Toilet paper crisis in Los Angeles
One of the things that was really easy to do, was to pop into the AutoVerify trunks
by accessing the trunks with that "Class mark". You couldn't just dial
an 800 number that terminates into Washington DC, but you also had to pop over to
a trunk class marked for what they call "Auto-Verification". This is used
when a phone user has to reach someone and the line is busy. The operator selects
a special trunk, class marked for this service, and dials either the last 5 digits
of the phone number, or a special ttc code like 052, and followed by the whole 7
digit number. After that, the operator hears scrambled conversation on the line.
The parties talking hear nothing, not even a click.
Next, the operator "Flashes forward" by causing the equipment to send a
burst of 2600 Hz, which makes a 3 way connection, and places a beep tone on the line
so that both parties originally on the line can hear the initial click (flash, in
this case), followed by a high pitched beep. At this point, the parties can her you,
and you can hear them. Usually, the operator an
Our first problem was to extract what exchange this number terminated in, because
AutoVerify wouldn't know about 800 numbers. Then, all 800 numbers had a one-to-one
relation between prefix and area code. For instance, 800-424 ----> 202-xxx, where
xxx was the 3 digit exchange which was determined by the last 4 digits. In this case,
800-424-9337 mapped to 202-227-9337. The 227 (which could be wrong) was a special
White house prefix used for faxes, telex's and in this case, the CIA Crisis line.
Next we got into the class marked trunk (Which had a different sounding chirp, when
seized). and MF'ed KP-054-227-9337-ST into this special class marked trunk. Immediately
we heard the connection tone and put it up on the speaker so we would know when a
call came in.
Several hours later, a call did come in, and it did appear to have CIA related talk,
and a code name of Olympus was used to summon the President. I had been downstairs
that time, hanging out with friends when I learned what was going on. I rush upstairs
just in time to hear the tail end of the conversation as I entered the room.
We had the code word that would summon Nixon to the phone. Almost immediately, another
person was starting the process of dialing the number. I stopped them just in time
and recommended that they stack at least 4 tandems before looping the call to the
White house. Sure enough, the man at the other end said "9337", my other
friend said "Olympus please!", the man at the other end said "One
moment sir!"... About a minute later, a man that sounded remarkably like Nixon
said "What's going on?". My friend said "We have a crisis here in
Los Angeles!", Nixon said "What's the nature of the crisis?", My friend
said in a serious tone of voice "We're out of toilet paper sir!". Nixon
said "WHO IS THIS?" My friend then hung up. Never did learn what happened
to that tape, but I think this was one of the funniest pranks, and I don't think
that Woz would even come close to this one. I think he was jealous for a long time.
To the best of my recollection, this was about 4 months before Nixon resigned because
of the Watergate crisis.