// Cap'n Crunch Revisited??
//
// by Captain B
//
// http://www.oldskoolphreak.com

Well, not exactly. And, before I go any further, let me say that this file was
written more for entertainment and nostalgia sake. (Well, It's nostalgia for
those who remember fondly the days when blue boxing could be done with a mere
toy whistle gotten from a box of cereal). As far as the info content goes, you
may not find it particularly useful. But hopefully, you'll find this "file" to
be at least somewhat interesting. Not too long ago, I decided to try to do my
own sort of "toneing" with a whistle trick. Yeah, yeah, I know you can't do it
anymore with SS7's out of band signalling. But, I didn't care. On a whim, I
bought a pack of Whistle Pops candy from K-mart for the purpose of trying to
send tones via accoustic coupling. (Throught the handset mouthpiece). Whistle
Pops are basically lollipops shaped like a whistle. I think this candy has been
around for some time now, but I can't recall seeing it sold anywhere but K-mart.
The candy costs 99 cents for a pack of 4. It has a built-in slide whistle.
Sliding it out further produces lower pitched tones, sliding it in produces
higher tones. And, for some reason, it even has the numbers 1-9 marked at
successive points on the slide. And, the numbers go in descending order when
sliding it out. I found that when I slid the slide out to between 5 and 6, it
recognized the tone as being DTMF A, B, C, or D. On this, I'm not exactly sure
which one. I've even wondered if it could even be putting out a 2600Hz blue box
tone. All I know is that my central office recognizes the tone, and goes from a
dial tone, to giving me a fast busy signal. Yet, when I tried it on payphones
connected to another CO, I got nothing. So, even the way the equipment and the
way It's configued at you CO matters. Yeah, I know, you're probably saying "So
#@?$*! what?" Well, I just think It's somewhat cool and unusual that it's
recognized as being any kind of tone. And, I recently also tried using this
after dialing 10 10 ATT 0.  Their equipment also seems to recognize the tone,
but only after you've dialed some digits first. (I think it was 7 digits
starting with 800 that I dialed). Even my local TSPS operator service (via
Verizon) which goes to an automated system first after dialing 0 recognized this
tone, despite the fact that It's not part of the menu option keys to choose
from. Also, I found that you may be able to get the CO equipment to think your
sending tones by making certain high pitched tones into the mouthpiece with
nothing more than your own vocal cords. It can be somewhat difficult to try
doing it that way. And, it helps if you have a fairly good ability to hit some
pretty high tones with your voice. Anyway, all of this obviously pales in
comparison to being able to blue box with a toy whistle. But, I guess It's about
the closest thing to it nowadays. Written with acknowledgemets and props to
Cap'n Crunch.