or Toilet paper crisis in Los Angeles
As told by Cap'n Crunch, legendary phone phreak, from webcrunchers.com/crunch.
"I had mapped every 800 number that terminated in Wash DC, by scanning
the entire 800-424 prefix, which then indicated Wash DC. That "scan"
found an impressive amount of juicy numbers that allowed free access to Congressional
phone lines, special White House access numbers, etc.
While scanning the 800-424, I got this dude that had a real attitude that
caught my attention and persuaded me to be determined to find out who it was.
This time I call back and said "This is White Plains tandem office for ATT,
which subscriber have we reached?" this person said "This is the
White House CIA Crisis hot line!" "Oh! " I said, and then
said "We're having problem with crossed lines, now that I know who this is,
I can fix it, thank you for your time, good-bye!"
(...)
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, telexes and in this case, the CIA Crisis line.
Next we got into the 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."