Phone Phreaking: The Advent of Hacking | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. too and this is stuff you should. know that's right can can we uh can you. do your little trumpet sound anouncment. trumpet yeah are you ready. uh-huh sorry I'm out no.

no no hold. on there we. go yeah we want to announce the uh a new. writer that we have working with us M. and welcome aboard Kyle hookstra uhhuh. and everybody we have just classed up. this joint yeah we have because Kyle is. British he and he lives there he's not. like some some dumb British dude living. in you know Waco Texas or or some.

American living in Great Britain this. guy is like legit Brit that's right he. lives in uh Brighton and we gave him a. test article and this was it he did such. a good job we were like hey this thing's. great and and welcome aboard and he was. interested and so it seems like the. beginning of a new uh great relationship. yeah agreed so welcome aboard Kyle and. thanks for this one um I'm excited about. this and this chuck if you'll remember. came up from the whistling episode do.

you remember that did we did you mention. this uh no one thing that Anna had. turned up and kind of included as a. sidebar was how uh Captain Crunch. whistle had been used to um basically. hack the phone system and I I've been. wanting to do an episode on phone. freaking forever and it just so happened. that reminded me and here we are now we. asked Kyle to do it and this is our. episode on foone freaking that you've. been waiting for freaking ever to do.

yeah yeah for real with a pH uh both. ways. actually uh yeah I mean I guess we. should introduce what we're talking. about here because this is something. that if you're oh maybe of a certain age. you might not know what this is and I'm. I'm of that certain age that should know. but I didn't really know much about it. to be honest um but we're talking about. the fact that in the 1950s well before. that let's say you're not of that.

certain. age In Our. Lifetime uhhuh right pre-comp computers. yeah we were all still connected via. something called the telephone system. and in the United States the telephone. system was uh it's how humans connected. before the internet and it was a big. interconnected system that was manually. operated by switchboards which we should. totally do a switchboard episode at some. point yeah it was very really. interesting uh but they started started.

to get rid of the switchboard operators. in the. 1950s uh for automatic switches mhm and. the one thing they didn't think about. was the fact that they had a bit of a. design flaw uh or a weakness in this uh. system whereas the tones they. use uh to let the automatic system know. like what to do with a telephone call MH. could be mimicked and replicated with. sometimes a human voice sometimes a toy. whistle like you said yeah or that.

somebody made to essentially hack into. the phone system by replicating those. tones and AT&T was like oh we never. thought that anyone would be interested. in doing that yeah that was an. outstanding introduction man and it was. called phone freaking. phph yeah and so phone freakers were. pretty much the earliest uh examples of. hackers they were pre-computer hacker. culture yep as a matter of fact hacking. just grew essentially right out of phone.

freaking and a lot of the phone freaks. who were uh kind of on the whole Jam in. the early 80s just made the leap to. computers through phones it's pretty. interesting as we'll see totally but the. there's one thing we should say about. them as a community uh phone. freakers uh were curious individuals. like they were technical minded types. they were they wanted to see how this. vast huge connected uh Network worked.

and they knew very well that there were. whole huge parts of it that were. shielded from public view you weren't. meant to know about this you didn't need. to know about it just go in and punch. the phone number and we'll connect it. for you that wasn't enough they wanted. to know everything there was to know. about it and one way that there you can. find out how something works is to try. to break it and that was kind of what. they were doing they weren't doing it. maliciously for almost exclusively they. weren't doing it maliciously they were. doing it out of curiosity.

yeah and it sort of reminded me a little. bit of like ham radio operators where. like the victory of a like a win for a a. phone freaker was like oh my God I I. connected with someone through the back. door in another country and was able to. talk to them and yeah maybe some people. like took advantage of like free long. distance and stuff like that but like. you said I think as a whole the. community was just like those were the. wins like oh my God I was able to do.

this thing how cool right so let's let's. kind of start at the beginning shall we. because freaking did not exist prior to. the 50s or 60s when they uh introduced. automatic switches which is a little. aside about the switches um the guy who. invented him actually invented him in. the 19th century he was a mortician who. uh his competition the across town. mortician his rival um that guy's wife. was the the town operator so when.

somebody called to ask for mortician she. automatically connected them to her. husband's business not this guy's. business so we actually went out of his. way to invent an automatic switch to. replace human operators and decades. later they finally came into into play. but you couldn't have done this before. when somebody was like connecting the. call for you because if you just started. whistling in their ear something like. that they'd be like what are you doing. this isn't this is really bizarre I'm. not going to connect this call it was. once it became automated that it became.

possible yeah I mean did they even have. dial tones with switchboard operators I. don't believe so I don't see why you. would I think I think when they. converted to automatic switches they. adopted something called multifrequency. tones and it was all where you had a. tone um like you pressed a one and it. made a certain tone actually a. combination of tones hence the. multifrequency thing and it told this. this network turn this gear or this dial. and everyone knows I don't know what I'm. talking with gears but there were gears.

involved and things like actually would. move somewhere in space because a tone. told it to that's that's kind of what. they brought online in the 50s and 60s. so if if someone whistled at a. switchboard operator they would be from. the. future I guess so yeah kind of or else. they'd be um fresh yeah they'd be fresh. because they like a wolf whistle or. something mhm uh so let's talk about. phones for a second because when we talk. about these tones we largely think of um.

like a push button telephone which is. what we use starting gez I'm not even. really sure but they replac the rotary. phones uh not replac they worked. alongside for many years uh we had both. for a long time in my house yeah uh but. the the button on the phone isn't. exactly uh key to the system operating. the only thing the phone would do was. create that tone the tone was What. mattered right uh it did get me. wondering like well how the heck does a. rotary phone even work um and this is.

just a slight aside but I never knew how. that operated and the way a rotary phone. would work was you would dial the number. around and that part didn't really. matter it was the return back into. position that sent this uh that would. engage basically these electrical. contacts to interrupt the electrical. continuity so a nine would. go and it would interrupt it nine. different times and sending signal. saying hey this is a nine dum dum and I.

never knew how that worked so I thought. that was pretty fascinating but as far. as the push button phone you would just. press a button it would have a tone. assigned to it and it's those tones that. freaks were able to replicate to. essentially fool the phone company into. thinking that somebody was pressing a. button and in some case cases they were. which we'll talk about and just knowing. that you could trick the system into um. dialing something for you just by. whistles or making tones not using your.

phone that's fun in and of itself what. fun but there's a really good example of. like how this could be put to use in a. way that was like oh okay this is no. longer legal um you're actually you're. you're you're actually hijacking the. phone system for your own ends and this. was the basis of freaking um there was a. there was a a tone that was instrumental. to this whole multi frequency tone. system and it was the I think the minor. e. uh it is that that resonates at 2600.

Hertz okay okay so whatever sound Cycles. at 2600 cycles per second that tone. would tell the um phone company that. your phone was on the hook when when. your phone stopped making that sound. when your line stopped making that 2600. htz sound all of a sudden the phone. system was like oh okay this guy wants a. connection somewhere let's go pay. attention to what's going on here so. let's say you started dial a number and.

you dial the 800 number your your your. phone stopped making that 2600 htz sound. uh and the phone company's attention was. grabbed by that and you dial this 800. number and it would start to connect to. you and because it was an 800 number the. the system would be like okay we're. connecting this but we're not going to. charge this person for this call because. this is a toll-free number and then. before the other person on the other. line could pick up you would blow that. you would make a 2600 HZ tone and that.

told the phone system you had hung up. but you hadn't actually hung up and now. the line was open for you to dial any. number you wanted to anywhere in the. world tollfree because as far as the. system was concerned you were still. calling a toll-free number even though. you were calling any number you wanted. and now you can make long-distance phone. calls for free at a time when they were. really really expensive that's right uh. and these were enabled by what we called. trunk lines so if you think about. whatever City you live in uh depending.

on the size of your city you would have. I guess if you lived in a smaller town. you probably just had one office but um. if your city was large enough you had. multiple. offices where these calls were connected. basically so if you lived in uh like one. neighborhood in in Dallas Texas and you. were calling a neighborhood you know 10. 15 miles away in Dallas Texas there. would be another office there in that. neighborhood or that area or region or. whatever mhm and they were all connected.

by trunk lines like hundreds to. thousands of these things uh depending. on how big your town was because each. one of these could only handle one call. at a time right so the trunk line line. was basically just a medium to carry. your V carry your voice locally uh from. one place to the other and like like we. both said there was only one that could. be going at once that's why there were. thousands of these things and if you're. able to replicate that tone then you. could you know have some good clean fun.

yeah and trunk lines were also the way. that you dialed long distance because. they could connect like different parts. of a town they could also connect one. city to another and so on and so forth. and so the people who figured this out. that you could you could hijack the. phone system by trying out different. tones and doing different things were. just socked in immediately and just. began experimenting um started meeting. one another sometimes by happen stance. on a phone line that they just happen to. try out and there was some other freak.

hanging out on it um it it just was. immediately um infectious to their to. their curiosity they just wanted to. figure out how this could work and what. all you could make this phone system do. by replicating these tones I think it's. a pretty good setup my friend I agree. you want to take a break then yeah let's. take a break and uh we'll come back and. and talk about who some of these first. freakers were right after this.

[Music]. all right so we promised to talk about. some early freakers uh one was a guy in. the in the 1950s so you know this. started pretty early on if if you think. about early hacking mhm and like what.

led to hacking starting in the 1950s. it's pretty mind-blowing um but one guy. was Joe in Grecia and he was a blind man. who uh did not use a Captain Crunch. whistle cuz that was before they had C. and crunch whistles mhm he whistled with. his mouth and was able to he had Perfect. Pitch and was able to admit somehow cuz. it's not the easiest tone to hit if. you've ever heard it Ser that that 2600. HZ. signal and he you know he would whistle.

into the phone to do this other people. use uh usually not their own human voice. but different things like I believe the. Captain Crunch seral was in the 1960s. you can go on YouTube and see people. that have these little whistles. demonstrating how it works and. everything but this was sort of the idea. early in the 1950s and 60s with these. people right um so I think the guy who. came up with the guy who's credited with. figuring out the Captain Crunch cial.

whistle it's like a boat Swain's whistle. like that you know. that that whistle you know on Star Trek. when they they blow the whistle to get. everybody's attention i' never seen Star. Trek well anybody who seen Star Trek the. original one knows what I'm talking. about that's a boat swings whistle and. so like the Captain Crunch whistle would. if you covered up one hole it would make. a perfect 2600 htz tone and apparently. the guy who came up with that who. figured that out took the handle Captain. Crunch that was his freaker hand but his. real name was uh Draper right I believe.

Captain Crunch my friend not I saw it. both ways really yeah I saw more often. than not Captain like fully fully. spelled out I guess he wanted. differentiate himself yeah oh okay yeah. I thought you just were saying it as a. cereal that's a no no no that was his. that was his handle no no no I know but. he took it from the cereal sure sure. yeah I didn't think it was a. coincidence what was his first name dra.

uh Dave yeah David Draper you're no no. no John John I think it was John because. I watched videos of him and every time. it sounded like he was saying Don. Draper for madman so it was very. confusing okay so so John he was the one. who was credited with um figuring that. out he was a a legendary early phone. freaker yeah and he still has videos um. and we'll talk about a little bit more. about him later on but uh like I said.

most people did not use their voice they. would use like that whistle or they. started building devices uh they were. called blue boxes and they all look. different because they were all homemade. um but you know if you look up blue box. online there there are all kinds of you. know it basically looks like a um a. phone without the the talking ends it's. just like a box mhm usually with with. punch button numbers like you would see. on a phone yes or if um if you were a.

bond villain in maybe a 60s Bond movie. and you wanted to remotely blow. something up it looks like the kind of. thing you'd pull an antenna out of and. press a series of numbers on it and. something would explode okay and then. you'd very calmly put the antenna back. in and walk away uh yeah except scratch. the. antenna right not in the blue box just. in this Bond idea yeah there's also a. red box there are a ton of different. boxes uh like by the end of all this.

people had figured out all sorts of. different way devices to to make phones. do all sorts of things and they all had. different colors but the other uh the. other two big ones were the red box. which was a blue box but had the added. capacity of creating the tones that told. the phone system that this pay phone had. just accepted a quarter and or a dime at. the time and now you can go ahead and. connect the call even though no one had. put a dime in it had just mimic that. tone then the blackbox made it uh it.

interrupted like the the DC signal to. your phone to make it seem like you had. never picked up a call so the person. calling you long distance would never be. charged for it even though you're. sitting there talking those are the. three big ones blue red and black yeah. and the red one is actually super cool. because you know if you came along after. payones were around uh you didn't have. to put in uh like if you had other uh. coins that would equal a dime let's say.

oh I don't know two nickels sure you. could put two nickels in and a nickel. created a specific tone a dime created a. specific tone and a quarter created one. so the red box was able to mimic each of. these. coins uh to recreate the tone it made. when you you know cuz those little. payones were smart they knew they knew. what you were dropping in there they. were so smart and they would sing uh. sing that song. thusly so the whole thing that all these. were based on again was this. multifrequency. um tone system and it turns out that.

there are six Master tones to the whole. thing that if you knew these tones you. could basically make the the phone. system do anything you wanted and they. were made up of 12 individual tones and. so for example if you wanted to mimic. the number one you had to make the sound. of 700 Herz and 900 Hertz at the same. time and that would be as far as the. phone system is concerned if it heard. that it would say oh okay one let me I'm.

pressing one for this guy and the whole. thing is predicated on a mistake that. somebody made at um Bell which we. haven't said this but this is kind of. important too uh at the time AT&T was. known as Ma Bell it had essentially a. monopoly on the phone system in the. United States exactly like it was the. phone company for the entire country and. because it was so this one big monstrous.

thing if you figured out how to mess. with AT&T you figured out how to hijack. the entire phone system that was one. thing but the the point of that is that. some AT&T engineer wrote an article in a. technical journal in the 50s and they. included what those Master tones were. made of in the article and that gave way. to the basis of all those blue boxes and. black boxes and red boxes that were made. later had that article never been. published freaking might have never. really taken off it would probably been.

a Pastime for people with who had a. Captain Crunch whistle or Perfect Pitch. and could whistle things. themselves I don't know I bet you nerds. Prevail for sure but I mean it would. have taken those like hardcore people. like Joe and Gracia who figured it out. on their own just through trial and. error over years this was here's a. here's a blue box and here's how you use. it and that's how a lot of people got. into freaking who wouldn't wouldn't have.

otherwise been pulled into it cuz it. would have been too hard I think It sped. up the timeline for sure for sure um and. like we said people were um you know the. wi was making a call working around the. phone company for a longdistance call. sometimes they would get into pranking a. little bit like uh they could figure out. how to um hack into the the loudspeakers. at a mall and make announcements um. there was one pretty famous prank call. in Santa Barbara in 1974. uh when they had they basically took.

advantage of a bug called simultaneous. seizure where two calls at the same time. would jam up uh the switching equipment. in the office and you could hijack calls. coming into to like a city so people uh. two guys got um you know from La got I. guess they got arrested for doing this. it says they um I'm not sure if they. serve jail time or not but they. essentially were able to any call coming. in in Santa Barbara they would uh route. it to a voice saying that Santa Barbara.

had been destroyed by a nuclear bomb and. it kind of got out of a hand like people. called emergency services and um you. know they they found out what was going. on obviously but just you know sort of. that was about as harmful as it got uh. unless you count stealing long distance. yeah and stealing long distance was a. favorite of the mafia they were big time. into phone freaking uh and they weren't. the kind who would just sit there and. you know try out whistling different. tones for years on end they got into it.

through blue and black and red boxes and. the reason why is because their bookies. would be taking calls from all over the. country and I think I said earlier that. that long distance was expensive at the. time it was so expensive click Americana. which is a great great website they. found an old Bell ad from. 1965 that boasts the low price of. $112 for your first 3 minutes for long. distance in $1.

1965 that's like. $118 today for 3 minutes of long. distance it's insane and it very quickly. as after they introduced the automatic. switches their cost dropped very quickly. so by 1970 it was down to probably 20. bucks for 3 minutes but still that's a. lot of money and if you're a bookie. taking long distance calls all night. long all day long that adds up so of. course you want to start using blue. boxes so the got heavy into it too wait.

how much did you say it was at first for. three minutes $12 for 3 minutes and. according to West Egg that'd be $118. today oh okay so you went on the because. you said it went down to $20 that was. conversion wise no from 1965 to about. 1970 and just that five years it dropped. that dramatically from 12 to 20 no no no. sorry yes you're right from in in. 2023 oh okay yeah I wanted to make that. as confusing as possible so that's why I.

chose that that way well I mean I. remember even in the 1980s when um I. would meet a a girl at church camp that. lived in another place MH and come home. and want to communicate with my little. uh Church camp crush and my parents. would be like yeah forget about it like. you're not dialing along you're not. calling this girl up long distance me a. local girl what's wrong with you it was. a big big deal like I remember early. cell phones used to charge you long. distance and when all of a sudden it was.

like that just went away it was it was. like a different world almost yeah. totally so um computers came around. obviously everything changed after. computers came around the 1980s because. uh you could all of a sudden design a. program that could generate tones uh. like specifically for what you needed um. if everyone or if anyone saw the movie. War games which we've talked about quite. a few times on this show because it's. one of the show favorites uh but that.

had a couple of examples of phone. freaking uh when Matthew broadrick. dialed into the uh school system at. beginning to change Ali Sheet's uh. grades he used a technique called War. dialing uh that's when you're just like. use a computer to Auto dial just like. hundreds and thousands of numbers uh. scanning for a vulnerability or in this. case he was scanning for his own you. know School line to hack into right uh. and then I know we did talk about this. in another episode but the little payone.

hack that he tried apparently is not a. real thing and was just made up for the. movie isn't that right yeah but it does. it definitely gets across the concept of. a red box like you could do that you. just couldn't do it the way he did it. but it also kind of got across a little. bit the concept of the blackbox which. would kind of short the circuit which is. what he was doing so it was a little. confused but it certainly got like a lot. of people interested in hacking and it. also scared the pants off of Ronald. Reagan which you might say who cares the.

problem was at the time Ronald Reagan. was the president of the United States. and there's a guy named Fred Kaplan who. wrote a book about um the a history of. cyber War called Dark territory and. apparently Reagan saw this film was so. freaked out by it that he got the Joint. Chiefs together and was like can this. happen somebody go find out and the. chairman of the Joint Chiefs a guy named. General John vessie went and. investigated and came back and he said. quote Mr President the problem is much.

worse than you think and so 3 years. after war games came out Congress passed. basically a anti-war games scary movie. Law that's right they did uh it was. called the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. M and uh it you know seemingly came out. of watching the movie War Games isn't. that nuts pretty. crazy so um let's let's go back a little. bit and talk about some of the the. freaks we' kind of covered some of them.

like Joe and Gia his handle was Joy. bubbles um there was also Captain Crunch. John Draper like you said uh these guys. were were like freaking at the time when. it was it was like. a I guess a golden age Chuck there's. only one way to put it I was trying to. avoid it but it was a golden age of. freaking we love our Golden Ages uh yeah. and you know as far as who these people. were they were they were who the hackers. ended up being they were kind of early.

techies they were kind of nerds usually. um they were. uh they were into you know some of them. may have been into kind of disruption uh. I think like we said most of the time it. was just sort of good nature but there. were definitely those that were like hey. fight the man uh we have this Monopoly. this controlling the phone system let's. see if we can uh poke the bear a little. bit so you know they were in there doing. a little little bit of that as well um.

but like we said generally good natured. stuff uh I think we should mention that. um that Draper uh later on had. allegation sexual assault uh that. emerged and he was banned from different. conferences starting in like the. 2010s um so he's a he's a pretty. divisive guy so um it's not like we're. seeing his Praises or anything but he. was definitely like one of the first uh. kind of famous freakers uh largely.

because of this Esquire uh magazine. article in 1971 called secrets of the. little blue box where a guy named Ron. rosenbom wrote this really long form. detailed pretty great article uh about. phone freaking which not only put a. spotlight on people like Captain Crunch. but put a spotlight and created more. phone freakers because people read it. and were like I got to get it on this. thing yeah it's usually in the top 10 20. at most of like greatest magazine. article of all time list um it's a.

really good article but uh one of the. things when people write about it that. they like to point out is it it's the. definitive history of phone freaking up. to that point but then it also serves as. a pivotal point because it helped make. history because it introduced phone. freaking to like a whole bunch of other. people who were totally interested in. that but just hadn't heard of it before. and um one of the reasons why that. happened is because he gave just enough. technical information for how to do it.

but left out the the some of like the. more gory details but it was it was. tantalizing enough that if you were. interested and motivated you could go. fill in the blanks and figure out how to. do it um and it turned out in fact that. the the guys who founded Apple Steve wnc. and Steve Jobs were two people who read. this thing and went and figured it out. themselves yeah they got into phone. freaking um they built uh boxes they.

built and sold uh digital blue boxes mhm. and Steve wnc out of all the circuitry. he he built uh as the wizard behind. Apple um he said that that that digital. blue box circuit was the one that he was. most proud of um they actually met the. Captain Crunch guy met Mr Draper and. they you know they were part of that. Community for a little while um they. sold them for about 172 bucks in the. early 1970s which is a lot of money in. today dollarss uh so it was a lot of.

money back then um they were never. busted apparently they were uh some cops. came around when Steve Jobs uh car broke. down one time and they were caught with. a blue box but um W was able to convince. them that it was a synthesizer to play. music on and the cup went right okay. sounds good to me so uh wnc's handle. freaker handle was Berkeley blue and. Steve Jobs handle was O. Tobar which I think prefigured um.

Dungeons and Dragons that's a pretty. good I guess Fighter's name oh is that a. D and D ref yeah Dungeons and Dragons no. but is that o Tobar. from D and D I think it's a good name. for a D and D character is what I'm. saying oh I got you I thought you meant. it link somehow I didn't no no but it. just screams D and D to me yeah I didn't. play D and D so I'm just lost here I. loved it there's one other quote too. from the I guess Steve Jobs who said.

that without blue boxes the blue boxes. that he and wnc came together to make. there would be no apple that was like. their first Venture together yeah that. showed them that they could work well. together and they went on to found Apple. after they did this little blue box. stint that's pretty crazy very crazy uh. another thing that emerged around this. time was something called a a beep line. which I had never heard of these and. this is something that um I probably. should have known about but when you.

would call somebody back in the day and. that person was on the phone and let's. say they didn't have call waiting or. call waiting wasn't invented at the time. maybe or they couldn't afford it like we. couldn't um you would get a busy signal. but here's the thing that busy signal. that you were dealt uh didn't mean that. your voice path was shut off like you. were still if you sat there on that busy. signal line and didn't hang up and maybe. this is how people found out about it. eventually if you sat around long enough.

you would get someone else on that same. busy signal line uh that had been you. know uh denied a phone call in some. other town and if those people were. teenagers they realize it was sort of. the beginnings of a of like a party line. where you could be like hey and you're. talking over this busy signal mind you. so while this thing is going beep beep. I'm going hey this is Chuck I live in in. Stone Mountain Georgia like where are. you and oh I'm uh I'm Angela I live in. Dallas Texas and then you strike up a.

conversation and you're having some good. clean teenage fun making connections. talking to people you ordinarily would. never meet and beep lines were very. popular in the 1960s and70s yeah there's. a Time article from I think. 1961 that interviews the guy who ran I. think the Fall River Massachusetts or. somewhere in Massachusetts their. telephone company um or station uh and. that there was a a a radio station whose. beep line was like the place to call.

into and when this teen column in a like. a regional magazine published something. on it calls jumped from 1,500 to 27. 28,000 in a week so they were very. popular and apparently once you you. could shout your number to somebody you. were trying to talk to over the Busy. Signal um but when you actually could. talk like normal people on the phone it. was just never as. fun well it's funny I mentioned like. maybe that's how people find out found. out as they just stayed on that line but.

it seems like radio stations is where. they actually found out about these. things because you would call in to win. to be the fifth caller or whatever to. win concert tickets and almost always. you would get that busy signal and so. many people are calling in that they. would find each other on these busy. signal lines and figured out hey wait a. minute this is a thing yeah because. usually when you got a busy signal you. just you wouldn't make a sound you. wouldn't try to talk and you just hang. up immediately but if apparently that's.

just how the phone lines worked if you. talked you could hear somebody else. talking back at you was just you like. you said you had to shout over the busy. signal I talked all I don't know why I. never found this out because every time. I got a busy signal I'll be like hello. what is this is someone there. really really no okay look we switch uh. switching up rolls here what was your. favorite uh phone of all time that you. ever had. you know the first one that jumps to.

mind and I I never had I think later on. I got was able to have a phone in my. bedroom when I was like 16 or 17 but. previous to that I very much remember. our very first cordless phone that had. the antenna that you pull out and the. cradle that it sat on like I just. remember that being a very big deal cuz. I thought like wow we're we're literally. living in the age of the Jetson CU I can. CU we're Unbound by a cord yeah I about. I would have guessed would have put a. lot of money on you saying the Sports.

Illustrated football phone that you got. with the subscription back in the 80s. you remember that yeah I mean I I. subscribe forever but here you know what. happens and this used to bother me as. like a 13-year-old is you subscribe and. you get that first thing and I my mom. got me a subscription I was like 10. uhhuh and you never got any gifts after. that and I used to get so mad that like. why do only new subscribers get the gift. like you should get one every year for. being a loyal subscriber that's a great. great Point did you email the editors or.

sorry did you write a letter to the. editors the Sports Illustrated I don't. think so did your mom hang out by the um. mailbox and the month the swimsuit issue. came out to intercept it no I did man oh. yeah that was a very big deal you. disguised yourself as the. mailbox yeah that was uh especially for. young baptist boy who thought that like. you know Playboys were for boen and. stuff like that that magazine was. everything to me sure yeah all right. Chuck I think that that's a good place.

for a break don't you yeah I'm going to. go uh think about Christy Brinkley and. Carol Alt and Kathy Ireland and we'll be. right back in a few minutes okay. [Music].

all right so we were talking about the. Golden Age of freaking that was really. kind of the 60s mid the late 60s to the. mid 70s probably yeah uh about a 10-year. period where people were figuring out. how to game the the the international. phone network but before AT&T could. really do anything about it because I.

don't think we said the flaws in these. systems that's what the systems depended. on it's not like they could go in and. reconfigure something here or there and. shut down freakers freers were explo use. tones anymore exactly like like it would. have taken billions and billions of. dollars and eventually they did do that. eventually they did upgrade from um. electromechanical to straight up. electrical and then eventually digital. switches that that aren't fooled by. those apparently the way that they they.

first really um made freaking obsolete. was they separated the lines so you. could you could make whistling sounds. into the line all you wanted that line. wasn't accepting that tone the one you. talked into wasn't the one that accepted. the tones anymore so that kind of shut. freaking down but for that 10year period. this amazing Community developed there. was a guy who we have to shout out his. handle was Mark Bernay which is um based. on hilarious early Proto meme that came.

out of the freaking Community that's. worth looking up but he went around all. up and down the West Coast with stickers. that he made that that said like want an. interesting phone call call this number. and then he would hang out on this line. and talk to people when they called and. try to introduce them to freaking he was. like a freaking evangelist yeah and it. became a thing uh among some uh blind. teenagers because there was a a guy in. Seattle who called the sticker the. number on the sticker talked to Mark.

bernes got into it and then I guess met. a blind teenager that he became friends. with introduced him to freaking that. teenager went to a summer camp. introduced his blind friends to freaking. one of them moved East went to another. summer camp introduced those kids and it. spread among like blind teenagers it was. like a big deal and there's a a session. a hangout session that Ron rosenbom. chronicled in the blue the little blue. box secrets of the blue box um article. and like of eight kids hanging out in.

this one kid's kitchen I think five of. them were blind so it's like a really. big cool thing among blind teenagers too. so there's this huge thing that's. developing this the the beginning of. hacker culture is developing over this. 10-e period Then AT&T steps in and is. like we're we're shutting this down. we're losing way too much money yeah and. you know what was great about our new. friend Kyle's article that he put. together for us mhm was that Carl got. right off the bat like that there's a.

story element to these. episodes and he nailed it with this. third act reveal which was this thing. was around for a while it went away uh. but the legacy of it wasn't. just uh these people had fun talking to. each other on beep lines and and hacking. some free long-distance calls and uh. stuff like that the legacy of this thing. was what we're going to get to now which. was. um the legal aspects of it and legal.

justifications for recording phone calls. and surveilling phone calls in the. United States which which all came out. of AT&T going after initially those. bookies in Miami and Los Angeles that. you talked about uh in 1966 when the FBI. raided these bookies they prosecuted one. guy this guy named Kenneth Hannah and. all of a sudden there was precedent. there was was legal ground that AT&T had. that said we can go after these hackers.

we can charge them with a crime uh in. this case fraud by wire and uh where do. we find these people well we're going to. wir tap them and that's what they did it. was an operation called green star. between 64 and 1970 they tapped about 33. million phone calls recorded about half. of those and the United States later on. would say this is great and and just. fine. yeah it really kind of goes to. underscore just how incredibly powerful.

AT&T was at the time like imagine one. company having complete control over the. internet in the United States yeah like. that that gives you an idea of like how. powerful AT&T was so when they decided. they were going to set up their own. internal surveillance program and then. take it to the feds uh they they were. fully aware that the feds would totally. play ball and wouldn't be like uh. what did you just do instead they be. like oh yeah we better go get these laws.

passed to make sure that what you did. was legal retroactively and then at the. same time let's go get those phone. freakers because they really were. costing AT&T money I saw an estimate in. the mid 70s they were losing 30 million. a year which is like 175 million today. just a phone freaking again that's how. expensive long distance was it wasn't. just your parents Chuck any San person. with a job in a phone would know you. don't call long distance on your phone.

no you're not all you just didn't do. it no it would have to be you remember. the calls like your parents would have. to make to like the in-laws or their. parents or something and they like how. short they would keep stuff yeah hey how. you doing we're fine okay bye yeah yeah. everything's good everything's good we. we'll be there next week Tuesday. Tuesday um the the maybe most shocking. fact of this whole episode to me is the. fact that the last circuit that could be. blue boxed in the United States was.

disconnected in 2006 yeah in rural. Minnesota they still had one circuit. that was uh that you could blue box your. way in uh but they had been you know. largely eliminated in the in the 1970s. and then into the or I guess into the. 80s really uh and you know kind of with. that phone freaking there was no. incentive anymore now that you know when. the internet certainly came along and. you could just talk to anyone anywhere. at any time there was no incentive to do.

any sort of long-distance hacking and. and it was just a a moment in time. basically where this thing was allowed. to exist and it existed because of. particular equipment that then went the. way of the dodo but like you said it. went it went they handed the Baton right. off to internet hacking and it was a. pretty seamless uh you know transition. yeah absolutely like they would. literally just like Matthew broadrick. did take their phone and connect it to. their computer through what's called an. acoustic coupler which basically was.

like whatever tone your phone made it. did it into the computer through that. coupler and again they were like dialing. numbers to find interesting numbers or. to find other people's modems so they. could hack into it so yeah it's perfect. word it was a seamless transition to. computer hacking but it's not like. that's all that people did from that. point on was everything everything to do. with the internet and computers of. freaking as far as like phone interest. in phones and phone network still. continuing still around today and it's.

gotten if it was illegal before it's eye. popping illegal the kind of phone. freaking that people are doing today. yeah like cell phone uh hacking and. stuff like that yeah spoofing a cell. tower to intercept phone calls and then. decoding them so you can e drop in on. people's sell um conversations like yeah. there there was a I think a do you. remember was it a wired article I sent. you from I think. 2010 that chronic. some some like U conference where a.

group was like hey get this for $1,500. and parts you can get from the internet. you can make a a spoofed cell tower and. and intercept calls and this was 2010 so. you could probably make one for 10 bucks. in five minutes now or buy it for 10. bucks on the internet like it's just. amazing what they're doing now it's. interesting that it still has to do with. the phone it's not just computer based. it's there's still interest in in. messing with phone networks oh yeah or I.

believe we even talked about on the show. that thing where you'll get a call on. your cell phone that says like American. Express incoming call MH and it's not. it's it's a someone has I can't remember. what they called it cuz we ended up it. happened to us we ended up talking to. American Express and they said no that's. called uh whatever not masking or maybe. it was masking when they can just. basically create uh you know originate a. call saying it's from you and all of a. sudden you're you know talking about. your account details and stuff like that. oh man yes social.

engineering no I just mean like you know. a phone call coming in that's saying. it's from American Express but it's not. it's from a thief right and they're. trying to get your your credit info. right so you they can go off and make. their own card and charge it to you I. guess so I mean some some people try so. hard at such bad things I know we've. talked about it before put that energy. toward just good upstanding legal hard. work work and you could probably make. money yeah you know yeah old man here.

you got anything else I got nothing else. big thanks to Kyle welcome aboard great. job yeah way to go Kyle uh and we both. said congratulations and Kyle and thanks. which means obviously we've just. triggered listener. mail uh yeah this is just short and. sweet when I couldn't think of that word. in the Widow uh episode uh I think we. have the word hey guys what was. listening to widowhood chuck couldn't. bring to mind a word for when you come.

to a conclusion based on your own. experience and I started freaking out. with an F not a pH because I can never. bring that same word to mind either it's. so bad that I actually asked my wife. quite often hey what's that word I can. never remember and she just says. anecdotally oh yeah so that was the word. I'm guessing that's the word you were. looking for Chuck I've tried uh. different ways to get the word to stick. in my mind but nothing has worked I bet. somewhere out there uh someone has. studied this and there's a podcast. episode uh because I think I think.

everyone has weird words they either can. never Spell correctly or remember it's. it's kind of a weird phenomenon yeah I. have a breed of warm seasoned grass. right now at my house and I cannot for. the life of me remember the the kind it. is zoa it's not zoa it's something else. uh crab grass I it's crab grass I looked. it up no that's cool season I looked up. all different kinds of Souther turf. grass it's warm season it's not listed I. I don't know what's going on it forms.

like a thick carpet of of grass it's so. pretty I bet someone will uh let you. know yeah I guess so I would love it if. they did well as long as you got an inch. of standing water it doesn't matter it's. going to grow it's a quarter inch let's. not be. Preposterous all right that was from. Joel Dawson thanks a lot Joel and again. thanks a lot Kyle and if you want to be. like Joel you can send us an email too. send it off to stuff podcast at. iheartradio.com.

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