The vermilion box is a hypothetical portable improvised line emulator. Its function is to

spoof Spoof, spoofs, spoofer, or spoofing may refer to: * Forgery of goods or documents * Semen, in Australian slang * Spoof (game), a guessing game * Spoofing (finance), a disruptive algorithmic-trading tactic designed to manipulate markets __NOTOC__ ...

not only

caller ID Caller identification (Caller ID) is a telephone service, available in analog and digital telephone systems, including voice over IP (VoIP), that transmits a caller's telephone number to the called party's telephone equipment when the call is ...

but every other aspect of an incoming telephone call, including ringing and DC line voltage. Typically, the user physically disconnects the target line from the telephone network, connects the vermilion box, and then proceeds to create a completely bogus telephone call. The vermilion box incorporates three more basic

phreaking Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. The term ''phreak'' is a ...

boxes: the

magenta box Ringing is a telecommunication signal that causes a bell or other device to alert a telephone subscriber to an incoming telephone call. Historically, this entailed sending a high-voltage alternating current over the telephone line to a customer stat ...

, which generates the AC ringing signal required to make the target telephone ring; the

orange box An orange box is a piece of hardware or software that generates caller ID frequency-shift keying (FSK) signals to spoof caller ID information on the target's caller ID terminal. See also * Blue box A blue box is an electronic device tha ...

, which generates

(although it is not a proper call-waiting caller ID orange box that is used but a modified orange box that generates on-hook (idle state) caller ID); and the

beige box In consumer computer products, a beige box is a standard personal computer (PC). It has come to be used as a term of derision implying conservative or dated aesthetics and unremarkable specifications. The term is ultimately derived from the styl ...

that is used to conduct the actual conversation. In addition, a DC power source is required to power the telephones on the target's line. This is a very risky and stealth-intensive technique that requires the user to physically connect to the target line, anywhere between the premises of the target and the local exchange. However, properly applied, it will result in an incoming call to the target line that is completely indistinguishable from a genuine call and which cannot possibly be traced. The vermilion box is named, following the tradition of naming phreaking boxes after colors, for a color (

vermilion Vermilion (sometimes vermillion) is a color, color family, and pigment most often made, since ancient history, antiquity until the 19th century, from the powdered mineral cinnabar (a form of mercury sulfide, which is toxic) and its correspondi ...

) that is similar to a combination of the color names of two of the component phreaking boxes from which this box is made: orange and magenta.

External links

The original Vermilion Box
{{Phreaking Boxes Phreaking boxes