The Anarchist Cookbook (40 page)

the cost was. Telegrams, like phone calls, could be sent collect or billed third party. If you

had an account with Western Union, i.e. a Telex machine in your office, you could charge

the calls there, but most likely you would simply send the telegram from there in the first

place.

Sometime in the early 1960's, Western Union filed suit against AT&T asking that they

turn over their TWX business to them. They cited an earlier court ruling, circa 1950's,

which said AT&T was prohibited from acquiring any more telephone operating companies

except under certain conditions. The Supreme Court agreed with Western Union that

"spoken messages" were the domain of Ma Bell, but "written messages" were the domain of

Western Union. So Bell was required to divest itself of the TWX network, and Western

Union has operated it since, although a few years ago they began phasing out the phrase

"TWX" in favor of "Telex II"; their original device being "Telex I" of course. TWX still

uses ten digit dialing with 610 (Canada) or 710/910 (USA) being the leading three digits.

Apparently 410-510 have been abandoned; or at least they are used very little, and

Bellcore has assigned 510 to the San Francisco area starting in a year or so. 410 still has

some funny things on it, like the Western Union "Infomaster," which is a computer that

functions like a gateway between Telex, TWX, EasyLink and some other stuff.

Today, the Western Union network is but a skeleton of its former self. Now most of their

messages are handled on dial up terminals connected to the public phone network. It has

been estimated the TWX/Telex business is about fifty percent of what it was a decade

ago, if that much.

Then there was the Time Service, a neat thing which Western Union offered for over

seventy years, until it was discontinued in the middle 1960's. The Time Service provided an

important function in the days before alternating current was commonly available. For

example, Chicago didn't have AC electricity until about 1945. Prior to that we used DC, or

direct current.

Well, to run an electric clock, you need 60 cycles AC current for obvious reasons, so prior

to the conversion from DC power to AC power, electric wall clocks such as you see in every

office were unheard of. How were people to tell the time of day accurately? Enter the

Western Union clock.

The Western Union, or "telegraph clock" was a spring driven wind up clock, but with a

difference. The clocks were "perpetually self-winding," manufactured by the Self-Winding

Clock Company of New York City. They had large batteries inside them, known as

"telephone cells" which had a life of about ten years each. A mechanical contrivance in the

clock would rotate as the clock spring unwound, and once each hour would cause two metal

clips to contact for about ten seconds, which would pass juice to the little motor in the

clock which in turn re-wound the main spring. The principle was the same as the battery

operated clocks we see today. The battery does not actually run the clock -- direct

current can't do that -- but it does power the tiny motor which re-winds the spring which

actually drives the clock.

The Western Union clocks came in various sizes and shapes, ranging from the smallest dials

which were nine inches in diameter to the largest which were about eighteen inches in

diameter. Some had sweep second hands; others did not. Some had a little red light bulb

on the front which would flash. The typical model was about sixteen inches, and was found

in offices, schools, transportation depots, radio station offices, and of course in the

telegraph office itself.

The one thing all the clocks had in common was their brown metal case and cream-colored

face, with the insignia "Western Union" and their corporate logo in those days which was a

bolt of electricity, sort of like a letter "Z" laying on its side. And in somewhat smaller

print below, the words "Naval Observatory Time."

The local clocks in an office or school or wherever were calibrated by a "master clock"

(actually a sub-master) on the premises. Once an hour on the hour, the (sub) master clock

would drop a metal contact for just a half second, and send about nine volts DC up the line

to all the local clocks. They in turn had a "tolerance" of about two minutes on both sides of

the hour so that the current coming to them would yank the minute hand exactly upright

onto the twelve from either direction if the clock was fast or slow.

The sub-master clocks in each building were in turn serviced by the master clock in town;

usually this was the one in the telegraph office. Every hour on the half hour, the master

clock in the telegraph office would throw current to the sub-masters, yanking them into

synch as required. And as for the telegraph offices themselves, they were serviced twice a

day by -- you guessed it -- the Naval Observatory Master clock in Our Nation's Capitol, by

the same routine.

Someone there would press half a dozen buttons at the same time, using all available

fingers; current would flow to every telegraph office and synch all the master clocks in

every community. Western Union charged fifty cents per month for the service, and

tossed the clock in for free! Oh yes, there was an installation charge of about two dollars

when you first had service (i.e. a clock) installed.

The clocks were installed and maintained by the "clockman," a technician from Western

Union who spent his day going around hanging new clocks, taking them out of service,

changing batteries every few years for each clock, etc.

What a panic it was for them when "war time" (what we now call Daylight Savings Time)

came around each year! Wally, the guy who serviced all the clocks in downtown Chicago had

to start on *Thursday* before the Sunday official changeover just to finish them all by

*Tuesday* following. He would literally rush in an office, use his screwdriver to open the

case, twirl the hour hand around one hour forward in the spring, (or eleven hours

*forward* in the fall since the hands could not be moved backward beyond the twelve

going counterclockwise), slam the case back on, screw it in, and move down the hall to the

next clock and repeat the process. He could finish several dozen clocks per day, and

usually the office assigned him a helper twice a year for these events.

He said they never bothered to line the minute hand up just right, because it would have

taken too long, and ".....anyway, as long as we got it within a minute or so, it would synch

itself the next time the master clock sent a signal..." Working fast, it took a minute to a

minute and a half to open the case, twirl the minute hand, put the case back on, "stop and

BS with the receptionist for a couple seconds" and move along.

The master clock sent its signal over regular telco phone lines. Usually it would terminate

in the main office of whatever place it was, and the (sub) master there would take over at

that point.

Wally said it was very important to do a professional job of hanging the clock to begin

with. It had to be level, and the pendulum had to be just right, otherwise the clock would

gain or lose more time than could be accommodated in the hourly synching process. He said

it was a very rare clock that actually was out by even a minute once an hour, let alone the

two minutes of tolerance built into the gear works.

"...Sometimes I would come to work on Monday morning, and find out in the office that the

clock line had gone open Friday evening. So nobody all weekend got a signal. Usually I

would go down a manhole and find it open someplace where one of the Bell guys messed it

up, or took it off and never put it back on. To find out where it was open, someone in the

office would 'ring out' the line; I'd go around downtown following the loop as we had it laid

out, and keep listening on my headset for it. When I found the break or the open, I would

tie it down again and the office would release the line; but then I had to go to all the

clocks *before* that point and restart them, since the constant current from the office

during the search had usually caused them to stop."

But he said, time and again, the clocks were usually so well mounted and hung that "...it was

rare we would find one so far out of synch that we had to adjust it manually. Usually the

first signal to make it through once I repaired the circuit would yank everyone in town to

make up for whatever they lost or gained over the weekend..."

In 1965, Western Union decided to discontinue the Time Service. In a nostalgic letter to

subscribers, they announced their decision to suspend operations at the end of the current

month, but said "for old time's sake" anyone who had a clock was welcome to keep it and

continue using it; there just would not be any setting signals from the master clocks any

longer.

Within a day or two of the official announcement, every Western Union clock in the

Chicago area headquarters building was gone. The executives snatched them off the wall,

and took them home for the day when they would have historical value. All the clocks in

the telegraph offices disappeared about the same time, to be replaced with standard

office-style electric wall clocks.

128.Phrack Magazine - Vol. 3, Issue 30 by Synthecide

There are literally hundreds of systems connected to some of these larger networks, like

Tymnet and Telenet. Navigation around these networks is very simple, and usually well

explained in their on-line documentation. Furthermore, some systems will actually tell you

what is connected and how to get to it. In the case of Tymnet, after dialing in, at the log

in prompt, type "information" for the on-line documentation.

Accessing systems through networks is as simple as providing an address for it to connect

to. The best way to learn about the addresses and how to do things on a network is to read

"A Novice's Guide to Hacking (1989 Edition)" which was in Issue 22, File 4 of 12, Volume

Two (December 23, 1988). Some points are reiterated here.

Once on a network, you provide the NUA (network user address) of the system you wish to

connect to. NUAs are strings of 15 digits, broken up in to 3 fields, the NETWORK

ADDRESS, the AREA PREFIX, and the DNIC. Each field has 5 digits, and are left padded

with 0's where necessary.

The DNIC determines which network to take the address from. Tymnet, for example, is

03106. 03110 is Telenet.

The AREA PREFIX and NETWORK ADDRESS determine the connection point. By providing

the address of the system that you wish to connect to, you will be accessing it through the

net... as if you were calling it directly. Obviously, then, this provides one more level of

security for access. By connecting to an outdial, you can increase again the level of

security you enjoy, by using the outdial in that area to connect to the remote system.

Addendum -- Accessing Tymnet Over Local Packet Networks

This is just another way to get that extra step and/or bypass other routes. This table is

copied from Tymnet's on-line information. As said earlier, it's a great resource, this on-

line information!

BELL ATLANTIC

NODECITYSTATESPEEDACCESS

NUMBERNETWORK
03526DOVERDELAWARE300/2400302/734-

9465@PDN03526GEORGETOWNDELAWARE300/2400302/856-

7055@PDN03526NEWARKDELAWARE300/2400302/366-

0800@PDN03526WILMINGTONDELAWARE300/1200302/428-

0030@PDN03526WILMINGTONDELAWARE2400302/655-

1144@PDN06254WASHINGTONDIST. OF COL.300/1200202/479-

7214@PDN06254WASHINGTON(MIDTOWN)DIST. OF COL.2400202/785-

1688@PDN06254WASHINGTON(DOWNTOWN)DIST. OF COL.300/1200202/393-

6003@PDN06254WASHINGTON(MIDTOWN)DIST. OF COL.300/1200202/293-

4641@PDN06254WASHINGTONDIST. OF COL.300/1200202/546-

5549@PDN06254WASHINGTONDIST. OF COL.300/1200202/328-

0619@PDN06254BETHESDAMARYLAND300/1200301/986-

9942@PDN06254COLESVILLEMARYLAND300/2400301/989-

9324@PDN06254HYATTSVILLEMARYLAND300/1200301/779-

9935@PDN06254LAURELMARYLAND300/2400301/490-

9971@PDN06254ROCKVILLEMARYLAND300/1200301/340-9903@PDN06254SILVER

SPRINGMARYLAND300/1200301/495-9911@PDN07771BERNARDSVILLENEW

JERSEY300/2400201/766-7138@PDN07771CLINTONNEW JERSEY300-1200201/730-

8693@PDN07771DOVERNEW JERSEY300/2400201/361-

9211@PDN07771EATONTOWN/RED BANKNEW JERSEY300/2400201/758-

8000@PDN07771ELIZABETHNEW JERSEY300/2400201/289-

5100@PDN07771ENGLEWOODNEW JERSEY300/2400201/871-

3000@PDN07771FREEHOLDNEW JERSEY300/2400201/780-

8890@PDN07771HACKENSACKNEW JERSEY300/2400201/343-

9200@PDN07771JERSEY CITYNEW JERSEY300/2400201/659-

3800@PDN07771LIVINGSTONNEW JERSEY300/2400201/533-0561@PDN07771LONG

BRANCH/RED BANKNEW JERSEY300/2400201/758-8000@PDN07771MADISONNEW

JERSEY300/2400201/593-0004@PDN07771METUCHENNEW

JERSEY300/2400201/906-9500@PDN07771MIDDLETOWNNEW

JERSEY300/2400201/957-9000@PDN07771MORRISTOWNNEW

JERSEY300/2400201/455-0437@PDN07771NEWARKNEW JERSEY300/2400201/623-