SMSing tips, tricks, and more phreaky stuff

INTRO:

OK so if you have unlimited texting you may find this useful...
Services such as Google, ChaCha.com, textmarks.com, and others have made SMS services so that individuals can find useful information on the go. Or stay in touch with their own services.

Some have begun calling SMS/cell phone texting the new terminal line. Back in the days before windows 95 and MS-DOS computers would log on to the internet using something called the telnet. Telnet was later upgraded to terminal to allow encryption. Basically think of it as a text editor that talks back to you using ACSII art. In most cases you would have to dial a number and be connected using a login and password.

As you can imagine, hackers, which at the time were really phreakers (people that hack phone lines) began hacking the terminal lines. They dialed into lines they shouldn't began building software to gain access ect. Telnet and terminal lines are still used today, however they are very insecure and normally are used over the Ethernet internet lines, not so much regular phone lines.

One thing that should be noted that when using these SMS messaging services is that anything you text allows the server to see your phone number... also most services allow you to text help to find the list of commands you can use.

Main:

***GOOGLE***
TEXT NUM: 466453 (GOOGLE)


Search Feature.......Sample Query


Local.................. sushi 94040
Weather.............w boston
Glossary............d zenith
Sports **............score red sox
Movies............movies 94110
Stocks............stock tgt
Zip Codes............zip code 72202
Directions............directions pasadena ca to 94043
Maps .................map 5th avenue new york
Flights ***................flight aa 2111
Area Codes...............area code 650
Products..................price ipod player 40gb
Q&A...................... abraham lincoln birthday
Airlines ***............united airlines
Translation............translate hello in french
Web Snippets............web hubble telescope
Calculator............. 1 us pint in liters
Currency Conversion........ 8 usd in yen
Airports ***............... sfo airport
METAR**** ................. metar khio
Help..................... help local

Source: http://www.google.com/mobile

*** GOOGLE Calendar ****
NUM: 48368 (GVENT)

This allows you to update your events on your google calendar right from your phone, note you need to sign up first

1. by going to calendar.google.com while logged in.
2. clicking settings
3. and then selecting mobile.

add event...."Shopping with Sarah at Monterey Market 5pm Saturday,"
request your next scheduled event............................. next
request all of your scheduled events for the present day...... day
request your events scheduled for the following day........... nday

Source: http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=37228

*** Facebook ***
NUM 32665 (FBOOK)

Many Social engeneering websites are stepping the ways users can access their information to help them compete facebook allows you to use your mobile phone to watch who send you a message on your wall, writes you a status comment,
or messages you. You can customize the ammount of messages when you set it up by....

1. going to http://www.facebook.com/mobile/?ref=sb
2. putting in your phone number,
3. waiting for a text
4. putting that text in the box on facebook
5. customizing the events you wish to know about.

Next you can use the following commands to find out about your friends or change your status:
just send a text to facebook to change your status
to search for a friend....... srch
info on a friend............. info
help on commands............. help
For both of these

message a friend............. using search or info find the 32665XX number of your friend (each user on facebook has their own texting number)
Then send a text to 32665XX, and the message will show up in their inbox the next time they log in.

Also, when you get events such as status message comments or a wall post messaging back the number that shows up on your phone. (once again it will be
some 32665XX number) will put your message on the corresponding comment or wall post.

***ChaCha***
NUM: 242242 (CHACHA)

This service works by you simply texting them a question and then in about 10 to 15 min a live human will search the web and return an answer.

Source: http://www.ChaCha.com

***Textmarks***
NUM 41411

This one has to be my favorite texting service, it literally has hundreds options of custom services to let you find what you need from the net. If you don't find what you want, you can always create a custom text service. I was really impressed by the speed of their servers too.

Some of my favorite SMS's from this service are:
Find the name and address of a landline's phone number.......PHLOOK
return a fake name and phone number of a person........ FAKE
Hide your phone number when texting.................... anon
Ping a server to see if it is up on your phone......... PING

Source: http://www.textmarks.com

End notes:

These are only a few of the services out there that provide texting feedback. I know Myspace can do the same as Facebook and that their are other services that allow you to interact more. One neat tool that I played around for a while was the instant messaging program trillian, it allows you to specify words in IM and perform acts on a PC from those words. At one time as a proof of concept I used the command cmd /c batchfile.bat to run a the code "shutdown.exe" which shutdown the computer any time I IMed via my phone.(textmarks would allow you to do this without having IM on your phone). It expanded to the point were I would lock, shutdown or reboot any PC on the targeted network.

So here is the deal, as you can probably see I only have so much time to post anymore if you think the above method to control your home network would be something interesting you want to know how to do. Leave a comment and I will see what I can do :-). Or if you have a useful SMS service you know about you an post that too. (Linkbacks welcome)