5ESS.

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

Cellular One, McCaw Communications, upgraded and moved the Mobile Telephone Switching Office when they split from SATELCO, the San Antonio Telephone Company.
Anyhow, they left behind an entire number 5 Electronic Switching System!
The other location, on Broadway, has upgraded and now supports Grande Communications VoIP by Cable.
http://grandecom.com/index.php?kw=gr...FQtdswod9xcc2A
Just think, a bunch of hackers who now have unlimited access to a central office switch!
Originally built by AT&T and Paradyne/Pan American cellular group, depending on what cabinet you look at.
this is clearly a TelCo switch with MTSO duties added.
There are a lot of notes that explain the transition from AMPS to TDMA but was not upgraded past that.

[W4GPL]

[N7YA]

Well, Rudy, if YOU are well aware of it enough to put it on a ham radio site, then perhaps they have enough foresight to not be embarassed and will likely find a defense...if this is even an issue.

[WØTKX]

[kb2crk]

and how does this concern the real world?

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

Kevin Mitnick was Convicted of hacking the telephone system.
But after the dust settled Sun Microsystems released Solaris to the public, AT&T released Bellcore Unix and source code, and Motorola published documents it held.
The one key element that has never been published as a complete document was exactly how the 5 ESS works.
Kevin stole some manuals that were never made public with the argument that only an owner of a 5ESS should have access.
Needless to say telephone companies do not want this to be public information.
But if somebody were to somehow get hold of such a switch?
And it turns out that this is not the first time this has happened, in Canada somebody bought an old AutoVon switch building and quite a bit of the equipment was intact, Bell bought it from the DoD but the Canadian government said no to the sale to a US monopoly.
But with the end of AMPS (Analog cellular) and such this equipment will end up in the hands of the public at large.
Remember that a MTSO is a full telephone exchange with parts added.

[N2NH]

Yes, with the air running from one ear to the other.

[W4GPL]

Not that I'm concerned anyone would take Rudy seriously, but keep in mind this is a guy who only a few days ago referred to a 5E as a ESS5. Poserland is not lacking posers tonight.

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

Number 5 Electronic Switching System, sometimes called an E5 or ESS5 for short.
The next step past the crossbar switch that itself evolved from relay based common control to electronic (computer) common control.
This is by far the most common central office switching system in North America.
Since it is of a type that is in use there are security concerns, but security through obscurity is not the answer.
The cellular industry took a page from the Bell System and pushed for the scanner law.
With the breakup of the Bell System and TelMex most documents have been made available, 2600 has a complete set of Bell System practices manuals.
But to have a working switch, that is very unusual indeed.
And to make this clear, I had nothing to do with this latest find, it has been in the hands of the people in question since February of last year, I just decided to see what would happen on this forum.
Again, everything has been duplicated and a lot of photographs have been taken, boxes of notepads have been filled by dozens of volunteers.
The applications have been rewritten to allow them to run on some laptops to allow a simulation of this switch.
Prior to this access was quite limited but now that is all behind us.

[KC2UGV]

Hackers have always had access to CO switches, along with various other hardware. This really isn't news.