There’s been a lot of talk this week about internet security and crime, and with that talk of course comes discussion of hackers and their exploits. But hacking as an activity and hackers subculture predates the personal computer, and even the internet, first becoming popular right around the time that ARPANET was being built. Of course, computers at that time were exclusively large mainframes in the hands of government agencies, universities and large corporations, so the earliest hackers concerned themselves with the phone system. The activity at the time was referred to as “ phreaking ” (phone+freaking) and it’s practioners as “phreaks.” At that time the phone system was operated by automatic switches introduced in the 1950s, which Wikipedia notes as being when “the general population began, for the first time, to interact with computing power on a large scale.” This system was operated by tone dial, meaning that certain sound frequencies communicated information to the computerized switches. People later found out that by making a certain sound , they could trick AT&T into giving them free calls. It was later discovered by one phreak named John Draper that a toy whistle given away with Cap’n Crunch cereal made that particular tone, giving him his phreak pseudonym. Draper went on to develop the blue box , which was capable of reproducing that tone as well as others, and whole subculture developed around not only making free calls, but seeing how much they could manipulate the telephone network. A Blue Box constructed and used by Steve Wozniak After an expose in Esquire magazine in 1971 , phreaking became much more widespread, and telephone companies did their best to bring charges against phreaks, with some success. Many phreaks went own to become involved in the homebrew movement which birthed the PC, including John Draper, who became a mentor and inspiration to Apple founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Nowadays, phreaking is largely a thing of the past thanks to the internet, cellular telephony, and an all-digital switching interface. This Discovery Channel documentary on phreaking and hacking is a fascinatig look at this subculture and its ancestors
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You Know I Hate Stupid Phones
