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Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter? (2024)

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Re: Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter? (2024)

#31

Post by charcircuit »

nom wrote: post #21

pfff, root, back in my day we hacked a vending machine with a lighter and got free coke. No idea who discovered it, but the machine back at my school had an infrared interface for servicing, and you could trigger an interrupt with the flash of the flintstone of a lighter. Because it's just some 90s microcontroller, it would simply reset after failing to receive a valid command and forget what it was doing previously.…

That is not free, that is stealing. It's like going to a grocery store and calling it a hack that you can walk around the registers and leave without paying.

Re: Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter? (2024)

#32

Post by 12_throw_away »

charcircuit wrote: post #31
nom wrote: post #21

pfff, root, back in my day we hacked a vending machine with a lighter and got free coke. No idea who discovered it, but the machine back at my school had an infrared interface for servicing, and you could trigger an interrupt with the flash of the flintstone of a lighter. Because it's just some 90s microcontroller, it would simply reset after failing to receive a valid command and forget what it was doing previously.…

That is not free, that is stealing. It's like going to a grocery store and calling it a hack that you can walk around the registers and leave without paying.

True. So sad to think that hackers are exploiting - and yes, there can be no doubt, this is EXPLOITATION - weaknesses in coin-operated services. I weep to think how far has this once-noble vocation has strayed from its roots ...

Re: Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter? (2024)

#33

Post by ssl-3 »

devmor wrote: post #30
jibal wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to get free phone calls in phone booths by sticking an unwound paper clip into the earpiece and touching the other end to the coin box.

You could do the same by wearing wool socks and shuffling around for a minute before touching the coin slot!

That doesn't work very well on a humid day outside in the summer.

And the payphones in the city I grew up in didn't operate using ground-start signalling, so the paper clip/safety pin/pull-tab/static trick didn't work there at all.

But an innocuous walkman with a cassette tape that had some red box tones on it, with a bonus of having the rest of the cassette available for music to listen to? That worked great.

Re: Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter? (2024)

#34

Post by Cpoll »

12_throw_away wrote: post #32
charcircuit wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not free, that is stealing. It's like going to a grocery store and calling it a hack that you can walk around the registers and leave without paying.

True. So sad to think that hackers are exploiting - and yes, there can be no doubt, this is EXPLOITATION - weaknesses in coin-operated services. I weep to think how far has this once-noble vocation has strayed from its roots ...

John Draper and his fellow hackers were EXPLOITING coin-operated payphones and switchboards in the 60s, so I'm not sure how far back you have to go to reach the noble vocation you describe.

Re: Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter? (2024)

#35

Post by jibal »

ssl-3 wrote: post #33
devmor wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could do the same by wearing wool socks and shuffling around for a minute before touching the coin slot!

That doesn't work very well on a humid day outside in the summer. And the payphones in the city I grew up in didn't operate using ground-start signalling, so the paper clip/safety pin/pull-tab/static trick didn't work there at all. But an innocuous walkman with a cassette tape that had some red box tones on it, with a bonus of having the rest of the cassette available for music to listen to? That worked great.

This was in the late 1950's for me, in the San Fernando Valley where summertime humidity was very low. But a few years later the phone company put shields in the headsets so you could no longer puncture the foil.

Re: Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter? (2024)

#36

Post by 12_throw_away »

Cpoll wrote: post #34
12_throw_away wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. So sad to think that hackers are exploiting - and yes, there can be no doubt, this is EXPLOITATION - weaknesses in coin-operated services. I weep to think how far has this once-noble vocation has strayed from its roots ...

John Draper and his fellow hackers were EXPLOITING coin-operated payphones and switchboards in the 60s, so I'm not sure how far back you have to go to reach the noble vocation you describe.

whoosh

Re: Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter? (2024)

#38

Post by ssl-3 »

jibal wrote: post #35
ssl-3 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't work very well on a humid day outside in the summer. And the payphones in the city I grew up in didn't operate using ground-start signalling, so the paper clip/safety pin/pull-tab/static trick didn't work there at all. But an innocuous walkman with a cassette tape that had some red box tones on it, with a bonus of having the rest of the cassette available for music to listen to? That worked great.

This was in the late 1950's for me, in the San Fernando Valley where summertime humidity was very low. But a few years later the phone company put shields in the headsets so you could no longer puncture the foil.

Fair.

I'm old enough to remember payphones being completely ubiquitous (with whole banks of them inside of each entrance for one large department store, usually with one or two more outside), but I'm not old enough to remember the 1950s. :)

I did find one old phone at a state park not too far out that could be tricked by grounding it, but that was in GTE territory instead of the Ohio Bell BOC that I was more familiar with.

Re: Can you get root with only a cigarette lighter? (2024)

#39

Post by bdjdjdndndb »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #26
nom wrote: post #21

pfff, root, back in my day we hacked a vending machine with a lighter and got free coke. No idea who discovered it, but the machine back at my school had an infrared interface for servicing, and you could trigger an interrupt with the flash of the flintstone of a lighter. Because it's just some 90s microcontroller, it would simply reset after failing to receive a valid command and forget what it was doing previously.…

Wow. We were like cave men in comparison shaking the machine with 2-3 people to knock a can out of the racking.

Brave ... Those things can kill
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