Phreaks of Many Colours

Steve Wozniak with a Blue Box, from My Old Mac.

I just picked up a copy of Katie Hafner’s “CyberPunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier” and for a dollar bin book, I’m pretty happy with it so far. Here’s what I’ve learned:

THE YIPPIES AND TECH
What do the Chicago Seven and Apple computers have in common? The answer is phreaking or phone hacks. Any well-heeled nerd knows the story of John Draper (Captain Crunch), the man who ascertained that the whistles given out in Cap’n Crunch cereal created the perfect 2600 Hz tone- the same tone used on telephones with single frequency controls. Now known as one of the earliest phone phreakers, John Draper was able to make free international calls from pay phones and he was generous enough to spread his findings amongst friends and College students. By the early seventies, thanks to Draper and several other early phreakers, Bell was losing millions in phone fraud.

In 1971, Esquire Magazine published, Secrets of the Little Blue Box - an article about the devices used to circumvent both single and multiple frequency systems. This is the article that changed the face of hacking, and there is a subsequent article written by John Draper here.

THE HACK FOR POLITICS & PROFIT
In 1971, Al Bell, a well-known phone phreaker teamed up with Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies to “stick it to Ma Bell” (or the Bell telephone company) and plan general subversive actions. Meanwhile, at about the same time Steve Wozniak was given a crash course in phreaking by Captain Crunch himself. By 1973, Wozniak and fellow nerdy friend Steve Jobs were selling blue boxes out of their dorm rooms for $150 per box, while Bell split from the Yippies to start Technical Assistance Program or TAP, a magazine that would develop into a major source for subversive technical information.

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Phreaks of Many Colours

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