WEBVTT - What are phone phreaks? 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.880 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.920 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:17.880 tex Stole from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:20.279 Welcome to tex stuff. My name is Chris Poette and 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:22.840 I am an editor here at how stuff works dot Com. 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:26.200 Across from me, as he usually is, is senior writer 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.560 Jonathan Strickland. Did you hear about Kim? Did she kiss 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:32.239 him and cry? Did he pin the pin on? Or 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:36.160 was he too shy? Alright, wow, I don't know that one. 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.479 I'll tell you later. Al Right, it relates to what 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.480 we're gonna talk about today. I yes, the telephone, yes, 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.240 not just the telephone system though, but how to exploit 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:51.080 it for your own nefarious means, well, not necessarily nefarious. 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:54.960 We're talking about phone freaking, yes, which actually when it 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:58.480 started out, was not necessarily meant as a way of 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:00.840 exploiting the phone system. Was more of a way of 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:05.679 exploring it. Yes, And would you believe, actually you would, 0:01:05.680 --> 0:01:08.520 But would you, the listener believe that at one point 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.640 in the United States you could make free long distance 0:01:11.720 --> 0:01:13.760 calls with the help of a toy whistle from a 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:17.280 serial box. I don't believe it, except that I know 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:21.080 that that's true because Draper did it. Yes, indeed, So 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.560 let's talk a little bit about what led to phone freaking. 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:28.560 So in the old and old and olden days of 0:01:28.600 --> 0:01:31.520 the telephone system, which really weren't that old when you 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:33.520 think about it. But you know, you know, when we're talking, 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:37.200 we're not talking about geologic time periods here. Okay, all right, 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:40.720 in the early part of the twentieth century, when the 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:44.360 phone system was a new and beautiful thing. Um, you 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.720 would you would normally connect your calls by connecting to 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:51.320 an operator who would complete the circuit to whatever your 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:55.520 destination call was going to be, and actually go through 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:59.160 several operators. In fact, yeah, I think even our probably 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.320 even our youngest list nurse have seen some TV show 0:02:02.400 --> 0:02:05.080 or movie where they have the operators sitting with the 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:08.040 headphones on in front of a giant switchboard, literally a 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:11.120 giant switchboard where they plugged in cables to route calls. 0:02:11.600 --> 0:02:14.480 I mean that that image is sort of iconic, right, 0:02:14.520 --> 0:02:17.040 So that that was the manual way of routing a 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:19.600 call through the system so that you could get hold 0:02:19.639 --> 0:02:22.480 of whoever it was, whoever it was you were trying to, uh, 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:29.240 speak to um. Now. Eventually we managed to advance technology 0:02:29.280 --> 0:02:32.639 to the point where we could automate the system, and 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:36.840 by automating the system, some interesting things started to pop up. 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.000 For one thing, people who were interested in electronics and 0:02:40.040 --> 0:02:42.480 puzzles and that kind of thing sort of looked at 0:02:42.520 --> 0:02:46.560 the phone system as a big challenge figuring out how 0:02:46.639 --> 0:02:50.200 it worked from the outside. Yeah. Actually we call these 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:54.079 people hackers. And not because you know that that's we'll 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.800 get into the connotations of that and more deeply in 0:02:56.840 --> 0:02:59.720 a few minutes. But um, people who like to take 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:02.040 things part and see what they can do with them 0:03:02.040 --> 0:03:06.080 and employ it for other purposes. Um. Those those people, 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.840 often especially now call themselves hackers. And uh, you know, 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:13.480 it could be used just because you're interested in the 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:16.000 technology and what lies behind it and what you can 0:03:16.160 --> 0:03:20.440 do with it. Um. But unfortunately some people also use that, 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:25.120 uh you know, for their own nefarious purposes. And uh, 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:28.680 the the word hacker has taken on that kind of 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:32.320 negative connotation. Yeah. What's interesting is that I think you 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.480 can kind of draw parallels between phone freaking, the history 0:03:35.480 --> 0:03:37.920 of phone freaking, and the history of computer hacking. Oh. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.120 I can definitely draw those parallels because I read about 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.920 that in researching this podcast. Right, It's it's not just 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:47.720 that some phone freakers, some very prominent ones, switched from 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:51.400 phone freaking to computer hacking, but also that the the 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:55.960 process in which the uh the the whole concept of 0:03:56.040 --> 0:04:00.400 freaking started to leak into a larger audience um meant 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.360 that you suddenly had people who were using it to 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.560 take advantage of the system. Just as with the earliest hackers, 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:09.320 they weren't necessarily interested in in hacking computers for their 0:04:09.320 --> 0:04:12.440 own personal gain. They were interested in learning more about 0:04:12.440 --> 0:04:15.040 the system, how it works, and how you know to 0:04:15.080 --> 0:04:18.240 get around certain things, and and maybe even ultimately how 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:21.799 to improve the system. And then later as more people 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.080 got interested in hacking, they were getting interested in it 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:26.280 in the term of like, how can I make this 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.840 work for me? So both freaking and hacking have kind 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:32.720 of undergone that sort of that that evolution where it 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.120 started with people who are just curious, and it ultimately 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.320 lead to people who are like, how can I how 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.800 can I leverage my my knowledge of the system to 0:04:41.920 --> 0:04:45.760 get something that I'm not entitled to Well, according to 0:04:46.000 --> 0:04:48.760 UH Too Cyberpunk, which is a book by Katie Hafner 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:55.080 and John Markoff, UM, the people who were really into 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.320 phone freaking, UM, including people like Kevin Mitnick, who's you know, 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:03.599 quite famous computer hacker. UM. Part of it stemmed directly 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.000 from phone freaking. Like, as things changed and and the 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:12.640 system became more computerized, they wanted to continue digging into 0:05:12.720 --> 0:05:17.120 the telephone system, so they began learning how to manipulate 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.599 the computers that ran the telephone system. So you know, 0:05:20.640 --> 0:05:24.400 there is a direct It was basically a direct move 0:05:24.560 --> 0:05:27.320 from one to the other. UM. And then of course 0:05:27.440 --> 0:05:32.000 computers became used for other things. And so let's start 0:05:32.040 --> 0:05:35.480 back all the way back to nineteen sixty one, All right, 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.960 nineteen sixty ones, when we first kind of know that 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.360 people were starting to play around with the phone system 0:05:41.400 --> 0:05:46.560 and find interesting ways to to manipulate it. UM. Back then, 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.720 they weren't known as phone freaks. They had they had 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.520 really no term at all. For one thing, they were 0:05:52.520 --> 0:05:55.479 mostly individuals or maybe a couple of people who knew 0:05:55.520 --> 0:05:58.760 each other. UM. But there was no like organized group. 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:01.200 There were no newsletter. All of that would come later. 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:05.400 It wasn't until nineteen sixty three when an m I 0:06:05.480 --> 0:06:08.440 t issue of the Tech that was their their newsletter 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.760 came out. It was their November twenty issue. Actually, uh, 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:19.320 the the author of that piece said, called them, uh hackers, 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.279 telephone hackers. Okay, so that's when we first get the 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:27.479 hacker term. And then a few years later, actually quite 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:31.839 a few years later, Ron Rosenbaum in Esquire in ninete 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.640 coined the term phone freaks to describe these people. So 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.440 exactly what were these people doing. Well, for one thing, 0:06:39.440 --> 0:06:42.360 they were getting hold of any kind of technical manuals 0:06:42.360 --> 0:06:45.200 they could possibly find that would explain the phone system. 0:06:45.240 --> 0:06:47.920 And then they were kind of exploring it because the 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.880 phone system was a very mysterious thing. Now, if you 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.280 just looked at it from a surface level, you thought, oh, well, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:56.240 I've got a phone ideal, these numbers, and then I'm 0:06:56.240 --> 0:06:59.640 connected to the person on the other end. The phone 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:02.680 freaks were interested with how does that work? How is 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:04.279 it that when you pick up the phone and you 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:08.080 dial these numbers that this gets routed to this specific person. 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.800 And they knew that the phone companies had a whole 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:14.800 series of secret signals that they would use behind the 0:07:14.840 --> 0:07:17.480 scenes to keep things running. And they were wondering, what 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:21.280 are these secret signals and what do they do? Yeah, 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:26.720 what was going on in between, say the switchboards that 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:30.680 we spoke of earlier, and the earlier forms of automation 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.640 before it got so computerized in the nineties. Uh, and 0:07:34.760 --> 0:07:38.080 probably a little bit before that, I'm guessing, um is 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.120 everything was sound based. Um, so there were a lot 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:44.680 of different ways to if you if you knew what 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:49.160 you were doing and could replicate the right pitch of 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:55.720 sound into a phone microphone, then you could take control 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:57.960 of certain aspects of the system. So it one. It 0:07:58.000 --> 0:08:00.120 was one of those things where it became a a 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:04.800 challenge to figure out what these other tones were and 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:06.680 how they how they worked, and what you could do 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:09.360 with them. Yeah, this kind of leads us to Joe 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:15.360 and grass Syria Ingressia. I'm sorry I mispronounced that last name. Ingressia. Yes, 0:08:15.440 --> 0:08:20.720 the whistler. So Joe was he was a curious kid. 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:25.800 Um he he was, Um, well, he's a blind kid. 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:27.640 He was like seven years old when he when he 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.480 first found out. One of the things he liked to do, 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.079 because Joe is a wild and crazy kid back then, 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:37.120 was he like to listen to automated messages for unconnected 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.480 phone lines. He just thought that was kind of cool. 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:41.360 He would he would dial number and listen to it 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:45.360 and listen to the connection. And according to Joe, one 0:08:45.360 --> 0:08:47.520 time he was listening and he was sort of whistling 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:52.120 to himself as he was listening to this this recorded message, 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.360 and the recording message stopped, and he thought, well, why 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:59.880 did the message stop? So eventually he actually called eight 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:02.800 and T and said, hey, I want to know that. 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.720 I want to know why this happens when I'm whistling 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:08.679 into the phone. Why does this recording stop? And the 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.040 engineer on the other end of the line made a 0:09:11.200 --> 0:09:17.520 colossal mistake. The engineer explained that the phone system used 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:22.760 a twenty six hundred hurts tone to operate on on 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.240 the trunk line um and that if you created this tone, 0:09:26.360 --> 0:09:28.960 it was essentially a message to the trunk line that 0:09:29.040 --> 0:09:31.800 the call had ended, and it would it would end, 0:09:31.840 --> 0:09:34.880 it would stop the call. Joe figured out from this 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:37.960 that if he could if he could whistle twenty six 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:41.200 hurts frequency, which he could because he had perfect pitch 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.160 hundred hurts. I'm sorry, did I miss It was just 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:48.480 one of those things twenty hurts. So yeah, if he 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:52.040 if he could whistle that perfectly, he could signal to 0:09:52.080 --> 0:09:54.480 this trunk line that a phone call had ended, and 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:58.040 if he then whistled at that same frequency a certain 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:04.559 number of times, could theoretically dial a number um and 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:07.360 and make a free long distance phone call. Now, the 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:10.360 way this had to work was you couldn't just call 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:14.040 any number and whistle in and have it work. Um. 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:17.880 It all depended on the way the phone systems were 0:10:18.480 --> 0:10:21.720 constructed regionally. You had to actually first make a long 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:24.679 distance call for this to work. But you can make 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:26.600 a long distance call to a winning a hundred numbers, 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:29.280 so you're not getting a charge. So you make that 0:10:29.360 --> 0:10:33.400 one a hundred number call, you get connected, uh, and 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:36.679 then you make the whistling noise which tells the trunk line, hey, 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.240 this call is over, so you're still connected through to 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.079 the trunk and then you whistle again to dial whatever 0:10:43.200 --> 0:10:46.720 number it is, and then uh, you get connected to 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:52.080 your long distance call for free. Yes, not everyone could 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:56.880 do this on their own. No, but but John Draper 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.160 figured out a way to do it. Yeah, John Draper, 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:01.480 he has an interest sting nickname too. You got Joe 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:04.160 who was the whistler? What was the Draper's nickname? That 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.560 would be Captain Crunch And why would his nickname be 0:11:07.720 --> 0:11:11.920 Captain Crunch. We know. I saw on TV a few 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.520 years ago this this person who invented all the different 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.160 kinds of little toys and gadgets and stuff that they 0:11:18.200 --> 0:11:20.720 would throw in cereal boxes, little plastic goodies that they 0:11:20.720 --> 0:11:25.199 would throw in their tops, and and uh jack's and whistles. 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.640 And as it turns out that draper found out that 0:11:28.679 --> 0:11:31.240 this little uh actually I've seen pictures of it looks 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:36.079 sort of like a Boson's pipe. Yeah, hey, that was good. 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:38.439 Do you think we could take over the phone lines anyway? 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:41.800 It turns more, it turns out that when you when 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:44.200 you blew through this whistle, it produced a pitch of 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:48.360 oh hurts. Yeah, you had to cover one of the 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:50.520 there were two holes that would generate the sound. If 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.600 you covered one of the two, you could generate hurts. 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:56.920 I think the other one was if you covered the 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:58.280 other one, I'd have to look it up now. And 0:11:58.280 --> 0:12:01.280 if you covered both, you could wistle to dogs, because 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.200 he would make a noise that no human could hear. 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:07.120 But but yeah, he dug that plastic whistle out of 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:10.160 you know, a cereal box. You know, since his nickname 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:12.120 was Captain Crunch, you could guess that it was probably 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:18.760 out of a box of prudy pebbles, right, honestly, just so. 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:21.200 But you want to understand he actually found out that 0:12:21.240 --> 0:12:23.600 it made the right tone, not on his own, but 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:27.280 because he was in a conversation with Joe the Whistler, 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:30.360 and it was through speaking with him that he found 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.000 out that this this little whistle could do the same 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.720 thing that Joe could do naturally. So obviously the Captain 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:41.240 Crunch whistles became a sought after item by phone freaks, 0:12:41.679 --> 0:12:44.600 people who are interested in in, like I said, manipulating 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:46.559 the phone system and really finding out how it worked 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.240 and listening to these beefs and clicks and wondering, okay, 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:51.760 well how can I make this to kind of navigate 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:56.520 my way through the system. So not not everyone used them, 0:12:56.679 --> 0:12:59.400 but they became kind of a status symbol, like if 0:12:59.400 --> 0:13:01.880 you owned one, you were part of the twenty s club, 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:05.640 you know. I actually saw some for sale on eBay, 0:13:06.080 --> 0:13:07.720 so you can you can still get hold of them, 0:13:07.760 --> 0:13:10.400 and they're not terribly expensive. They're not really useful either. 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:12.439 That's the thing is at this point, they're just sort 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:15.360 of a collector's item, right, They're not useful in in 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.199 phone circles because the phone system is totally different now 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:20.680 than what it was back then. But at any rate, 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.400 so you started seeing a culture of these people start up. 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:26.440 Whereas all these folks who are who are finding out 0:13:26.440 --> 0:13:29.439 ways to manipulate the phone system and not since not 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:33.000 everyone could get hold of a Captain crunch whistle or 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:36.560 make the whistle on their own, uh, they had to 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:40.080 find or create devices that could do it for them. Also, 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:44.199 we should mention that the whistling technique, this hurts technique 0:13:44.480 --> 0:13:49.800 only worked on single frequency phone systems, and the phone 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:52.800 systems at that time we're undergoing a transformation where a 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:55.840 lot of them were switching to multiple multiple frequency systems, 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.040 which meant that you would have too frequencies play at 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.760 the same time. I see whistle sophisticated right, Whistling to 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.720 frequencies at the same time not an easy task to 0:14:04.720 --> 0:14:07.640 do so, um, so you had to start creating a 0:14:07.679 --> 0:14:11.880 system device that could do this for you. And that's 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:16.200 where the blue box came from. Yes, yes, I would 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.760 like to point out that everybody, uh you know, recently, everybody, 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.760 lots and lots of people recently have been picking on 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.920 people who have I devices the iPhone, the iPad, because 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:30.840 you know, they want to be just like everybody else 0:14:31.160 --> 0:14:32.960 and they want to be part of the crowd. Well, 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:36.000 as it turns out, the people at Apple have not 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:39.520 always been as uh, you know, part of the mainstream 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:44.000 culture because two of the people who were involved early 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:47.320 in the blue box phenomenon were people who are making 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:49.600 them to sell to other people at college. And those 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:52.680 people would be Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniac, the founders 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.600 of Apple. And I think that is hilarious. Actually, Steve 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:59.600 woznia acts blue boxes in the Computer History Museum. You 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:01.880 can see hit the one that the first one he built. 0:15:02.920 --> 0:15:05.400 I just think that's very funny. But now now that 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.600 you know every you know, lots and lots and lots 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.880 of people have these devices. And the people who started 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:14.800 the company started out as counterculture hackers. But the blue 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.600 box is not named because it is blue. In fact, 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.600 it could be pretty much any size or any color. 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:22.040 It has nothing to do with that. It's just a 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.600 nickname that it got. Yeah, and it it. It wouldn't 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:28.040 have been possible to make this, or at least it 0:15:28.040 --> 0:15:30.920 would have let me backtrack, I won't say it wouldn't 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.640 have been possible. It would have been exceptionally difficult to 0:15:33.720 --> 0:15:35.760 make this if it weren't for the fact that once 0:15:35.800 --> 0:15:40.160 again a telephone company made a massive error in judgment, 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.840 which was in this case it was the Bell System 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:48.760 Technical Journal, which released the information of what frequencies each 0:15:48.880 --> 0:15:53.840 number needed now in order to to dial them. Yeah. No, normal, 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.280 normally people wouldn't be looking for that kind of information. 0:15:57.280 --> 0:15:59.360 But the kinds of people who would be into phone 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.000 freaking I would know exactly where to find that kind 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:04.720 of information, and they would be already monitoring those journals 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.080 because they were interested in how the phone system work. Right, 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:09.240 So you look at this journal and you find out that, 0:16:09.560 --> 0:16:11.640 let's see, I think I even have an example here, 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:16.640 like the the number UM four, for example, had two tones, 0:16:17.000 --> 0:16:19.800 all of them did. One of them was in the 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.800 seven hundred hurts frequency and the other was hurts frequency. 0:16:24.160 --> 0:16:26.040 So you had to generate both of those in order 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:28.920 to dial a four. So once you know that, once 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.640 you know which frequencies will generate, which you know won't 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:35.960 translate to which numbers, you could create a device that 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:39.040 when you when you input the number, it would make 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.240 that noise. You connect that to phone and suddenly you 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.160 can make these long distance phone calls again, just like 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:49.600 Joe was doing by whistling in the receiver. Um. And 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:52.680 it was you know, it was a heck of a thing, man. 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.920 I mean, you could you could uh make joke prank 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.040 phone calls. I heard of one. I don't know the story, 0:16:59.080 --> 0:17:03.080 maybe apocryphal, um, but I heard one about how the 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:06.760 wa was made a certain prank phone call to uh 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:10.840 a particularly high ranking member of the Catholic Church, in fact, 0:17:11.040 --> 0:17:19.119 the highest He supposedly prank called the Pope and impersonated 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:22.520 Henry Kissinger. Yeah. I had actually heard that story to 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.800 the Pope. He was asleep and so he didn't He 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:27.840 did not come to the phone. He said, I'll call 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:31.920 Hank back later. Um. That was lovely. We're gonna get 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.560 mail mail about that or comments on Facebook, or because 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:39.240 I called Henry Kissinger Hank, Come on people. Um. But 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.440 there were other kinds of boxes too. There were red 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:43.719 boxes and beige boxes and black boxes, and they all 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.560 did something different. Red boxes theoretically allow you to make 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:49.240 free pay phone calls. Yeah. The thing about the red 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.400 box was that it would generate a frequency, you would 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.320 replace a crystal within the dialer of the tell. Most 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.320 of these involved having to take apart a public phone 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:03.320 to some extent um or sometimes a regular phone depended 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:05.359 on the thing. But this was a public phone. You 0:18:05.400 --> 0:18:07.080 go to a pay phone, you take it apart. You 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.960 replaced the the crystal within the dialer system with a 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:16.760 different crystal that would resonate at a higher frequency. And 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:21.280 and it it would it would simulate the sound of 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.600 a quarter going into the pay phone. Yes, so you 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:28.040 were simulating as if you were feeding change into the payphone. 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:31.160 And you could so your calls technically weren't quote unquote 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:34.600 free because as far as the machine could tell, you 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:37.280 were actually feeding coins into it. But but you were 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:40.760 just simulating that. Um. Yeah, and and and here I 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:43.160 am going to teach some of our younger listeners. At 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:47.160 one point there were phones on every corner and you 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:50.160 had to put money into them to make a call. So, 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:52.439 you know, because no one had cell phones, I'm just 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:54.280 eating they weren't on every corner. But you know what, 0:18:54.320 --> 0:18:56.240 you don't see them anymore because of the rise of 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.199 cell phones. This is something that would be Yeah, and 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.440 then there are some in some places, but not nearly 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:04.760 as many as there used to be right right, Yeah, 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.720 this is something that may be unfamiliar to people. Honestly, 0:19:07.720 --> 0:19:11.840 they may not realize that there were payphones so frequently available, 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:14.320 and you you know, it would be difficult, I would imagine, 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.520 to install a red box because you'd have to do 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:19.760 it when people weren't looking, right, So you'd have to 0:19:19.880 --> 0:19:23.640 you in there payphone that's in a fairly remote location. 0:19:23.680 --> 0:19:26.440 Although there there were plenty of them in remote locations 0:19:26.480 --> 0:19:30.440 and there still are. Yeah. Um, and again these these 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:34.440 systems won't work with that anymore because the whole basis 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:36.840 for the phone network is different now. In fact, phone 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.480 freaking in general has really shifted. Now it's no longer 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.520 really about finding ways to make free long distance phone calls, 0:19:43.520 --> 0:19:45.680 because that's not as not nearly as big a deal 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:47.720 as it used to be. No, No, as a matter 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.920 of fact, as as time went on, at least according 0:19:50.960 --> 0:19:54.400 to uh Halfner and Markoff's book, Um, you know, when 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:58.360 the systems involved into computer technology, you had a couple 0:19:58.400 --> 0:20:01.040 of things going on. You did have hackers looking to 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:05.119 hack computer networks because they were interested in learning more 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.280 about them and sometimes for other purposes. But one thing 0:20:08.320 --> 0:20:12.600 that people were doing, they were looking to replicate m 0:20:12.640 --> 0:20:16.760 C I UM, which was I think one of the 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:19.520 baby bells and is now part of it. May I 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:21.600 may be wrong on that. Anyway, it was an independent 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:25.800 phone company and UH UM they were they had calling 0:20:25.840 --> 0:20:30.200 cards UM, and what the phone hackers were doing at 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:34.560 that point was trying to find ways to replicate UH 0:20:34.880 --> 0:20:37.520 m CI calling card numbers. And they would basically call 0:20:37.560 --> 0:20:42.439 an m C I UH network and enter numbers with 0:20:42.480 --> 0:20:44.600 their computer and when they found one that worked, they 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:46.760 would use that to make free phone calls. But it 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:48.960 was a different way of doing it than manipulating the 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.960 phone system itself. It was really manipulating the payment system. 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.760 I would say more than more than that. UM. But 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:59.000 by the mid nineteen seventies, according to the the aforementioned book, 0:20:59.280 --> 0:21:04.080 UM A T N T said UH or they were losing. 0:21:04.080 --> 0:21:08.200 The company was losing approximately thirty million dollars a year 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:12.879 to UH to fraudulent phone calls. And UM I just 0:21:12.920 --> 0:21:15.160 picked nineteen seventy five is a year plugged it into 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:18.480 wall from Alpha. UH thirty million dollars in nineteen seventy 0:21:18.480 --> 0:21:20.800 five would be about a hundred and twenty point six 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.879 million dollars in two thousand ten. UM so that's you know, 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:29.600 not sizeable, but it's certainly not a lot. They certainly 0:21:29.600 --> 0:21:33.520 don't want to lose that money. Um. And apparently professional, 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:39.800 professional white color uh people were using these techniques to 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.040 I mean, when we're past the era of that the hacker, 0:21:43.560 --> 0:21:45.760 you know, being interested in the network and taking over. 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:48.399 These are people who you know, maybe for maybe they 0:21:48.440 --> 0:21:50.320 were just trying to get free phone calls from themselves. 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:53.119 Maybe they were small businesses trying to find ways to 0:21:53.240 --> 0:21:57.600 avoid paying long distance charges. Um. You know. So basically 0:21:57.600 --> 0:21:59.840 that had a lot to do with why Bell Labs 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:04.160 um basically found ways to scan the network for things 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.919 like black boxes. Black boxes allowed you to hook up 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:10.160 you hook it up to your own phone and when 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.840 people would call you, um, it would basically nullify the 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.639 charges for the person on the other end making the 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:19.280 phone call, but a scanner would pick up on that 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:21.480 on the call, so you'd have to cut it short 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:24.359 to avoid being detected by the scanners on the network. 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.160 And basically they started finding people who were doing these 0:22:27.200 --> 0:22:29.840 things and prosecuting them, and they got quite a few 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:33.200