The Phone Losers of America (PLA) is a small phreaking group whose knowledge, coupled with humor and general mischief, set it apart in the underground hacking scene. While there is no real founding date, the official web site went up in 1994, with the PLA e-zine being written in 1990.
The E-zine
The PLA e-zine was originally distributed electronically via a dial-up BBS, with an option to buy the magazine and have it shipped by mail. It is not recommended that anyone follow any instructions in any article, as they are not only funny but usually illegal.
Listed below are the five most read issues, along with short summaries.
Issue #1: Hacking a WWIV BBS
Read this issue
The first issue is a parody of the common "how-to-hack" articles being distributed at that time. The humor in this article is that the word "hack" refers to an axe, and that the seemingly absurd methods to gain access to a WWIV BBS did not exceed the difficulty of actually breaking into such a system (although there are no files on how to break into the WWIV BBS).
Issue #3: Revenge
Read this issue
This issue frequently finds itself into Internet discussions in response to a person seeking revenge. The methods in this article are written with incredible detail, which include:
- Cancelling a person's credit cards.
- Forwarding a person's phone number.
- Putting enticing yet fake For Sale/For Rent classifieds in the local newspaper.
- Reporting a person in response to "unknown suspects" listed in the police blotter.
- Rewiring a person's car to trigger the horn whenever the brakes are applied.
Issue #14: Cordless Phone Hell
Read this issue
The first "victim" of the PLA, Dino Allsman, is repeatedly harassed using a radio scanner and transmitter to interfere with his cordless phone. Most cordless telephones on the market today have some form of encryption mechanism to prevent people from doing what is done in this issue.
Issue #19: Fun with Call Forwarding
Read this issue
The telephone service known as Call Forwarding is explained in detail in this issue, along with methods of ordering it discreetly and passing the costs to someone else. Ways to set up a teleconference are also touched upon, along with ways to divert the costs to another phone line.
Issue #24: Dabbling in Credit Card Fraud
Read this issue
This issue describes how the author would go about getting credit card numbers, along with how to cover up one's tracks when committing credit card fraud. The author, however, was eventually caught and forced to pay restitution and serve a short jail sentence. To this day, though, people do refer to this issue, and the author has even gotten e-mails from Nigeria asking him for advice and credit card numbers.
Red Boxing
In PLA Issue #2, RBCP shows how one can modify a Radio Shack "tone dialer", originally meant to give rotary phones the ability to use DTMF ("Touch-Tone™"), to generate the correct frequencies to emulate a red box. From the first "red boxing" text file up to the early 1990's, the only way to make a red box was to wire one from scratch using circuit schematics. This incredibly simple hack allowed people with little or no knowledge in circuitry to manufacture their own toll fraud device.
Radio Shack discontinued their tone dialer and most payphones in the United States can no longer be red-boxed.
Phone Mobbing
Phone Mobbing is the act of having a large group of people continuously call the same phone number or group of phone numbers in an attempt to harass and annoy the called party.
Read about the PLA's phone mobbing adventures
Self-professed members of the PLA have targeted large media groups, including Loveline on MTV, where they prank call Jimmy Kimmel of Crank Yankers, and Hannity and Colmes on Fox News, where they yelled R-rated expletives to describe George W. Bush on an openly conservative television station.
Cal's Forums
Cal's Forums or the Phone Loser Community Forums is the forum for the PLA. The forum has many member who talk about prank calls to off-topic discussion, future phone mobbings, hacking, and prank calls.
Cal's Forums replaces the old FruitWare Forums that used to be the orginal forums for the PLA.
PLA Voice Bridge
The PLA also hosts a voice bridge at 413-370-0333 ext. 752. There are daily confrences from 8pm EST to 12am EST. The voice bridge is very active during this time which can be noticed, with many people talk and background noise such as soundboards, which many of users frown on.
Sometime the bridge will be interuppted by trolls who ruin the conservation and will fill the line with noise. Because of this some of callers will move to a diffrent confrence. Recently, members of Cal's Forums have founded the Anti Voice Bridge Cruelty Society, who want to try and stop the annoying nonsense occurring on the voice bridge.
External Links
