0
1 votes
A Short History Of Phreaking
07 October 2010
Phreaking is a portmanteau of the words phone and freak. A phone phreak is one who finds pleasure in exploring the telephone system and conducting experiments with it in order to understand exactly how it works. Some people find this to be a security issue, especially those who work for phone companies. Phreakers rose to popularity some time late in the 50’s and their numbers have been growing ever since. They never had a name at first and did not really work in large groups. In fact, most were just individuals working in isolation or in small groups of 3 to 4.
In November of 1963, an issue of tech, MIT’s student newspaper, had an article entitled “telephone hackers active.” The article described the mischief that phreaks would get into and a professor of MIT commented that at least two or three students were expelled each year for abusing the telephone system.
It was around the late 60’s that the term phreaks came about. If you are to review the situation, you will notice that exploring the telephone network is not really illegal. Phreaks are just frowned upon because most of them would use their knowledge to bypass security to make free telephone calls and this is illegal. Some phreaks would even wiretap telephones in order to listen in on someone else’s conversations. There were even those that would steal the equipment off of a telephone company. An act which got them into a lot of trouble.
Around the 70’s the term phreak became synonymous with one who steals from telephone services. The phrase ‘phone phreak’ has two meanings: one positive and one negative. On the positive side, a phreak can be one who is simply curious about how the telephone network works and is interested in exploring it. On the negative side, a phreak is one who makes it a habit to break into or abuse the security of a telephone network and make telephone calls without paying for it. It is in this sense that phone phreaks are like hackers.
The word hacker itself originally meant one who enjoyed exploring or learning more about computers and computer security. As time passed, the word eventually came to mean one who would bypass the security of computers and use this skill to cause as much trouble as they can. Examples of these acts include credit card fraud, identity theft, and looking through somebody’s private documents. The word phreak suffered the same fate as the word hacker as time passed. Today, phreaks are frowned on and are all thought to be criminals rather than people who are simply curious. Interestingly enough, the word hacker came about from students who were hacking into the telephone system.
There are a handful of people that have become famous for being very good at phreaking. One example of a famous phreak would be John Thomas Draper, who is also known as Captain Crunch. He took his pseudonym after the mascot of a certain breakfast cereal. He is famous for using the whistle toy that came with the cereal for emitting a certain frequency, which he used to take advantage of At&T long lines. It was because of this toy that he was inspired to invent the blue box. The blue box is an electronic device which is capable of reproducing other tones that are used by other phone companies. Nowadays, nobody really uses a blue box as there are more modern methods of phreaking.
While the initial techniques of phreaking have gone through some major overhauls, there are now many new tools that phreaks use today. As long as there are telephones, there will always be phreaks who will have to urge to understand and explore it as well as try to overcome the system’s security measures.
In November of 1963, an issue of tech, MIT’s student newspaper, had an article entitled “telephone hackers active.” The article described the mischief that phreaks would get into and a professor of MIT commented that at least two or three students were expelled each year for abusing the telephone system.
It was around the late 60’s that the term phreaks came about. If you are to review the situation, you will notice that exploring the telephone network is not really illegal. Phreaks are just frowned upon because most of them would use their knowledge to bypass security to make free telephone calls and this is illegal. Some phreaks would even wiretap telephones in order to listen in on someone else’s conversations. There were even those that would steal the equipment off of a telephone company. An act which got them into a lot of trouble.
Around the 70’s the term phreak became synonymous with one who steals from telephone services. The phrase ‘phone phreak’ has two meanings: one positive and one negative. On the positive side, a phreak can be one who is simply curious about how the telephone network works and is interested in exploring it. On the negative side, a phreak is one who makes it a habit to break into or abuse the security of a telephone network and make telephone calls without paying for it. It is in this sense that phone phreaks are like hackers.
The word hacker itself originally meant one who enjoyed exploring or learning more about computers and computer security. As time passed, the word eventually came to mean one who would bypass the security of computers and use this skill to cause as much trouble as they can. Examples of these acts include credit card fraud, identity theft, and looking through somebody’s private documents. The word phreak suffered the same fate as the word hacker as time passed. Today, phreaks are frowned on and are all thought to be criminals rather than people who are simply curious. Interestingly enough, the word hacker came about from students who were hacking into the telephone system.
There are a handful of people that have become famous for being very good at phreaking. One example of a famous phreak would be John Thomas Draper, who is also known as Captain Crunch. He took his pseudonym after the mascot of a certain breakfast cereal. He is famous for using the whistle toy that came with the cereal for emitting a certain frequency, which he used to take advantage of At&T long lines. It was because of this toy that he was inspired to invent the blue box. The blue box is an electronic device which is capable of reproducing other tones that are used by other phone companies. Nowadays, nobody really uses a blue box as there are more modern methods of phreaking.
While the initial techniques of phreaking have gone through some major overhauls, there are now many new tools that phreaks use today. As long as there are telephones, there will always be phreaks who will have to urge to understand and explore it as well as try to overcome the system’s security measures.
