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Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking
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Die Fledermaus
07/16/09

In reply to Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking
Those compact boxes for the mob sound cool. Then I read about the band of thermite. and I started to think about not only would it destroy the device, but it could be used to send a message to those who have done you wrong without potentially killing them.
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dolo54 blows minds and blows engines!
07/16/09

In reply to Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking
In the 80s every computer nerd used the MCI 6 digit codes. MCI, a big phone company at the time with thousands of customers gave every customer their own 6 digit code that you would use when away from home to charge your long distance calls to your account. Of course with so many customers, it didn't take long, trying codes at random to find one that worked. I only knew of one kid who got busted for it. And he got busted because he was lazy and stupid and used old codes that were posted to bbs's that MCI had put a trace on. The funny thing is when you got busted for phreaking, they took your computer of course, all your phones (no phone for your entire family!), and they would also take your tv sets. So any kid who got busted would basically put their whole family back into the dark ages until they turned 18 and moved (or got kicked) out. There was usually a $100k fine involved too, which was quite a lot of money back then. And yet even with that terrible scenario looming over our heads, it was no deterrent. Setting up a trace was expensive and time consuming for the telcos back then, so if you used your own codes, the risk was about the same as winning the lottery. You would have to randomly stumble on a code that they had a trace on, a 1 in a million chance.
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strider_mt2k
07/16/09

In reply to Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking
My brother had a Capn' Crunch Whistle and used it to make free long distance calls.

AWESOMNESS
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Noobs-R-Us
07/16/09

In reply to Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking
Where's the picture of the movie War Games? That was the quintessential hacking movie. It’s what got all the damn kids started thinking that they can be a hacker too.
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madog
07/16/09

@Noobs-R-Us: Would you like to play a game?
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Thanatos
07/16/09

@madog: A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess?
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Noobs-R-Us
07/16/09

@Thanatos: How about Global Thermal Nuclear War?
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charman
07/16/09

In reply to Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking
I remember when I first saw the movie Hackers. The two crazy hackers that wore lots of makeup used a tape recorder with the sound of quarters going into a payphone. It phreaked out the phone, and when I was less than 10 years old I wanted to do that so bad. And now that I think about it, how many payphones are still around?
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GitEmSteveDave_ My Brute Dojo Code CDIAFIFE
07/16/09

In reply to Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking
From what I understand from a book ont he Steve's I read, he also designed a Apple II w/a built in blue box, but realized that if you strung a dozen together, you could bring down the US phone system, and it freaked him out.
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Nick
07/16/09

In reply to Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking

don't forget about captain crunch and this little guy.

John Drpaer, the cap'n, was apparently the one that taught Jobs and Woz their phreakin' skills.
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Edited by Nick at 07/16/09 10:52 AM Nick was starred Nick was unstarred

jibbly
07/16/09

@Nick: My island name is Nicko: With all due respect to Draper, this was light years ahead as a fully featured and realized hacking gadget.
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Nick
07/16/09

@jibbly: agreed, but we can't forget our roots. that's the whole point of Gizmodo '79
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pist
07/16/09

@Nick: My island name is Nicko: Met the "cap'n" several years ago, very strange fellow. Poor guy knew how to plow through the phone co's system, but couldn't hold a conversation with another human.
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Nick
07/16/09

@pist: i guess that kinda makes his knowledge of phones useless. eh, go figure.
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madog
07/16/09

In reply to Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking
This was something I always wanted to try out when I was young. Ever since I first found the Anarchist's Cookbook in one of the "macfilez" (or "zelifcam" when AOL first caught on) back when mass mailing software was still perfectly acceptable, and cool.

At the time, I never knew what the "yellowbox", "bluebox" and whatever stood for although after reading the info did deduce that they were phones ("is it really a blue phone? Cool!").
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Nick
07/16/09

@madog: 2600 always has some little cool thing in it
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Edited by Nick at 07/16/09 10:59 AM Nick was starred Nick was unstarred

GitEmSteveDave_ My Brute Dojo Code CDIAFIFE
07/16/09

@madog: You ever hang out in the Zeraw or zerawcam chat rooms?
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madog
07/16/09

@GitEmSteveDave: zerawcam2. I never got lucky enough to get in the main room. I think that was more toward the end of my AOL years too, though, so I didn't spend much time in there as compared with mf.

Then I discovered the GIF room, and fell in love with interlaced boobies (and it's been a downward spiral ever since). I still have my AIM screen name that originates from AOL 3.0, and is some bastardization of its original from the multiple times I got TOS'ED back in 2.x (AOL4FREE!). "Mom! Uhhh, AOL changed their payment settings so I need to reenter your CC info....... it also has to be different than the one used before".
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Edited by madog at 07/16/09 11:27 AM madog was starred madog was unstarred

marythegr8
07/16/09

In reply to Phreaking the Phones: Before There Was Hacking
this is where the "hacker society" 2600 got it's name.
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Nick
07/16/09

@marythegr8: well, no. it doesn't come from the box, but a key tone that they would try to replicate.
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Nick
07/16/09

@Nick: My island name is Nicko: and i don't mean key as in button, or key as in music, or a physical key, but key as in something that gives access.
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