TAP No. 23 - Free Electricity

NO. 23 NOVEMBER ‘73 TECHNOLOGICAL The Energy Crisis was finally spotlighted this month by the Pres to the American Public. It was "suggested" to the people that cutting down highway speeds, shortening school hours (good news in some respects), turning off your home and office lights when unneeded, and lowering the thermo- stat wauld give us a savings of considerable magnitude cn fuel consumption. The second part of project Independence would be to develop within this country a source of energy which would free us from "reliance on a foriegn enemy... er, energy"... It seems that this country can only be moved ahead in times of crisis, so instead of ntative structuring of our life systems we get problematic solutions. That is to say we do not really rid ourselves of the disease, we only change its name and place and again wait for a crisis. Take for instance Gas consumption. A better way to take the same amount of fuel and stretch its potenticl use would be to expend scientific skills in the developement of a gas- oline engine with better mileage. Almost all the American car manufacturers have reduced amounts of miles per gal- lon this year in their cars. And why not? Along with the oil interests they stand only to win, The Pres also said cars usually only have one person in them. Anyone who's stood out on the road‘ for hours, free- zing their ass off could have told us that. Us hitch-hikers are probably going to be blamed for the high speeds that frightened motorists travel at (the same mentality that blames phone phreaks for rising phone rates). We know that the American People are be ing fed advertisements that make us CONSUME. But you didn't really expect Pres to get up there and admit that our entire economy (that means his friends’ profits) depends upon a continuous inc- rease in CONSUMPTION, which is what caused the whole mess. Buy, Buy, Buy, Throw Away, Throw Away, Oops, better conserve, we'll raise our prices so don't worry! ‘The same could be said for all gas appliances, and ever: manufacturers of electric lights. Couldn't a low consump- tion high-brightness bulb be immediately produced? You. ‘bet your blue box! But the most recent trend among the Science communities is to use their abilities in developing .either weapons of destruction, or useless niceities like better floor wax, instant cheese dip or pocket calculators (for adding up all your purchases). Let's pray that before we start unrestricted strip mining and other rapings we can get maximum output from already existing fuels and decrease our consumption by using decent mass transit & sharing with others. Three color TV'S per family! Now is the time for Bell Labs to come forward and tell us what the fuck they've been puttering around with that would help us instead of lowering AT&Ts construction costs and boost- ing profits. The Electric and Gas companies are huge monopolies who have the nerve to sell us the Sun's energy. They have free reign over the rates they charge, the quality of the smoke we're forced to breathe and the oceans and lakes they conveniently dump their wastes into. And don't forget that they plan to risk all our lives by installing unsafe nuclear power plants in the midst of population centers. We'll probably find out sooner or later of the corruption & payoffs that allow the Atomic Energy Commission to iynore (Continued) AMERICAN PARTY Just what the hell have they been doing since 1953? (Nat. Geographic Hell Solar Nattory Uses Silicon wo Turn Suntight ino BACK ISSUES~50¢ 17-Red Box, Line Relay 19-Call Stopper 18-Snoop Light 20-Cheese Box 21-Autonatic Phone Tap 22-Answeroo 1- Extensions, conference switches Q- Blue Box Story and Abbie on ripotts 3+ Telecommand Story 4- Pay Phone Issue & Bike Box 4 >> Now cbsolotettasue 12) ‘2 Tuning your organ B- Credit card calls and 1972 code 3 Super Depor Projecy (Sue laoua 31) 11-Receiving lony distance calls free 12-Blue Box Plants 13-Internatlonal Callsé. Box Plans 14-International Calls & ATAT Papors 1£-1973 Credit Code, T Network Af-Red Box Plans FACT SHEETS-25$ 1.New Credit Card Fact Sheet (Code and How to do it Safely) 2,Recetving Lom, Distance Calls Free Gen, Te}, version of Issue 12) ayed Hed Box- 15¢ 2600 Whistle Perfector- 15¢ Dual Tone Gsciliator with Interrupter-15¢ List of Destructory Assistance Topics- Free Schedule fron 2nd Int'l Phreak Convention ~ Free To receive Sub, via first class envelope, add $1.50 Subscription approx. 10 ea/yr. Rumber on address area indicates first issue sent. ftenew if your address has a 13 or less on it, TaP, ROOM 504, 152 W. 42 ST.,N.Y.,N.Y. 10036 Nailing address only, check or money order only, NO CASH! All information is free if you can't afford it, ANTI-BELL BUTTON- 50¢ 10/53.09 DESTRUCTORY ASSISTANCE-Free, just send as much info as you want back in a stampot, self-addressed envelope. Steal This Book-$2.25 Monopol y- $1.20 our health and safety, but in the meantime it's comforting to know that these death machines cost money, and we can cut down their revenue and put it to better purposes. Power phreaks have been around a long time, but on such ‘@ small scale that the companies haven't done much to stop it. That will probably change, but they move like turtles and won't be able to do anything on a large scale for years. By then we'll be ten more steps ahead. Besides, God is ‘on our side, Pay: strict attention to the safety rules. We all know that Strict obedience to the rules is the only way to get power anyway. More power to youl Electricity works on the same basic principle in all types of meters around the country, though the meters may look slightly different. First a word about safety. ‘You will be working with 110 volts like any normal out- let in your home, but you will be closer to that current than if you were plugging in a toaster. So you must know how to be careful. 110 volts can kill you. TAP guarantees that if you stand in a puddle of water, 110 volts will kill you, The same goes for working with wet or sweaty hands or feet, Remember the bathtub in Goldfinger? When you work on electrical lines, wear gloves. If you are too bum- med out by gloves, at least wear rubber-Soled shoes. And keep dry] Don't stand on a damp floor! If you use your head and work slowly, keeping safety in mind, you will not get shocked. It may seem like a dangerous expedition but it's actually simple to do and a lot of fun. So locate your elec~ tric meter, which is usually found in the basement of apa~ rtment buildings, or on the outside of houses, put on your gloves and rubbers and get to work. Stand on a rubber mat if you're standing on dirt or dampness. If your electrical meter is among others and isn't clearly marked for your apartment, have a friend turn all your lights on and off Simultaneously and then look for the meter that starts and Stops. You can tell the meter is starting by the little rot- ating wheel in front that turns the gears of the little point- Glass Cover ao ers. When you've located your meter, how about jumping it? That will slow the meter down to a crawl, even if you use a lot of electricity, which of course conservation- minded TAPPERs don't do, nor do they rip off, blah, blah, «+». This requires removing the meter. The meter simply pulls out with a little wiggling, but it is oftener than not clamped on tight with a ring of metal, which unscrews with @ Screwdriver. Sometimes an additional lock is put on the ring, called a rollersmith lock. You can't cut a roller- ‘smith lock, but you can make a "key" for it and take it off. ‘The insert shows how to pick this lock, Remove the ring by bending it slightly, then grab the meter with both hands and pull it straight out. The meter has prongs which fit into sockets on the wall panel. The electricity flows from one socket, into the meter, and out of the meter into the socket which leads up to your home. Now that the meter fs out the electricity is turned off, Now we have many choices open to us. We can: 1+ Turn the meter pointers backwards to some point. 2- Break the meter, or jam it up. 3- Bypass the meter with a jumper so the meter doesn't move. 4~ Bypass the meter with a thin jumper so the meter moves slower. 5- Turn the electricity on if it had been turned off. ‘TURNING BACK METER ‘This involves opening the meter case and moving the little dials with your hand, Often there will be a small wire with a lead seal that you have to break in order to open the case. Just cut it off, they never check anyway. ‘Then unscrew the glass case one-eighth of a turn, and femove the glass, turn the dials, and close it back up. Be ‘Sure to move the dials back to an actual number. This is a tricky thing to do, and you also have to make sure that you don't get your meter read with the reading less than it was before. If they see you used neqative electricity they may have a few questions for you. Get to know when the meter reader comes, how often and on what dates. After Meter he comes, read the meter, and turn it back to that point right before his next visit. Add a few token kilowatt-hours so they look like you went on a trip and left a clock on, Put the meter, ring, and a little dirt back on to make it look lonely. Be sure to push the meter in straight and firm. BREAKING OR JAMMING METER ‘This is dangerous because you can't control it precisely. Rather, you get an anarchistic situation which may result in the-meter burning up and the meter reader noticing it. Jamming the meter is accomplished by opening up the case and bending or rusting a few gears to make it stop or to slow down, Stopping the meter isn't reccommended because almost éverybody's meter is moving contimously and it may look suspicious if your meter is completely dead. But physically jamming the meter usually will stop it complete- ly rather than slow it down. A better way to slow it down is to install a shunt wire inside the meter. We'll show how it's done once we get a few meters from the readers to do research on. Meanwhile you can shunt the meter_outside of it's case. SHUNTING THE METER If we look at a diagram of how the electricity is fed thru the meter to your home, we See that a jumper wire from point A to point B could carry electricity around the meter. ‘Thus, it would be free. Since the wires in and around the meter are thick, our jumper wire will have to be thick to be able to carry all the electricity, so that none goes thru the meter. A piece of insulated #14 wire will do the trick, Remove your meter from the meter pan. The back of the meter will have prongs which plug into sockets in the pan. -Take a 9" piece of insulated solid copper wire, #14 or #16, Wrap it around the proper terminals, thereby bypassing the meter. In our N, Y, example with a 3-wire Westing- house meter (for places with both 110 and 220 volts), the proper terminals are the two vertically-oriented pairs. ‘There is a horizontal ground terminal; don't connect on to it with the jumpers, The jumpers may have to go to diff erent terminals on other different types of meters, and you can find out the proper terminals with a simple ohm- meter ($4 or less at electronics stores). Since the proper terminals to be shunted already have internal shunts, the obmmeter will measure less than 1 chm, between those terminals that are to be shunted by you, That means the meter will do the same thing as when you touch the two meter wires together when you hit the correct terminals to be shunted. In our example, jumping pins A and B will give you free 110, jumping pins C and D will give free 220. Pin E is ground, and don't jump that to anything. When in- stalling jumper wires, strip off the insulation 2" from the end and wrap it around the prong as shown. The wire must be wrapped around the part of the prong near the plastic base of the meter or it won't fit back into the sockets in the meter pan. Be sure the bare part of the wire touches only the proper prongs and stays clear of alll others. Now, carefully fit the prongs into the sockets and firmly push the meter into the pan. It may not go flush, but push it in and put the ring over the meter and screw it shut. Forget the lock if you removed one. What will happen now is that the shunt will bypass some PF of the electricity around your meter, but not all. The thin- ‘<~eae ner wires (#16) will only bypass some of the electricity. "8 The meter will run slower than it normally would. The "- =———~ larger wires (#14 or #12) will stop the meter almost com- FER REE CITY _ “ep ious and should only be done in fiscal emergencies. We'll let you know better and easier ways to bypass meters as soon as we hear from you about them. PICKING THE LOCK To make a key for a rollersmith lock, take a 2" nail, size 8D or slightly larger, and bend up the tip alittle as shown. You may have to tap it with a hammer to insert ita full inch and an eighth, Then use the bent tip to hook one of the rings inside. Pull the nail out very slowly and powerfully with a big pliers or visegrips. The spring in the lock is very hard and it will slip out a few times before you get it, but when itdoes the lock will open up. If you can't get it, just get @ hacksaw and cut the ring. . Bend Nail (Actual Size) X-Ray View of Lock “wy pletely. This is a mixed blessing, because it looks suspic- Wrap bare end of wire around prong RESTORING POWER ‘Two ways of commonly cutting removing your meter (Yeal) or by slipping little rubber sleeves over the prongs of the meter, thus preventing the prongs from contacting the sockets. off your electricity are a Prong To get around these methods is easy. Just put in another meter, or jump the socket with wires. If you do this, be prepared for a visit from a Electric Co. representative. Be ignorant but nice. "A jumper? What the heck is a jum- per?" Or you can jump the socket from behind the meter pan so that even if the meter is gone they won't see the wires. This will hopefully be explained in a future issue. To remove the plastic sleeves from the meter prongs is easy, but.they'll notice (maybe) that your meter reading is going up and your wheel is moving, so you should install jumpers too. In fact, ycu can leave on the sleeves and very carefully install the jumpers so the meter is dead but the jumpers are live. That may require some work, though. ANY IDEAS? Or, you can do the safest trip of all, and that's to steal it from your landlord. Only do this if you hate your land- lord, but of course don't do it anyway. Just tap the wires from a hall light or an outside light and run them into your apartment. The maximum current you can use is then det- Socket Adapter ~N Hall Light Extension Cord ermined by the fuse of the hall or outside light circuit. If you use too much current, the fuse will blow and you'll have to wait until it's replaced to get electricity from that circuit. When wiring.outside, use thick, weatherproof cable. All power wiring must be done intelligently. Otherwise you can have a fire. So here is how to figure your curfent demands: Each appliance you use eats up a certain number of watts, 110 volt appliances use 1 amp (or ampere) for every 100 watts of power. 220 volt appliances use 1/2 amp for ever 100.watts. You'll usually be using 110 volts, ‘so obtain #16 wire for handling up to 1000 watts, and #14 wire for 1000 watts or more. Hardware stores will have all the Plugs and sockets and wire you need with people who can show you how to hook it up. Hide all "tap" jobs by routing the wires through walls or above ceilings. Camouflaging sometimes helps. If you tap off of a hall light, be sure to replace the bulb each time it blows. If someone else does it they may see your handiwork. Whenever you do a tap job, pay attention to safety rules. If possible, turn off the circuit while you're working on it, Find the switch or the fuse that turns it off, If you must work on it while it's live, get a friend who knows how. It's dangerous, and one must use insulated tools and have enough dexterity to be able to work with gloves on. We suggest you find the fuse and have someone hold a flashlight. If anyone asks, you're just changing the bulb. Special thanks to George Metesky's double- DS Dear TAP, If anyone there is into short wave and has a receiver that can tune 17,436, 5 Kc. (ITT's frequency) for facsimile transmission, you can intercept all sorts of memos, schematics, etc. , by hooking it up to a Xerox 400 Tele- copier(rents for $50. a month). -ML, PENNSYLVANIA- Dear TAP, Two good books on sabotage: Beasty Business, {computer sabotage) $1.95 British Book Center, Ecotage_, (general sabotage), $1.95 Pocket Books. Also try Laissez-Faire Books, 208 Mercer St., N. ¥.,N.Y. -D., NY- RUMOR DEPT. We've heard that a certain Judge has declared that Phone Phreaks are only practicing "Malicious mischief" and can not be fined, We also heard that he has declared all fines already paid null and void and returned to Phreakee. Has anyone heard ‘his, and if so, would you send us what you can? (Newspaper articles, names of radio stations, etc.) DEFENSE FUND Abbie's defense fund is doing very poorly, probably be- cause of a few myths in peoples mints. One is that the new drug law in N.Y, went into effect after he was busted, So the penalties won't be that bad. But the penalty for cocaine dealing in Abbie's case is MINIMUM 15 years before par- ole. Maximum (and he may get it) is life. They didn't make that penalty any harsher with the new law, because cocaine was already classed with heroin. To a judye, all white pow- ders are just as dangerous, Well, that's one myth, but the other is that supposedly Abbie ripped off the movement.It's not surprisirg that our peers like to condemn prominent people, but Abbie is, in the minds of us at TAP, different. He did articles for us, gave us ideas(like raising our price to $2 so we'd siop losing money), helped us (by helping to get Captain Crunch in touch with us ) and contributed financially. He helped us more than any other single person outside of TAP, Without asking for his name on articles, without asking for publicity or thanks, without expecting anything in return, If you dig what we print, thank Abbie. Isn't it refrering to hear something nice about Abbie from people who know him? If you believe us, please send some money to Abbie Hoffman 2 Friends Defense Fund, 640 Broadway, N.¥.,N.Y. 10012. Don't send cash. Thanks, Published for informational purposes only by the Te HELP IS NEEDED We need more information on the following topics for upcoming articles in TAP. Free and Electr! - What types of moters do you have in your area, and can they catch on to you? ts- Have you heard any weird uses for magnets besides on bulletin boards? Locks- Code books, picking, drilling, tampering, etc. Vending Machines- Anything! Overseas Phone Phreaking -From or to overseas places. ‘Chemistry- Use your imagination. ‘Automatic Blue Boxes~ Can you believe no one's sent it? Dear TAP, 1am enclosing this little thought; though I am sure that no one would ever use it for illegal purposes, it is an inter- esting theory. In many of the older electric co, installat- ions I am told that the wheel they used was of a ferrous alloy, and I have heard of people who, at peak electrical periods (in evenings) attached a small but powerful magnet to either the top or the sides of the electrical meter and actually slowed the meter down so that they were in effect recieving free electricity. Unfortunately the newer meters have aluminum wheels, however the motors which turn them must still be affected by magnetism (and could poss- ibly be slowed?). Dear TAP, The part in your article that reads "Women are especially urged to take the course as they usually have a fear of ele- ctrical concepts..." should read something like "as they usually have been strongly discouraged from learning ele~ ctrical concepts." The problem is not women's timidity, but sex-role stereotyping. But it's good you mentioned women in particular. -S., D.C. Note: We should also mention that people of both sexes are strongly discouraged from learningclectronics so as to keep us technologically naive and sell us more expensive garbage. Also, of course, to prevent us from tampering with the system. And to keep people on different levels. Course B, Alternating Current is ready. The correspon- dence courses are 50¢ per course (free if you can't afford it). We think that after reading 6 of the courses you should be able to build any project that we've published. We're trying to make it a simple and fast way to learn to build clectronics. ‘The first course is Basic Electricity Course ;chnological American Party. RENEW if your address has a 13 or less next to it. TAP, ROOM 504, 152 W. 42 ST.,NY.,N.Y. 10036