Blueboxing how-to question

So I've read up on Blueboxing, looked at what some people say about phreaking and have determined that blueboxing may be possible everywhere, may be possible nowhere, may be possible some places, may be a way for me to instantly get arrested, or may just be a way for me to call a payphone in canada for free to see what's up. I'm tired of trying to figure out which is right and which is wrong. Some people have said blueboxing as it was 20 years ago is still very much possible on older style phones.

So I've decided, f*** with it, I'm not going to do this asking around anymore to figure out if blueboxing is still possible. I'll just try it out myself on some local payphones(most of which are ancient in my area). Then I can see for myself whether or not blueboxing works. If it doesn't work I'll move on to some other form of phreaking, but for now I want to try this just for the heck of it.

My questions for some of you who know what your doing are these:

1: I've got the blue box. I call a number, and then send the 2600hz tone down the reciever to make the phone company think the call is dropped. Then using the box I dial the appropriate numbers to reconnect with the other person, or another number. Is this correct? I've found it difficult to find any good how-to on blueboxing that covers more than building the box.

2: I know this means I'm not a true phreaker, but does it make a difference if I were to use a computer tone generator(or even a WAV file on an MP3 player) rather than building the blue box? I want to build one, but only if I can get blue boxing to work. If I need the actually Bbox then I'll work on one though.

3: I guess I'll throw this one out there…does blue boxing still work?

In the United States and other modern phone networks (like the UK or Japan), blueboxing no longer works. The tones used to traverse the teleco trunking systems are no longer used, and have been replaced with more modern electronic signalling systems.

Blueboxing was initally developed to pass from one telephone network trunking system to another. In those days, you had to dial an access number in order to make the jump from say the US telco trunk to say…Russian trunk. Which is why in those days, you had to have an operator place alot of international calls for you. A blue box can be used to dial to different phone numbers within your own NPA, but that is not what it was designed for…to that end, most phreaks used a redbox.

http://www.textfiles.com/phreak/BLUEBOXING/dialing.txt this is a very good FAQ on how to use the in-band signalling to get from one country's trunk to another…TEXTFILES.com (the best website on earth).

In response to question #2…it is possible to use an MP3 player to create your bluebox, but the fact that you want to build one is very good. The only problem you may run into in trying to build-from-scratch a bluebox is that it is a little difficult to get your hands on the RF Ocillating crystals used to generate the tones. Radioshack still carries them in their catalog, but the last attempt I made at buying some for a project, I was asked for a Radio Technician license. I am assuming that the HAM Radio Technician license would suffice, but I am not sure. Possessing RF crystals of those frequency without a RT License is definitely illegial and is the reason why Bernie S. was imprisoned in the 90's. http://www.2600.com/law/bernie.html

Thank you. That's just the kind of definate answer I was hoping for. Everything I've been reading has said it might work or might not depending on the area and make of the phone. I think it would still be enjoyable to make a blue box if only for the heck of building something.

I imagine my confusion comes from the fact that everything I've been able to find thus far is either very old, or based off of the old information(ergo worthless as well).

The most credible information comes from someone who has actually done it before :P

My feeling is that alot of people who do not know have been spreading alot of mis-information, being that phreaking is an acquired taste. Most people do not delve into it much these days because they all think it is dead…whatever. Phreaking isn't dead, it has just changed and no one has explored the system like the phreaks of the old days did. It's just like if everyone in the world stopped using windows…all these skiddies (I mean "Hackers") would have to learn Mac and Linux inside and out. All the windows information would be obsolete and picked-up by people going for joy of the old days.