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The article doesn't really explain: How does equipment + direct lines to exchanges = wiretap? Were there backdoors in every exchange that allowed people with th
by etskinner 5y ago
The article doesn't really explain: How does equipment + direct lines to exchanges = wiretap? Were there backdoors in every exchange that allowed people with the right equipment to listen in on any subscriber line? If so, couldn't phreaking do the same thing?
Also, how did they set up the direct lines all the exchanges?
- greenyoda 5y agoAs I understood it, the backdoors were the "two rogue employees of the New York Telephone Company". My guess is that they spliced a cable from the apartment into larger underground cables that led into the affected phone exchanges, providing a number of available wire pairs between the apartment and each exchange. (There were probably lots of unused pairs in the underground cables to allow for the addition of new phone lines.) Then, when the wiretappers wanted to tap a specific phone line, the phone company employees would be asked to connect one of the wire pairs going into the wiretapper's apartment to the victim's wire pair inside the exchange.
- Spooky23 5y agoTelephone stuff is security by obscurity. The old phone company guys had the shared keys and knew how stuff was wired. Knowing the lingo and the people, it’s probably pretty trivial to get access and do stuff in those days.