The origins of Phreaking
The origins of Phreaking
ghost | 5558 Reads | Introduction
Although I my self have no more knowledge about Phreaking then what is posted on HBH i still enjoy learning about the history and how the ideas developed and were expanded apon to create the situation we have today. In this article i will give you a breif over view of Phreaking since the 1950's when it really came in to the mainstream. I do say breif i will not comment on every event just the few that made a huge impact
What is Phreaking?!?
If you are compleatly new to the word Phreaking and its meaning this would be a good place to start. Phreaking (pronounced freak-ing by microsoft sam :P) is a slang term used to describe the act of experiment with, or exploit telephones. This can also reach far in to other audio devises. "Phreak", "phreaker", or "phone phreak" are names given to people who studie these devises and systems to find there weak spots and expliot them. Phreaking has very much become a sub-culture of hacking over the years.
History - early days
The earliest confirmed Phreak i could find concreat evidence to support is know as "2600Hz" Joybubbles (one of the original phreakers) taught himself to whistle a tone (Namely, 2600Hz) that would cause a trunk to reset itself.
around the same time an indervidual known only to me as 'Bill' relised he could replicate joybubbles results by using an average, everyday, recorder. :D
John Draper, a close friend of joybubbles discovered that a cheap, give away whistle in a Captain Crunch cerial box also produced the magic 2600Hz tone. This allowed control of phone systems that worked on Single Frequency controls.
untill 1964 Bell Systems had managed to keep its multi-Frequency controls secret. but a blunder caused the exact tones to be published. any one who had a decent knowledge of electronics or tele-systems now had everything they needed to produce the first blue boxes. It came to be known as this because the first device confiscated by Bell System security was in a blue plastic case. it was a devise capable of producing the tones that were published.
Esquire Magazine brought phreaking to the masses in 1971. with the tones already avalible and the knowledge now also readly avalible the phreaking scene took off and contined to grow. The scene even attracted the attention of a few familier names, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Unknown people at the time. we now no them as the owners of apple computers.
well that is how the first 10 years of phreaking happened, as i said at the start this is neither a compleat detailed history or a science lesson. it is simple intended to give every one out there an insight in to the world of phreaking. The modern scene is very different from this and is well worth the time if this has spark a little interest
please rate / comment
Neon_wing
ghost 18 years ago
you never mentiond how john draper got his name as captin crunch you just said how he used a whistle out of a cerial box and there is sooo many more things that you didint really explain and what you SHOULD of mentioned is how the authorites cracked down on the blueblox xD and how long captian crunch went to jail for