Hacking COSMOS by Someone Who HAS

by P-80

I have seen many philes written on COSMOS in which all they did was to Copy the information out of a COSMOS manual they found while trashing. This tutorial will have some information from the manual, but mainly was written using information of first-hand experience while on the system.

COSMOS - COMPUTERIZED SYSTEM FOR MAINFRAME OPERATIONS.

COSMOS, is a wire center administration system for subscriber services. Or put another way: an inter-office memo sender. Its primary objectives are:

1. To relieve the problems of congestion and long cross connection on the Main Distributing Frame (MFD).
2. To improve entity load balance and customer line equipment distribution accross the WireCenters switching equipment.
3. To provide an accurate and readily accessible data base for use by all AT&T departments.
4. The Loop Assigment Office (LAC) uses it to generate orders for RAM use.

Each Telco has it's own COSMOS system usually one in each Area Code.

CAPABILITIES

COSMOS is POWER with it you can find out alot of info such as:

Give COSMOS a number and it will tell you who it's billed to, who it's listed under, what types of service they have (touch tone, rotary, flat rate etc.).

If a person changes their fone number you can find out what it was changed to.

You can find out numbers by giving COSMOS thier name, even unpublished phone numbers!

RISKS

Once unauthorized logins are detected, the COSMOS phone number(s) will be changed immediately! Its no big deal for them to change the number, they just send out a letter to thier offices saying it's changed. But they probably throw away those papers and you will be able to find a lot of interesting inpho by trashing. Also, most or all calls to COSMOS are traced, or the number has ANI equipment hooked up to it, so be careful!

IDENTIFICATION

COSMOS logins and proceedures vary from area to area. Some ask for just the login and password without a WireCenter, others require it. The phollowing information is based on Southern Bell's COSMOS system. To Identify a COSMOS system after connecting you will see:

;LOGIN:
PASSWORD:
WC?

The ;LOGIN: is the username, which usually consists of two letters and two numbers i.e.: PA52. Sometimes NAME: is substituted for, or is required with ;LOGIN: again it depends on what system you are on. Next it will ask for the PASSWORD: which depending on the system, has different formats for passwords. Some make a little sense like BASE52 while others may be eight random characters. Last thing you will see is the WireCenter. A WireCenter is usually an abbreviation of the city that it covers. Such as OA for OAkland or PP for Pembroke Pines, in any case it is two letters. The WireCenter will cover a certain amount of prefixes. And you will not be able to look up other phone #'s unless the prefixes are in the specific WireCenter. The prompt for Cosmos is the WireCenter and a % sign. IE: WC% where WC is the Wire Center you are logged in as. If you do happen to get ahold of a login and password, but the system still asks for a WireCenter, then you can tell what are valid WireCenters by when it asks for login & password, then the WireCenter and you enter a wrong WC the system will respond with:

;LOGIN: PA52
PASSWORD:
WC?XX
WC??
INVALID LOGIN

If you noticed, WC?? came after the WireCenter, now if you had a valid WC, it would just say INVALID LOGIN after the WC without the WC??.IE:

;LOGIN:PA52
PASSWORD:
WC?OA
INVALID LOGIN

That would mean you have the correct WC, but incorrect password. If all goes well you will get OA% as the prompt for whatever your WC is.

TRANSACTION CODES

COSMOS has a set of three letter commands called Transaction Codes which tell the system what to do. They enable you to view, modify, or add information about telephone numbers, class of service, Operating Exchanges, etc.

Here is a brief description of the most commonly used Transaction codes:

CAY - Create an Assembly
CCA - Change Customer Attributes
DAY - Delete an Assembly
DRE - Deny and Restore Establishment
FLR - Frame Layout Report
ISH - Inquire about a Ciruit <-phone #
LOE - List Originating line Equipment
MAL - Manual Assignment List
MAY - Modify An Assebly
MCH - Manually Change Hunt
MDC - Manually Disconnect a Ciruit
SCA - Service Order Complection - Auto
SIR - Sorting Inquiry by Range
SLC - Subscriber Line Counts for
Custom Calling Features
USL - List USOC (US) File Data
WCC - Wire Center Change

Here's an example of a transaction, using ISH (Inquire about a circuit) which gives information about a telephone number.

WC% ISH
H TN 935-2481
_.

It will then print various information about the phone # 935-2481. But it is doubtful you will understand since it is all abbreviated. I will explain everything in Part II.After printing the info about the #, COSMOS will say:

** ISH Completed 20-JUN-84 **

When using certain commands, there are various lines to be used. Some are:

H-Line --Required in most transactions for order, inquiry, and report data.

I-Line --Transaction involves inward movement (i.e.: installing a phone).

O-Line --Transaction involves outware movement (i.e.: disconnecting a phone).

R-Line -- Used for making remarks to service or work orders. A H-Line was used in this example.

To signify the end of input for most commands type "." w/out quotes. You use a ";" to separate ciruits, which is good when you (or the Phone Co.) has to enter massive amounts of info.

PREFIXES, FORMATS AND CODE VALUES

COSMOS provides a language by means of which the user can communicate with the system. The language includes various prefixes as well as input formats and input values.

PREFIXES are abbreviations which represent specific data categories to the system when input by the user. An example of a prefix is "TN" which means "Telephone Number". An input format defines the number of characters following a prefix as well as the pattern in which these must be entered For example, "TN XXX-XXXX" means that the prefix "TN" must be followed by seven characters in the format shown.

INPUT VALUES are the allowable data entered for each prefix in the correct input format. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, the input format for the prefix "TN" IS "TN XXX-XXXX". The first three characters (XXX) must be alphanumeric; the last four (XXXX) must be numeric. So, COSMOS would consider an input of "TN 935-2481" as valid input. But you *must* use the correct WireCenter for the (XXX) in question. In HACKING COSMOS PART II I will have a list of the most commonly used prefixes, formats and prefix code values which enable you to read and understand COSMOS Transactions.

COSNIX

COSNIX is a mutated version of COSMOS and UNIX both written by Bell Labs. COSNIX, is the operating system of the COSMOS system.

SYSTEM COMMANDS

As some of you will notice,if you read the basics of Hacking II- VAX's UNIX, by The Knights Of Shadow, a lot of the commands used on UNIX are also used on COSMOS.

Commands are as phollows:

WHERE - gives location of the system: this command can be *VERY* useful since you can go TRASHING at the location that the center is at.

WC% WHERE

COSMOS 5 <- or whatever # it is.
street address
city, state zip

WHAT - tells what version of COSNIX the system is running on.

WC% WHAT

COSNIX operating system 9.2.3 release
December 7,1983
14.2.2
March 1,1984

Just like on a UNIX, to see who else is on the system type:

WC% WHO

COM3TT00  GB
FW56TT04  HH
PA52TT12  PZ
FC55TT14  OA
RS52TT15  PZ

In the first column is the username, the next is thier tt#, and last is the WireCenter.

To see what files are in the directory you are logged in on, type:

WC% LS

To see *All* files you have access to:

WC% LS /*

Files and Paths will be explained in detail in PARTS II, III.

DATE - Simply gives the Date

TTY

WC% TTY<-Will give you the TeleTypwriter number you logged on as.

Using Control-C will Interrupt any process you are executing at the time. Sometimes you will have to enter it more than once. Ctrl-S pauses Ctrl-Q restarts and Ctrl-Y logs you off.

Thats it for PART I, it should give you a basic understanding of COSMOS. Part II will explain the prefixes so you will be able to interpret alot of the information printed by COSMOS. And will explain paths/files.