Phone Phreaking: The Advent of Hacking

The notoriety of phone phreaking began in the mid-20th century as tech-savvy individuals discovered methods to manipulate the automated telephone network system.

Phone phreaking emerged in the 1950s and 1960s as a way to exploit vulnerabilities in the newly automated telephone network.

Before the 1950s, manual telephone switchboard operators prevented phreaking by directly connecting calls, but the introduction of automated switches using multi-frequency tones left the system open to manipulation.

The golden age of phreaking spanned from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, coinciding with the replacement of manual switchboard operators by automatic switches. The inventors of the automatic switch, created in the 19th century due to a personal vendetta involving a mortician, did not anticipate that the tones guiding these switches could be replicated by something as simple as a human voice or a toy whistle. This meant that before these technologies, the manual attention of phone operators prevented such exploitation because any odd behavior, such as whistling, would have been immediately noticed.

The automated telephone network operated on a system that used multi-frequency tones, which could be triggered by pressing the numbers on a phone. These tones executed specific actions within the network, such as connecting calls over trunk lines. Each trunk line was designed to carry one voice from a location to another. By emulating the tones, it allowed phreakers to gain control over the system.

Key techniques of phreakers included whistling the specific 2600 Hz tone to mimic a hung-up phone, using "blue boxes" to generate the tones needed to make free long-distance calls, and exploiting "trunk lines" that connected different telephone offices.

Phone phreaks exploited this system by replicating tones that instructed the phone system to perform actions such as connecting a call. Most notably, phreakers could mimic the 2600 Hz tone, which fooled the system into thinking the phone was on the hook. If done during a call to an 800 number, which would not incur charges, the phreak could afterward dial another number, granting free long-distance access. The use of "blue boxes" became infamous. These devices allowed phreakers to generate the necessary tones to conduct free long-distance calls, without ...

Phone phreaking, the exploratory hobby of hacking into the telephone system, was pioneered and spread by a number of technical-minded enthusiasts. Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant discuss the impact of key figures such as Joe Ingresia and John "Captain Crunch" Draper on this early form of technological exploration.

Early pioneers of phone phreaking like Joe Ingresia and John "Captain Crunch" Draper helped discover and spread the techniques.

Ingresia, a blind man, could perfectly recreate the 2600 Hz tone by whistling, while Draper discovered the whistle in Cap'n Crunch cereal could do the same.

Ingresia, who went by the handle Joybubbles, was an early pioneer of phone phreaking with a remarkable ability to whistle the 2600 Hz signal that controlled the phone system, demonstrating his perfect pitch. Alongside Ingresia was John Draper, also known as Cap'n Crunch, who discovered that a whistle given away in a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal, when modified, could emit the same crucial 2600 Hz tone.

These phreakers formed a curious, technical-minded community that shared knowledge and experimented to understand the inner workings of the phone system.

Clark and Bryant highlight the formation of a community of phone phreakers who were united by their curiosity and technical skills. The spread of the master tones through publications and sharing among the community made phone phreaking more accessible and expanded this network of technically gifted individuals who were intent on pushing the boundaries of the telephone system.

The 1971 Esquire magazine article "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" by Ron Rosenbaum helped popularize phone phreaking and brought it to a wider audience.

The article provided enough technical details to intrigue readers and inspire them to explore phone phreaking further, including future Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak.

Ron Rosenbaum's article "Secrets of ...

The transition from phone phreaking to hacker culture in the 1970s and 1980s laid the foundation for the technological advances and challenges we face in our connected world today. Josh Clark and others have provided insights into how this shift from exploiting telephone systems to pioneering in the realm of computing occurred.

As phone phreakers gained more sophisticated abilities to manipulate the phone network, their activities laid the groundwork for the emerging hacker culture of the 1970s and 1980s.

Phone phreakers, the earliest hackers, were driven by curiosity. They wanted to explore the intricacies of the telephone system, which at the time was the most sophisticated communication network. Their fascination wasn't with creating havoc but with understanding a hidden world.

Phone phreakers often used their skills to explore the inner workings of the phone system out of curiosity rather than malicious intent, exhibiting the mindset of early hackers.

Phone phreakers embodied the same curiosity and drive to explore as early hackers. They sought to understand the unseen mechanisms of the phone system and often did so by attempting to break it. However, their intent was generally not malicious; they were driven by a quest for knowledge, leading them to push the boundaries of the system's capabilities.

Many prominent early hackers, including the founders of Apple, were influenced by and involved in the phone phreaking scene, transitioning their skills from exploiting the phone network to exploring the new frontier of computers.

As the personal computer began to proliferate, phone phreaks transitioned their skills to the burgeoning field of computers. Clark notes that individuals connected their phones to their computers using acoustic couplers to dial numbers and seek out modems to hack into. In the 1980s, with the advent of more accessible computers, the tones required for phone phreaking could be generated programmatically, making the practices of phone phreaking more widely accessible. The influence of phone phreaking on early hacker ...

As phone phreaking techniques became increasingly sophisticated and costly for telecommunication companies, particularly AT&T, a robust legal response emerged to curb the illegal practice.

As phone phreaking became more widespread and costly for AT&T, the company took aggressive legal action to shut it down.

The hosts discuss the significant financial loss AT&T faced due to phone phreaking, estimated at $30 million per year (over $175 million today), which galvanized the company to partner with the FBI to monitor and prosecute phreakers. This collaboration resulted in a massive wiretapping operation known as "Green Star," wherein over 33 million phone calls were recorded. This operation not only targeted phone phreakers but also laid the groundwork for the expansion of government surveillance powers.

The legal crackdown on phone phreaking ultimately made the practice obsolete by the 1970s and 1980s as the telephone network was upgraded to eliminate the vulnerabilities exploited by phreakers.

Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant discuss how the evolution of telephone technology rendered phone phreaking methods ineffective. AT&T upgraded its system from electromechanical to fully electrical, and then to digital switches that phreakers' tones could not manipulate. This technological advancement, particularly the separation of lines for voice transmission and control tones, made the exploits used by phreakers obsolete.

However, the spirit of phone phreaking lives on in later ...