with information supplied by wea$el:
Data is laid out on a standard magnetic car in three tracks. A card may
have any of these tracks, or a combination of these tracks.
Track 1 was the first track standardized. It was developed by the
International Air Transportation Association (IATA) and is still
reserved for their use. It is 210bpi with room for 79 7-bit characters.
Track 1 is encoded with a 7-bit scheme (6 data bits plus one parity bit)
that's based on ASCII. If your reader does not perform the ASCII
conversion, all you have to do is add 0x20 to each byte to turn it into
ASCII (there are no "control" characters). The seventh bit is an odd
parity bit at the end of each byte.
Track 1 Fields
.---------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Start sentinel | 1 byte (the % character) |
| | |
| Format code | 1 byte alpha (The standard for financial institutions |
| | specifies format code is "B") |
| | |
| Primary Account | Up to 19 characters. American Express inserts space |
| number | characters in here in the same places the digits are |
| | broken up on the face of your card. |
| | |
| Separator | 1 byte (the ^ character) |
| | |
| Country code | 3 bytes, if used. (The United States is 840) This |
| | is only used if the account number begins with "59." |
| | |
| Surname | |
| | |
| Surname | (the / character) |
| separator | |
| | |
| First name | |
| or initial | |
| | |
| Space | (when followed by more data) |
| | |
| Middle name | |
| or initial | |
| | |
| Period | (when followed by a title) |
| | |
| Title | (when used) |
| | |
| Separator | 1 byte (^) |
| | |
| Expiration date | 4 bytes (YYMM) or the one byte separator if a |
| or separator | non-expiring card. |
| | |
| Discretionary | Optional data can be encoded here by the issuer. |
| data | |
| | |
| End Sentinel | 1 byte (the ? character) |
| | |
| Longitudinal | 1 byte. The LRC is made up of parity bits for each |
| Redundancy | "row" of bytes, making the total even. That means |
| Check (LRC) | that the total of all the bit 1s of each byte has |
| | to come out to an even number. Same for bit 2, |
| | etc. The LRC's parity bit is not the sum of the |
| | parity bits of the message, but only the parity bit |
| | for the LRC character itself. (It's odd, just like |
| | any other single byte's parity bit.) |
`---------------------------------------------------------------------------'
Track 2 was developed by the American Bankers Association (ABA) for
on-line financial transactions. It is 75bpi with room for 40 5-bit
numeric characters.
Track 2 is encoded with a 5-bit scheme (4 data bits plus one parity
bit.) To convert this data into ASCII, add 0x30 to each byte.
Track 1 Fields
.---------------------------------------------------------------------------.
| Start sentinel | 1 byte (0x0B, or a ; in ASCII) |
| | |
| Primary Account | Up to 19 bytes |
| number | |
| | |
| Separator | 1 byte (0x0D, or an = in ASCII) |
| | |
| Country code | 3 bytes, if used. (The United States is 840) This |
| | is only used if the account number begins with "59." |
| | |
| Expiration date | 4 bytes (YYMM) or the one byte separator if a |
| or separator | non-expiring card |
| | |
| Discretionary | Optional data can be encoded here by the issuer. |
| data | |
| | |
| End Sentinel | 1 byte (0x0F, or a ? in ASCII) |
| | |
| Longitudinal | 1 byte. |
| Redundancy | |
| Check (LRC) | |
`---------------------------------------------------------------------------'
Track 3 is also used for financial transactions. The difference is its
read/write ability. It is 210bpi with room for 107 numeric digits.
Track 3 is used to store the enciphered PIN, country code, currency
units, amount authorized, subsidiary account information, and other
account restrictions.
Track 3 has the same properties as track 1 (start and end sentinels and
an LRC byte), except that there is no standard for the data content or
format. Track 3 is not currently used by any national bank card issuer.
In those rare systems where the PIN is stored on the card, this is the
track where it is stored.
For more information of this topic, read the ANSI/ISO 7811/1-5 standard.
This document is available from the American Bankers Association.
Other standards documents covering related topics include:
ANSI X3.92 Data Encryption Algorithm (DEA)
ANSI X3.106 Modems of DEA Operation
ANSI X4.16 American National Standard for financial services, financial
transaction cards, magnetic stripe encoding
ANSI X9.8 Personal Identification Number (PIN) Management and Security
ANSI X9.19 Financial Institution Retail Message Authentication (MAC)
ISO 7810
ISO 7811
ISO 7812
ISO 8583 Bank card originated messages
Interchange message specifications
Content for financial transactions.
ISO 8731-1 Banking: Approved algorithms for message authentication
Part 1 - DEA
Part 2 - Message Authentication algorithms
ISO 7816 Identification cards, Integrated circuit(s) with contacts
Part 1 - Physical Characteristics
Part 2 - Dimensions and locations of the contacts
Part 3 - Electronic signals and transmission protocols
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G-04. What is pirate radio?
Pirate radio is broadcasting outside of the rules laid down by the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Pirate radio usually occurs on
the FM band because that is where the most receivers are.
Under Part 15 of the FCC rules, you can legally broadcast on the FM band
if you broadcast using less that 100 milliwatts of output power and and
antenna less than 3' long. By contrast, commercial FM broadcasters are
required to broadcast using at least 100 watts of output power. 100
milliwatts will give your signal an effective range of less than one
mile.
You can build the gear needed to transmit pirate radio or you can buy
much of what you need from Radio Free Berkeley. An entire broadcasting
system can be put together for well under $1,000.
For more information, check out Radio Free Berkeley at
http://www.freeradio.org.
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G-05. What are the ethics of hacking?
An excerpt from: Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution
by Steven Levy
Access to computers -- and anything which might teach you
something about the way the world works -- should be unlimited
and total. Always yield to the Hands-On imperative.
All information should be free.
Mistrust Authority. Promote Decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria
such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.
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G-06. Why did you write this FAQ?
Hacking is an interest of mine. Years ago, I would often communicate on
IRC with other people who were also interested in hacking and we would
discuss the topics covered in this FAQ.
Over time, I grew tired of having the same discussions again and again.
I wrote down these questions and answers with the hope that I would
never again have to explain the basics of hacking and that our
conversation would move on to more advanced and interesting topics.
In the beginning, this was the #hack FAQ. Later, Tomes suggested that
we adopt it as the alt.2600 FAQ also.
I have enjoyed writing this FAQ, and I hope you enjoy it also.
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G-07. Where can I get a copy of the alt.2600/#hack FAQ?
Get it on FTP at:
rahul.net /pub/lps/sysadmin/
rtfm.mit.edu /pub/usenet-by-group/alt.2600
ftp.primenet.com /users/c/cracked/hacking/2600faq.zip
Get it on the World Wide Web at:
http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~jgotts/underground/hack-faq
http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~jgotts/underground/hack-faq.tar.gz
EOT
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