Bluebox

I've long had an interest in how telephone systems work. I missed the heyday of phone-phreaking. Documented here are my experiments and tinkerings with blueboxes: devices intended to remotely manipulate telephone systems. The switching equipment that were suceptible to such manipulation aren't used any more for the regular telephone network. Privately-owned telephone switching equipment has been modified by their owners to allow for this sort of thing. Therefore these devices can no longer be used for committing fraud or intrusion. Everything presented here is for historical interest.

For more information about blueboxes and their history, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_box

Projects

Bluebox AVR (https://gitlab.com/DavidGriffith/bluebox-avr)

This project implements a bluebox in C on AVR microcontrollers. This project is roughly a reimplementation of Don Froula's PIC-based bluebox, which was written in PIC assembly. The resulting compiled program is intended to be loaded into one of the following circuit boards. Currently the code implements a bluebox, silver box (DTMF dialer with 4th column), redbox, greenbox, and 2600hz pulse dialer. There are 12 memory locations of 41 keystrokes each.

Don Froula reviews the program on Youtube

Bluebox Esquire (documentation)

This circuit board was originally designed as a drop-in replacement for Don Froula's board, which was intended to replace the cover of a Radio Shack #270-1801 enclosure. With Radio Shacks closing everywhere, I picked a different and much nicer enclosure, a Hammond 1591XXM, and shrank the board slightly so it fit entirely inside. The original board used a PIC 12F683 in an 8-pin DIP package. This one uses an ATtiny85 in an 8-pin DIP package. The name of this project is a reference to Don's original aim of replicating the look of the bluebox presented in the October 1971 issue of Esquire Magazine. The buttons are sensed through a resistor ladder which feeds a voltage into a single pin which is then sampled.

If you have a version 4.0 board, you'll need this errata sheet.

Buy one from me on eBay

For those who are having problems compiling the firmware, here are the latest firmware and EEPROM images: bluebox.hex bluebox.eep.hex. Fuse settings are FUSE_L: 0xFF, FUSE_H: 0xDB, FUSE_E: 0xFF.

Bluebox KP (under development)

This circuit board project is a simplified bluebox design that omits the keypad. Instead, a separate matrix keypad is plugged in as a daughterboard. Both 3x4 and 4x4 variants are commonly available and supported.

Bluebox RS (under development)

This circuit board project is intended to transform a Radio Shack pocket dialer (model 43-139) into a 12-key bluebox. Operation is exactly the same as that of the Bluebox Esquire except that the 2600hz tone is generated by pressing the star and hash keys at the same time. A surface-mounted AVR ATtiny84 will be used for this one. Keys are detected through a matrix.

Bluebox Tiny (under development)

This circuit board project is essentially the Bluebox Esquire with all parts being surface-mount.

Links

http://projectmf.org/

Don Froula's project to simulate a analog SF/MF telephone signaling just as it was used in the telephone network of the 1950s through the 1980s. It lets you "blue box" telephone calls just like the phone phreaks of yesteryear ... except that it's totally legal!

http://explodingthephone.com/

Before smartphones and iPads, before the Internet or the personal computer, a misfit group of technophiles, blind teenagers, hippies, and outlaws figured out how to hack the world's largest machine: the telephone system. Exploding The Phone is their story.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at dave@661.org.

This page was last updated on July 8, 2018