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Area code 710
- nodesocket 9y agoI'm guessing don't try calling the number? Don't want to flood some poor government operator with internet trolls.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- akmodi 9y agoThe Wikipedia page describes what happens when someone does call. I wonder if that was a priori knowledge or if the writer called to see what would happen and then shared his findings :P
- VitJedlicka 9y agoYet another troll bait.
- cbanek 9y agoMakes me wonder if the call center will see the HN effect. I was tempted to call it just reading the article!
- kijeda 9y agoI have a GETS account that uses this area code. You are given a credit card sized reference card with your PIN number to activate it. There is also another service called WPS for cell phones where you get priority just by prefixing your number with *272, the only catch there is your specific phone needs to be enrolled.
- nodesocket 9y agoAre you a fire/police chief or in command of some public safety entity?
- kijeda 9y agoNo, but I do work on what is considered critical infrastructure.
- akhilcacharya 9y agoPower grid?
- mey 9y agoI assume the poster is intentionally not revealing their role. While I am also curious, having known people working in the defense industry, it's considered polite to not ask questions to things they aren't offering information about.
- komali2 9y agoWell this is the internet, where we all have no way of sussing out subtle cultural differences between ourselves off a username. I say let the questions be asked, it causes no harm here.
- akhilcacharya 9y agoThen why the hell even discuss it?
- nsaslideface 9y agoI imagine this was part of what was dialed in last week's Twin Peaks
- schoen 9y agoI remember something in an old Phrack or another hacker zine where someone was recounting a rumor about this mechanism that he heard from someone who worked in a telco (viz., that there were special government phone numbers that were treated differently by the telephone system). It's interesting to see the progression from underground rumor to Wikipedia article.
- Spooky23 9y agoThere used to be a designation for landlines where they would be unlisted and have priority when there was congested outgoing lines or a shutdown. I had a relative who was a public safety official. It was pretty wacky, they had an old school western electric leased phone, this magic line and other weird features like custom short codes that would hit "internal" extensions in the office.
- 813594 9y agoI have a GETS account too (I work in healthcare). T-Mobile provides WPS service free, whereas Verizon charges $5/month per enrolled line. More info here https://www.dhs.gov/publication/getswps-documents https://www.dhs.gov/publication/getswps-documents and https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/HOW%20IT%20WORKS%20THE%20GOVERNMENT%20Emergency%20Telecommunications%20Service%20_May%202017%20FINAL%20508C.pdf https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/HOW%20I...
- wonderous 9y agoHere are more docs on the 710 area code via a simple Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22710-NCS-GETS%22+card+ext:pdf https://www.google.com/search?q=%22710-NCS-GETS%22+card+ext:... For example, this PDF explains a lot than anything present on HN or Wikipedia: http://chicagofirstdocs.org/resources/060912-GETS.pdf http://chicagofirstdocs.org/resources/060912-GETS.pdf Here's a doc that covers all US Federal emergency communications: https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/nifog-v1-4-resized-for-pda-viewing_1.pdf https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/nifog-v...
- matt_wulfeck 9y agoBasically it sounds like GETS is QoS for land and wireless lines for critical or emergency personnel.
- yodon 9y agoWhen I was in college in the '80s, My roommate and I got curious about unused area codes (and/or prefixes? I forget). We started dialing some. Within about 15 minutes we stumbled on some government service with a scary-official sounding operator on the other end (I've no idea if it was this service or a different one). The really scary part was after dialing the number and encountering the operator, we were unable to hang up (any time we hung up and picked back up, the operator was still there, even after waiting about two minutes). Fortunately this was (a) at MIT which still had a central electromechanical telephone switch for student phone lines in the '80s and (b) I had keys to the switch as a student phone repair tech. I still remember grabbing my keys, running over to the switch, and physically pulling the relay contacts to release the call and prevent a trace to our location in case that was the motivation for holding the line (nowadays traces are digital and instantaneous, but when looking at old-school electromechanical switches you really did need time to trace the call physically through the relays). Yes, we were aware the operator was probably just messing with us by showing he could hold our line against our will to discourage us from calling again, but it still scared the crap out of us just in case.
- hashmymustache 9y agoVery interesting story, curious if you remember the number. Reminded me of my favorite scene from Community: https://youtu.be/xx_MkKJPNjQ https://youtu.be/xx_MkKJPNjQ
- yodon 9y agoMy recollection is we were specifically curious about what today would be called invalid address space patterns, aka numbers that were outside the patterns used in valid phone numbers at the time (such as area codes could have a 1 in the middle digit but prefixes could not have a 1 in the middle in the 1980's). We pulled out a paper phone book, devised a set of criteria for potentially interesting superficially invalid phone numbers, and started dialing them. On a rotary dial phone. And we found one pretty quickly. And it was a much scarier experience than we had expected. The exact number we dialed is unfortunately(?) lost to the passage of time.
- doctorshady 9y agoLittle known fact: sometimes the other exchanges in area code 710 will translate to places going to military bases and such, depending on the time of year. The best way to tell is by calling 710-867-5309. If you get a recording saying "You are using <long distance provider>" followed by a not in service recording, well, it worked. If you'd care to look around random exchanges and thousand blocks, you might be in for a fun day. Or a knock at your door. But yeah - it's all the luck of the draw. Some phone people have had varying levels of luck with other things involving that area code as well: http://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?/topic/48478-weird-710-thing/ http://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?/topic/48478-weird-71...
- aisofteng 9y ago>867-5309 I can't tell whether this is a joke comment.
- doctorshady 9y agoIt isn't; 867 is a valid translation, and -5309 is easy to remember. There's other, working numbers out there you'll eventually find if you look around.
- michaelgrosner2 9y agoIs there anywhere else to read more about these kinds of special phone numbers? Something about the current state of phreaking?
- doctorshady 9y agohttp://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?/forum/21-old-skool-phreaking/ http://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php?/forum/21-old-skool-p...
- elvic 9y agoThe internet
- josh_carterPDX 9y agoI'm sure old issues of 2600 have a lot of articles on phreaking. I used to red box a lot of old pay phones to get free calls using a tape recorder. Sadly there aren't too many phreaking hacks these days with everything moving to the cloud.
- polygot 9y ago> "the call is then redirected to a live human operator who then asks for the access code." I feel bad for that operator
- KevinIsMyName 9y agoWhy? The job is a job. I assume they have quite a lot of operators and they are crucial for certain processes which make their fairly simple job - a phone operator - crucial.
- ceejayoz 9y agoSure, but now they're getting dozens of calls from curious HNers.
- dismantlethesun 9y agoWhy would people call? It's not a mystery what happens---they'll ask you for the access code, and do nothing else if you don't provide it. It'd be a waste of time to call them.
- sneak 9y agoI don't think you understand the breadth of legitimate responses to your "why" question. Lots of us called.
- dismantlethesun 9y agoOh, that's really interesting! What were you looking to find out, and what did they say?
- ceejayoz 9y ago> It'd be a waste of time to call them. So's commenting on HN, but look how many of us do it!
- 9y ago
- pavel_lishin 9y agoI wonder what it's like being an operator on that line; is it mostly hours or boredom, punctuated by a few phone calls? Or is it actually busy throughout the day?
- grogenaut 9y agoHave you ever seen what a night security guard does?
- jon-wood 9y agoI don't know how similar it is, but often for customer support lines and the like there'll be shared call centres. When someone calls in the operator is shown which company they're calling for and answers accordingly. I imagine its the same here with a pool of operators handling both this and other services.
- huffmsa 9y agoSame thing as being on the S/NES N64 support line. +1-800-255-3700 There's probably some little old Japanese lady with the full knowledge of the inner workings of 30 year old console hardware waiting for 3 calls a year.
- doctorshady 9y agoI'll just leave this here: 808-248-0002 - "Your GETS call is being processed. Please hold."
- jpeterman 9y agoEvery time I see posts like this on HN, I feel obligated to post http://www.evan-doorbell.com/production/ http://www.evan-doorbell.com/production/ I originally discovered this guy from HN and the audio recordings on that site are mesmerizing to me.
- bjelkeman-again 9y agoThat was interesting, a telecom museum should make sure these recordings don't go missing.
- waiseristy 9y agoThe internet is amazing, hours upon hours of quality content about nothing else but telephone networks!
- reaperducer 9y agoAnother odd area code is 500. Back in the 90's, I had a 500 number through AT&T. You could program it to "follow" you. Meaning that if, for example, someone called your number between 9a-5p M-F, it would ring your office. 5p-6p, your car phone. 6p-10p, your home phone, etc... I suspect it got killed off because so many businesses were switching to cheapo, poorly-made, Winmodem-based PBXes that didn't recognize the area code.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> I suspect it got killed off because so many businesses were switching to cheapo, poorly-made, Winmodem-based PBXes that didn't recognize the area code. No, it was actively blocked (not unrecognized) by lots of places because, like 900, it was caller paid (and, like 900, it saw significant upkeep for phone sex lines.) AT&T replaced the service you describe with a similar service that was toll-free, and used the 800 area code, which (service, not area code) was also later discontinued.
- saul_goodman 9y agoThere's lots of good lore about stuff like this in phreaker circles. I remember a story about someone who supposedly found some listings of 710 numbers including things like the presidents bunker and such. The folks answering the phones for some of these numbers were not amused and were also caught off guard by calls from kids asking to talk to the president and such.
- losteverything 9y agoAt&t used to create new prospects for long distance by comparing both numbers in a call to its customers database. If a number was not an active customer it was put in an outbound call list to solicit long distance. The best story i remember was when the navy wanted to know why we called one of their nuclear submarines. This implied that the right 10 random digits contacted a sub.
- thatwebdude 9y agoWait, you mean targeted advertising before the internet? Blasphemy! We had integrity then!
- inspector-g 9y agoThe article mentions that individuals placing calls though GETS, with a valid access code, receive "alternate carrier routing, high probability of completion, trunk queuing and exemptions from network management controls". I find this fascinating, and it's hard not to wonder if any (rough) equivalent exists for government-related internet traffic. As in, perhaps some special/cryptographic data can be provided in network traffic data that ensures higher-priority treatment in an emergency or crisis, like GETS. Can anyone enlighten me here?
- Niksko 9y agoPresumably they just have dedicated fibre lines between critical infrastructure? With dedicated routing hardware
- wonderous 9y agoGETS supports modems and secured telephones (STU-III), which in turn support secure modem connections: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STU-III https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/STU-III There are also VPN via VSAT connection too: http://www.vsat-systems.com/PDFs/VPN-over-satellite-large.pdf http://www.vsat-systems.com/PDFs/VPN-over-satellite-large.pd...
- axellgun 9y agoArea code 710 is a special area code, reserved to the federal government of the United States in 1983. As of December 2006, it had only one working number, 710-NCS-GETS (710-627-4387), which requires a special access code to use. See Government Emergency Telecommunications Service for more information on this service.
- axellgun 9y agoArea code 710 is a special area code, reserved to the federal government of the United States in 1983. As of December 2006, it had only one working number, 710-NCS-GETS (710-627-4387), which requires a special access code to use. See Government Emergency Telecommunications Service for more information on this service.
- axonic 9y agoSome numbers forward via DSN to "red phones" and what not. Please don't prank them or waste their time. I had a spouse social engineer the number to an overseas camp. It bloody rang the literal red phone used for CASEVAC operations on my helipad. Then she wanted to get pissed when I told her to hang up and call a civilian phone... "Well, don't you have call waiting?"... We are divorced now, of course.
- gumby 9y ago> GETS is intended to be used in an emergency or crisis situation Sounds like a major security problem, and during a crisis is especially when I would not like to have a buffer overrun.