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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck

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Speaker 1: and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you should know.

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Speaker 2: That's right. Can can we can you do your little

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Speaker 2: trumpet sound announcement? Trumpet?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? Are you ready?

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Speaker 2: Huh?

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Speaker 1: Sorry? No, hold on.

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Speaker 2: There we go. Yeah, we want to announce the a

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Speaker 2: new writer that we have working with us, and welcome

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Speaker 2: aboard Kyle Hookstra and everybody. We have just classed up

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Speaker 2: this joint, Yeah, we have because Kyle is British and

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Speaker 2: he lives there. He's not like some some dumb British

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Speaker 2: dude living in you know, Waco, Texas, or.

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Speaker 1: Some American living in Great Britain. This guy is like

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Speaker 1: legit brit that's right.

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Speaker 2: He lives in Brighton and we gave him a test

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Speaker 2: article and this was it. He did such a good job.

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Speaker 2: We were like, hey, this thing's great and welcome aboard

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Speaker 2: and he was interested and so it seems like the

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Speaker 2: beginning of a new great relationship.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, So welcome aboard, Kyle, and thanks for this one.

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Speaker 1: I'm excited about this and this, Chuck, if you'll remember

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Speaker 1: came up from the whistling episode. Do you remember that?

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Speaker 2: Did you mention this?

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Speaker 1: I know one thing that Anna had turned up and

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Speaker 1: kind of included as a sidebar was how capt'n crunch

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Speaker 1: Whistle had been used to basically hack the phone system.

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Speaker 1: And I've been wanting to do an episode on phae

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Speaker 1: freaking forever and it just so happened that reminded me,

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Speaker 1: And here we are now we ask Kyle to do it,

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Speaker 1: and this is our episode on phone freaking.

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Speaker 2: That you've been waiting for freaking ever to do. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 2: with a pH both ways. Actually, yeah, I mean, I

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Speaker 2: guess we should introduce what we're talking about here, because

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Speaker 2: this is something that if you're, oh, maybe have a

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Speaker 2: certain age, you might not know what this is. And

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Speaker 2: I'm of that certain age that should know, but I

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Speaker 2: didn't really know much about it, to be honest. But

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Speaker 2: we're talking about the fact that in the nineteen fifties,

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Speaker 2: well before that, let's.

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Speaker 1: Say you're not of that certain age, in.

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Speaker 2: Our lifetime, uh huh right, pre computers, Yeah, we were

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Speaker 2: all still connected via something called the telephone system. And

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Speaker 2: in the United States, the telephone system was It's how

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Speaker 2: humans connected before the Internet, and it was a big

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Speaker 2: interconnected system that was manually operated by switchboards, which we

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Speaker 2: should totally do a switchboard episode at some point.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was very really interesting.

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Speaker 2: But they started to get rid of the switchboard operators

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Speaker 2: in the nineteen fifties for automatic switches. And the one

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Speaker 2: thing they didn't think about was the fact that they

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Speaker 2: had a bit of a design flaw or a weakness

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Speaker 2: in this system, whereas the tones they use to let

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Speaker 2: the automatic system know like what to do with a

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Speaker 2: telephone call, could be mimicked and replicated with sometimes a

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Speaker 2: human voice, sometimes a toy whistle like you said, or

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Speaker 2: something that somebody made to essentially hack into the phone

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Speaker 2: system by replicating those tones. And AT and T was like, oh,

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Speaker 2: we never thought that anyone would be interested in doing that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that was an outstanding introduction man.

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Speaker 2: And it's called phone freaking phph Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And so phone freakers were pretty much the earliest examples

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Speaker 1: of hackers. They were free computer hacker culture. As a

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Speaker 1: matter of fact, hacking just grew essentially right out of

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Speaker 1: phone freaking and a lot of the phone freaks who

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Speaker 1: were kind of on the whole jam in the early

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Speaker 1: eighties just made the leap to computers through phones. It's

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Speaker 1: pretty interesting, as we'll see. But there's one thing we

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Speaker 1: should say about them as a community. Phone freakers were

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Speaker 1: curious individuals. Like they were technical minded types. They wanted

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Speaker 1: to see how this vast, huge connected network worked, and

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Speaker 1: they knew very well that there were whole, huge parts

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Speaker 1: of it that were shielded from public view. You weren't

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Speaker 1: meant to know about this. You didn't need to know

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Speaker 1: about it. Just go in and punch the phone number

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Speaker 1: and we'll connect it for you. That wasn't enough. They

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Speaker 1: wanted to know everything there was to know about it.

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Speaker 1: And one way that you can find out how something

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Speaker 1: works is to try to break it, and that was

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Speaker 1: kind of what they were doing. They weren't doing it

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Speaker 1: maliciously for almost exclusively, They weren't doing it maliciously. They

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Speaker 1: were doing it out of curiosity.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it sort of reminded me a little bit

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Speaker 2: of like ham radio operators, where like the victory of

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Speaker 2: a like a win for a phone freaker was like,

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Speaker 2: oh my god, I connected with someone through the back

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Speaker 2: door in another country and was able to talk to them.

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Speaker 2: And yeah, maybe some people took advantage of like free

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Speaker 2: long distance and stuff like that. But like you said,

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Speaker 2: I think as a whole the community was just like

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Speaker 2: those were the wins, like, oh my god, I was

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Speaker 2: able to do this thing. How cool?

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Speaker 1: Right, So let's kind of start at the beginning, shall we,

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Speaker 1: because freaking did not exist prior to the fifties or

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Speaker 1: sixties when they introduced automatic switches. Which is a little

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Speaker 1: aside about the switches. The guy who invented him actually

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Speaker 1: invented him in the nineteenth century. He was a mortician

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Speaker 1: who his competition, the across town mortician rival. That guy's

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Speaker 1: wife was the operators, so when somebody called to ask

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Speaker 1: for a mortician, she automatically connected them to her husband's business,

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Speaker 1: not this guy's business. So he actually went out of

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Speaker 1: his way to invent an automatic switch to replace human operators,

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Speaker 1: and decades later they finally came into into play. But

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Speaker 1: you couldn't have done this before when somebody was like

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Speaker 1: connecting the call for you, because if you just started

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Speaker 1: whistling in their ear something like that, they'd be like,

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Speaker 1: what are you doing? This isn't this is really bizarre.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to connect this call. It was once

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Speaker 1: it became automated that it became possible.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, did they even have dial tones with

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Speaker 2: switchboard operators?

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Speaker 1: I don't believe, so, I don't see why you would.

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Speaker 1: I think when they converted to automatic switches, they adopted

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Speaker 1: something called multi frequency tones, and it was all where

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Speaker 1: you had a tone, like you pressed a one and

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Speaker 1: it made a certain tone actually a combination of tones,

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Speaker 1: hence the multi frequency thing, and it told this this network,

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Speaker 1: turn this gear or this dial and everyone knows. I

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Speaker 1: don't know what I'm talking about with gear, but there

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Speaker 1: were gears involved, and things like actually would move somewhere

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Speaker 1: in space because a tone told it to. That's that's

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Speaker 1: kind of what they brought online in the fifties and sixties.

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Speaker 2: So if someone whistled at a switchboard operator, they would

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Speaker 2: be from the.

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Speaker 1: Future because so yeah kind of, or else they'd be fresh.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they'd be fresh because they like a wolf whistle

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Speaker 2: or something.

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Speaker 1: Mm hm.

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Speaker 2: So let's talk about phones for a second, because when

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Speaker 2: we talk about these tones, we largely think of like

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Speaker 2: a push button telephone, which is what we use starting geez,

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Speaker 2: I'm not even really sure. But they replaced the rotary phones,

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Speaker 2: not replaced. They worked alongside for many years. We had

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Speaker 2: both for a long time in my house. Yeah, but

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Speaker 2: the button on the phone isn't exactly a key to

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Speaker 2: the system operating. The only thing the phone would do

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Speaker 2: was create that tone. The tone was what mattered. It

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Speaker 2: did get me wondering, like, well, how the heck does

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Speaker 2: the rotary phone even work? And this is just a

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Speaker 2: slight aside, but I never knew how that operated. And

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Speaker 2: the way a rotary phone would work was you would

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Speaker 2: dial the number around and that part didn't really matter.

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Speaker 2: It was the return back into position that sent this

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Speaker 2: that would engage basically these electrical contacts to interrupt the

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Speaker 2: electrical continuity. So a nine would go bup up, up, up, up, up,

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Speaker 2: up up up, and it would interrupt at nine different

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Speaker 2: times and sending a signal saying, hey, this is a nine,

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Speaker 2: dumb dumb. And I never knew how that worked, so

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Speaker 2: I thought that was pretty fascinating. But as far as

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Speaker 2: the push button phone, you would just press a button,

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Speaker 2: it would have a tone assigned to it. And it's

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Speaker 2: those tones that freaks were able to replicate to essentially

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Speaker 2: fool the phone company into thinking that somebody was pressing

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Speaker 2: a button, and in some case cases they were, which

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Speaker 2: we'll talk about and.

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Speaker 1: Just knowing that you could trick the system into dialing

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Speaker 1: something for you just by whistles or making tones, not

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Speaker 1: using your phone. That's fun in and of itself, but

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Speaker 1: there's a really good example of like how this could

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Speaker 1: be put to use in a way that was like, oh, okay,

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Speaker 1: this is no longer legal. You're actually you're you're you're

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Speaker 1: actually hijacking the phone system for your own ends, and

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Speaker 1: this is the basis of freaking. There was a there

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Speaker 1: was a tone that was instrumental to this whole multi

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Speaker 1: frequency tone system, and it was that I think the

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Speaker 1: minor e. It was that that resonates at twenty six

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Speaker 1: hundred hertz. Okay, so whatever sound cycles at twenty six

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Speaker 1: hundred cycles per second, that tone would tell the phone

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Speaker 1: company that your phone was on the hook. When when

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Speaker 1: your phone stopped making that sound, when your line stopped

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Speaker 1: making that twenty six hundred hertz sound, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: the phone system was like, oh, okay, this guy wants

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Speaker 1: a connection somewhere. Let's go pay attention to what's going

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Speaker 1: on here. So let's say you started dialing them, and

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Speaker 1: you dial the eight hundred number. Your phone stopped making

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Speaker 1: that twenty six hundred hurt sound, and the phone company's

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Speaker 1: attention was grabbed by that. And you dial this eight

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Speaker 1: hundred number and it would start to connect to you,

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Speaker 1: and because it was an eight hundred number, the system

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Speaker 1: would be like, Okay, we're connecting this, but we're not

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Speaker 1: going to charge this person for this call because this

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Speaker 1: is a toll free number. And then before the other

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Speaker 1: person on the other line could pick up, you would

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Speaker 1: blow that. You would make a twenty six hundred hurtz

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Speaker 1: tone and that told the phone system you had hung up,

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Speaker 1: but you hadn't actually hung up. And now the line

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Speaker 1: was open for you to dial any number you wanted

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Speaker 1: to anywhere in the world toll free, because as far

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Speaker 1: as the system was concerned, you were still calling a

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Speaker 1: toll free number even though you were calling any number

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Speaker 1: you wanted. And now you can make long distance phone

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Speaker 1: calls for free at a time when they were really

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Speaker 1: really expensive.

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Speaker 2: That's right. And these were enabled by what we're called

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Speaker 2: trunk lines. So if you think about whatever city you

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Speaker 2: live in, depending on the size of your city, you

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Speaker 2: would have I guess if you lived in a small

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Speaker 2: up town, you probably just had one office. But if

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Speaker 2: your city was large enough, you had multiple offices where

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Speaker 2: these calls were connected. Basically, so if you lived in

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Speaker 2: like one neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, and you were calling

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Speaker 2: a neighborhood, you know, ten fifteen miles away in Dallas, Texas,

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Speaker 2: there would be another office there in that neighborhood or

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Speaker 2: that area or region or whatever, and they were all

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Speaker 2: connected by trunk lines, like hundreds to thousands of these things,

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Speaker 2: depending on how big your town was, because each one

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Speaker 2: of these could only handle one call at a time,

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Speaker 2: So the trunkline line was basically just a medium to

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Speaker 2: carry your vote, carry your voice locally from one place

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Speaker 2: to the other. And we both said there was only

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Speaker 2: one that could be going at once. That's why there

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Speaker 2: were thousands of these things. And if you were able

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Speaker 2: to replicate that tone, then you could, you know, have

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Speaker 2: some good, clean fun.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And trunk lines were also the way that you

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Speaker 1: died long distance because they could connect like different parts

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Speaker 1: of a town. They could also connect one city to

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Speaker 1: another and so on and so forth. And so the

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Speaker 1: people who figured this out that you could you could

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Speaker 1: hijack the phone system by trying out different tones and

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Speaker 1: doing different things were just socked in immediately and just

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Speaker 1: began experimenting, started meeting one another, sometimes by happenstance on

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Speaker 1: a phone line that they just happened to try out

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Speaker 1: and there was some other freak hanging out on it.

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Speaker 1: It just was immediately infectious to their to their curiosity

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Speaker 1: that you just wanted to figure out how this could

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Speaker 1: work and what all you could make this phone system

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Speaker 1: do by replicating these tones.

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Speaker 2: I think that's a pretty good setup, my friend.

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Speaker 1: I agree. You want to take a break, then, yeah, let's.

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Speaker 2: Take a break and we'll come back and talk about

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Speaker 2: who some of these first freakers were right after this,

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Speaker 2: all right, so we promised to talk about some early freakers.

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Speaker 2: One was a guy in the nineteen fifties, so you know,

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Speaker 2: this started pretty early on. If you think about early

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Speaker 2: hacking and like what led to hacking starting in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifties, it's pretty mind blowing. But one guy was

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Speaker 2: Joe and Grecia, and he was a blind man who

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Speaker 2: did not use a captain crunch whistle because that was

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Speaker 2: before they had captain crunch whistles. He whistled with his

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Speaker 2: mouth and was able to he had perfect pitch and

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Speaker 2: was able to emit somehow because it's not the easiest

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Speaker 2: tone to hit. And if you've ever heard it, series

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Speaker 2: that twenty six hundred hurts signal and he, you know,

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Speaker 2: he would whistle into the phone to do this. Other

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Speaker 2: people use, usually not their own human voice, but different things,

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Speaker 2: like I believe the Captain Crunch Cereal was in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen sixties. You can go on YouTube and see people

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Speaker 2: that have these little whistles demonstrating how it works and everything.

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Speaker 2: But this was sort of the idea early in the

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifties and sixties with these.

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Speaker 1: People, right, So, I think the guy who came up

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Speaker 1: with the guy who's credited with figuring out the cap'n

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Speaker 1: Crunch serial whistle, it's like a boatswain's whistle like that,

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Speaker 1: you know that that whistle you know on Star Trek

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Speaker 1: when they blow the whistle to get everybody's attention.

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Speaker 2: I'd never seen Star Trek.

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Speaker 1: Well, anybody who's seen Star Trek, the original one knows

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Speaker 1: what we're talking about. That's a boatswain's whistle. And so

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Speaker 1: like the cap'n Crunch whistle would if you covered up

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Speaker 1: one hole, it would make a perfect twenty six hundred

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Speaker 1: hertz tone and Apparently the guy who came up with that,

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Speaker 1: who figured that out, took the handle Captain Crunch. That

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Speaker 1: was his freaker handle, but his real name was Draper.

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Speaker 2: Right, I believe cap'n Crunch. I saw it.

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Speaker 1: Both ways, really, yeah, I saw more often than not

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Speaker 1: captain like fully fully spelled out. I guess he was himself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, oh okay, yeah, I thought you just were saying

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Speaker 2: it as a serial.

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, that was his that was his handle.

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Speaker 2: No, no, no, I know, but he took it from the Cereal.

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Speaker 1: Sure, sure, yeah. I didn't think it was a coincidence.

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Speaker 1: What was his first name, Draper?

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Speaker 2: Uh?

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Speaker 1: Dave, Yeah, David Draper.

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Speaker 2: No, no, no, John John. I think it was John

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Speaker 2: because I watched videos of him and every time it

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Speaker 2: sounded like he was saying Don Draper for Madman. So

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Speaker 2: it was very confusing.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So so John he was the one who was

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Speaker 1: credited with figuring that out. He was a legendary early

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Speaker 1: phone freaker.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and he still has videos and we'll talk about

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Speaker 2: a little bit more about him later on. But uh,

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Speaker 2: like I said, most people did not use their voice.

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Speaker 2: They would use like that whistle or they started building devices.

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Speaker 2: They were called blue boxes, and they all look different

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Speaker 2: because they were all homemade. But you know, if you

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Speaker 2: look up blue box online, there are all kinds of

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Speaker 2: you know, it basically looks like a a phone without

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Speaker 2: the talking ends. It's just like a box, usually with

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Speaker 2: punch button numbers like you would see on a phone.

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Speaker 1: Yes, or if if you were a Bond villain in

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Speaker 1: maybe a sixties Bond movie, Yeah, and you wanted to

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Speaker 1: remotely blow something up, it looks like the kind of

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Speaker 1: thing you'd pull an antenna out of, impress a series

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Speaker 1: of numbers on it, and something would explode, and then

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Speaker 1: you'd very calmly put the antenna back in and walk away. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: except scratch the antenna right, Not in the blue box,

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Speaker 1: just in this Bond idea. Yeah, there's also a red box.

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Speaker 1: There are a ton of different boxes. Like by the

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Speaker 1: end of all this, people had figured out all sorts

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Speaker 1: of different devices to make phones do all sorts of things,

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Speaker 1: and they all had different colors. But the other, the

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Speaker 1: other two big ones where the red box, which was

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Speaker 1: a blue box but had the added capacity of creating

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Speaker 1: the tones that told the phone system that this payphone

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Speaker 1: had just accepted a quarter or a dime at the time,

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Speaker 1: and now you can go ahead and connect the call

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Speaker 1: even though no one had put a dime in. It

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Speaker 1: had just mimicked that tone. Then the black box made

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Speaker 1: it interrupted like the DC signal to your phone, to

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Speaker 1: make it seem like you had never picked up a call,

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Speaker 1: so the person calling you long distance would never be

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Speaker 1: charged for it even though you're sitting there talking. Those

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Speaker 1: are the three big ones, Blue, red, and black.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and the red one is actually super cool because

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Speaker 2: you know, if you came along after payphones were around,

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Speaker 2: you didn't have to put in like if you had

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Speaker 2: other coins that would equal a dime. Let's say, oh,

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Speaker 2: I don't know two nickels. Sure, you could put two

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Speaker 2: nickels in, and a nickel created a specific tone, a

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Speaker 2: dime created a specific tone, and a quarter created one.

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Speaker 2: So the red box was able to mimic each of

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Speaker 2: these coins to recreate the tone it made when you

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Speaker 2: you know, because those little paper ones were smart. They

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Speaker 2: they knew what you were dropping in there. They were

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Speaker 2: so smart, and they would sing that song lussly.

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Speaker 1: So the whole thing that all these were based on,

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Speaker 1: again was this multi frequency tone system. And it turns

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Speaker 1: out that there were six master tones to the whole

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Speaker 1: thing that if you knew these tones, you could basically

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Speaker 1: make the phone system do anything you wanted. And they

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Speaker 1: were made up of twelve individual tones, and so, for example,

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Speaker 1: if you wanted to mimic the number one, you had

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Speaker 1: to make the sound of seven hundred hertz and nine

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Speaker 1: hundred herts at the same time, and that would be

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Speaker 1: as far as the phone system is concerned. If it

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Speaker 1: heard that, it would say, oh, okay, one, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm pressing one for this guy. And the whole thing

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Speaker 1: is predicated on a mistake that somebody made at Bell,

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Speaker 1: which we haven't said this, but this is kind of

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Speaker 1: important too. At the time AT and T was known

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Speaker 1: as mob Bell, it had essentially a monopoly on the

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Speaker 1: phone system in.

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Speaker 2: The United States, exactly like it.

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Speaker 1: Was the phone company for the entire country. And because

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Speaker 1: it was so this one big monstrous thing, if you

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Speaker 1: figured out how to mess with AT and T, you

351
00:19:32,760 --> 00:19:35,199
Speaker 1: figured out how to hijack the entire phone system. That

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Speaker 1: was one thing. But the point of that is that

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Speaker 1: some AT and T engineer wrote an article in a

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Speaker 1: technical journal in the fifties and they included what those

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Speaker 1: master tones were made of. In the article, and that

356
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Speaker 1: gave way to the basis of all those blue boxes

357
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Speaker 1: and black boxes and red boxes that were made later.

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Speaker 1: Had that article never been published, freaking might have never

359
00:19:58,440 --> 00:20:01,399
Speaker 1: really taken off. It would probably been a pastime for

360
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Speaker 1: people with who had a captain crunch whistle or perfect

361
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Speaker 1: pitch and could whistle things themselves.

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Speaker 2: I don't know. I bet you nerds prevail.

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Speaker 1: For sure, but I mean it would have taken those

364
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Speaker 1: like hardcore people like Joe and Grecia who figured it

365
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Speaker 1: out on their own, just in trial and error over years.

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Speaker 1: This was here's here's a blue box, and here's how

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Speaker 1: you use it. And that's how a lot of people

368
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Speaker 1: got into freaking who wouldn't wouldn't have otherwise been pulled

369
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Speaker 1: into it because it would have been too hard.

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Speaker 2: I think it's sped up the timeline for sure, for sure.

371
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Speaker 2: And like we said, people were, you know, the win

372
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Speaker 2: was making a call working around the phone company for

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Speaker 2: a long distance call. Sometimes they would get into pranking

374
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Speaker 2: a little bit, like they could figure out how to

375
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Speaker 2: hack into the the loud speakers at a mall and

376
00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:56,800
Speaker 2: make announcements. That was one pretty famous prank call in

377
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Speaker 2: Santa Barbara in nineteen seventy four when they they had

378
00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:05,120
Speaker 2: they basically took advantage of a bug called simultaneous seizure,

379
00:21:05,600 --> 00:21:08,200
Speaker 2: where two calls at the same time would jam ups

380
00:21:08,480 --> 00:21:12,080
Speaker 2: the switching equipment in the office and you could hijack

381
00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:16,160
Speaker 2: calls coming into like a city. So people two guys

382
00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:19,440
Speaker 2: got you know, from La Got. I guess they got

383
00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:22,880
Speaker 2: arrested for doing this, it says they. I'm not sure

384
00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:25,640
Speaker 2: if they served jail time or not, but they essentially

385
00:21:25,680 --> 00:21:29,040
Speaker 2: were able to any call coming into Santa Barbara. They

386
00:21:29,080 --> 00:21:32,080
Speaker 2: would route it to a voice saying that Santa Barbara

387
00:21:32,200 --> 00:21:36,040
Speaker 2: had been destroyed by a nuclear bomb, and it kind

388
00:21:36,040 --> 00:21:38,600
Speaker 2: of got out of a hand, like people called emergency services,

389
00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:42,720
Speaker 2: and you know, they found out what was going on, obviously,

390
00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:45,679
Speaker 2: but just you know, sort of that was about as

391
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Speaker 2: harmful as it got, unless you count stealing long distance.

392
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and stealing long distance was a favorite of the mafia.

393
00:21:53,080 --> 00:21:56,240
Speaker 1: They were a big time into phone freaking, and they

394
00:21:56,240 --> 00:21:58,600
Speaker 1: weren't the kind who would just sit there and you know,

395
00:21:58,720 --> 00:22:01,440
Speaker 1: try out whistling different tones for years on end. They

396
00:22:01,440 --> 00:22:04,359
Speaker 1: got into it through blue and black and red boxes.

397
00:22:04,960 --> 00:22:07,439
Speaker 1: And the reason why is because their bookies would be

398
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:10,080
Speaker 1: taking calls from all over the country. And I think

399
00:22:10,119 --> 00:22:13,040
Speaker 1: I said earlier that that long distance was expensive at

400
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:18,560
Speaker 1: the time, it was so expensive. Click Americana, which is

401
00:22:18,600 --> 00:22:21,520
Speaker 1: a great, great website. They found an old Bell ad

402
00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:25,760
Speaker 1: from nineteen sixty five that boasts the low price of

403
00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:30,320
Speaker 1: twelve dollars for your first three minutes for long distance

404
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:33,600
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five dollars. Yeah, that's like one hundred

405
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 1: and eighteen dollars today for three minutes of long distance.

406
00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:41,760
Speaker 1: It's insane, and it very quickly as after they introduced

407
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:45,520
Speaker 1: the automatic switches, their costs dropped very quickly, so by

408
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:48,520
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy it was down to probably twenty bucks for

409
00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:51,000
Speaker 1: three minutes. But still that's a lot of money. And

410
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:54,160
Speaker 1: if you're a bookie taking long distance calls all night long,

411
00:22:54,240 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 1: all day long, that adds up. So of course you

412
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:58,960
Speaker 1: want to start using blue boxes. So the mafia got

413
00:22:58,960 --> 00:22:59,880
Speaker 1: heavy into it too.

414
00:23:00,520 --> 00:23:02,399
Speaker 2: Wait, how much did you say it was at first

415
00:23:02,560 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 2: for three minutes?

416
00:23:03,680 --> 00:23:07,440
Speaker 1: Twelve dollars for three minutes, and according to Westig, there'd

417
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:09,080
Speaker 1: be one hundred and eighteen dollars today.

418
00:23:09,640 --> 00:23:11,440
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so you went on the cause you said

419
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:12,719
Speaker 2: it went down to twenty dollars.

420
00:23:12,760 --> 00:23:16,280
Speaker 1: That was conversion wise, no, from nineteen sixty five to

421
00:23:16,320 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 1: about nineteen seventy, and just that five years it dropped

422
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: that dramatically.

423
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:22,040
Speaker 2: From twelve to twenty No, no.

424
00:23:21,800 --> 00:23:26,120
Speaker 1: No, sorry, yes, you're right, from in twenty twenty three dollars.

425
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:26,920
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Yeah.

426
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:29,359
Speaker 1: I wanted to make that as confusing as possible, So

427
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:31,679
Speaker 1: that's why I chose that.

428
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:34,920
Speaker 2: Well. I mean, I remember even in the nineteen eighties

429
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:38,879
Speaker 2: when I would meet a girl at church camp that

430
00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:42,639
Speaker 2: lived in another place and come home and want to

431
00:23:42,760 --> 00:23:46,640
Speaker 2: communicate with my little church camp crush, and my parents

432
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 2: would be like, yeah, I forget about it, Like you're

433
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 2: not dialing along, You're not calling this girl a long

434
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:53,639
Speaker 2: distance meet a local girl. What's wrong with you?

435
00:23:53,880 --> 00:23:57,040
Speaker 1: It was a big, big deal. Like I remember, early

436
00:23:57,080 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: cell phones used to charge you long distance, and then

437
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:01,199
Speaker 1: when all of a sudden, it was like that just

438
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: went away. It was like a different world almost.

439
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. So computers came around. Obviously, everything changed after

440
00:24:11,880 --> 00:24:15,600
Speaker 2: computers came around the nineteen eighties, because you could all

441
00:24:15,640 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 2: of a sudden design a program that could generate tones,

442
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:24,560
Speaker 2: like specifically for what you needed. If everyone or if

443
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:27,080
Speaker 2: anyone saw the movie Wargames, which we've talked about quite

444
00:24:27,119 --> 00:24:29,159
Speaker 2: a few times on the show because it's one of

445
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,640
Speaker 2: the show favorites, But that had a couple of examples

446
00:24:32,840 --> 00:24:38,080
Speaker 2: of phone freaking. When Matthew Broderick dialed into the school

447
00:24:38,119 --> 00:24:43,240
Speaker 2: system at Beginning to change Ali Sheety's grades, he used

448
00:24:43,240 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 2: a technique called war dialing. That's when you're just like us,

449
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 2: a computer to auto dial, just like hundreds and thousands

450
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:53,000
Speaker 2: of numbers, scanning for a vulnerability, or in this case,

451
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:57,400
Speaker 2: he was scanning for his own school line to hack into. Right,

452
00:24:58,119 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 2: And then I know we did talk about this in

453
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:02,879
Speaker 2: an episode, but the little payphone hack that he tried

454
00:25:02,880 --> 00:25:05,680
Speaker 2: apparently is not a real thing and was just made

455
00:25:05,720 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 2: up for the movie, Isn't that right?

456
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it does. It definitely gets across the concept

457
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:12,159
Speaker 1: of a red box, like you could do that, you

458
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:13,919
Speaker 1: just couldn't do it the way he did it. But

459
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:15,879
Speaker 1: it also kind of got across a little bit the

460
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: concept of the black box, which would kind of short

461
00:25:18,440 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 1: the circuit, which is what he was doing. So it

462
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:24,399
Speaker 1: was a little confused, but it certainly got like a

463
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:27,399
Speaker 1: lot of people interested in hacking, and it also scared

464
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:30,399
Speaker 1: the pants off of Ronald Reagan, which you might say,

465
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: who cares the problem was At the time, Ronald Reagan

466
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:36,439
Speaker 1: was the President of the United States. And there's a

467
00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,560
Speaker 1: guy named Fred Kaplan who wrote a book about a

468
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:43,280
Speaker 1: history of cyber war called Dark Territory. And apparently Reagan

469
00:25:43,320 --> 00:25:47,200
Speaker 1: saw this film was so freaked out by it that

470
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: he got the Joint Chiefs together and was like, can

471
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:53,480
Speaker 1: this happen? Somebody go find out. And the chairman of

472
00:25:53,520 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: the Joint Chiefs, a guy named General John Vessy, went

473
00:25:56,119 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 1: and investigated and came back and he said, quote, President,

474
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 1: the problem is much worse than you think. And so

475
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 1: three years after Wargames came out, Congress passed basically an

476
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,120
Speaker 1: anti Wargames scary movie law.

477
00:26:13,280 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 2: That's right, they did. It was called the Computer Fraud

478
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 2: and Abuse Act, And you know, seemingly came out of

479
00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 2: watching the movie Wargames.

480
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 1: Isn't that nuts?

481
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 2: Pretty crazy?

482
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: So let's go back a little bit and talk about

483
00:26:29,280 --> 00:26:31,640
Speaker 1: some of the freaks. We've kind of covered some of them,

484
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 1: like Joe and Grecia. His handle was Joy Bubbles. There

485
00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: was also Captain Crunch John Draper. Like you said, these

486
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,679
Speaker 1: guys were like freaking at the time when it was

487
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 1: it was like a I guess, a golden age, chuck,

488
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:50,680
Speaker 1: There's only one way to put it. I was trying

489
00:26:50,720 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: to avoid it. But it was a golden age of freaking.

490
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 2: We love our golden ages. Yeah, And you know, as

491
00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,120
Speaker 2: far as these people were, they were they were who

492
00:26:59,160 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 2: the hackers in it. They were kind of early techies.

493
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:09,520
Speaker 2: They were kind of nerds. Usually they were into you know,

494
00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 2: some of them maybe have been into kind of disruption.

495
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 2: I think, like we said, most of the time, it

496
00:27:14,680 --> 00:27:16,680
Speaker 2: was just sort of good natured, but there were definitely

497
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 2: those that were like, hey, fight the man. We have

498
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 2: this monopoly, this controlling the phone system. Let's see if

499
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 2: we can poke the bear a little bit. So, you know,

500
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:28,719
Speaker 2: they were and they're doing a little bit of that

501
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 2: as well. But like we said, generally good natured stuff.

502
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 2: I think we should mention that that draper later on

503
00:27:39,160 --> 00:27:43,800
Speaker 2: had allegation the sexual assault that emerged and he was

504
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:47,879
Speaker 2: banned from different conferences starting in like the twenty tens.

505
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,679
Speaker 2: So he's a pretty divisive guy. So it's not like

506
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:56,200
Speaker 2: we're seeing his praises or anything, but he was definitely

507
00:27:56,760 --> 00:28:00,560
Speaker 2: like one of the first kind of famous freakers largely

508
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,800
Speaker 2: because of this Esquire magazine article in nineteen seventy one

509
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:07,199
Speaker 2: called Secrets of the Little Blue Box, where a guy

510
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:11,080
Speaker 2: named Ron Rosenbaum wrote this really long form, detailed, pretty

511
00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:15,440
Speaker 2: great article about phone freaking which not only put a

512
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:18,440
Speaker 2: spotlight on people like Captain Crunch, but put a spotlight

513
00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 2: and created more phone freakers because people read it and

514
00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:23,280
Speaker 2: were like, I got to get out on this thing. Yeah.

515
00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,639
Speaker 1: It's usually in the top ten twenty at most of

516
00:28:26,960 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: Greatest Magazine Articles of All Times lists. It's a really

517
00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: good article. But one of the things when people write

518
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,159
Speaker 1: about it that they like to point out is it's

519
00:28:37,640 --> 00:28:41,120
Speaker 1: the definitive history of phone freaking up to that point.

520
00:28:41,240 --> 00:28:44,080
Speaker 1: But then it also serves as a pivotal point because

521
00:28:44,120 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 1: it helped make history because it introduced phone freaking to

522
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,800
Speaker 1: like a whole bunch of other people who were totally

523
00:28:50,840 --> 00:28:53,240
Speaker 1: interested in that but just hadn't heard of it before.

524
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons why that happened is because

525
00:28:57,640 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: he gave just enough technical information for how to do it,

526
00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: but left out some of the more gory details. But

527
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:09,640
Speaker 1: it was it was tantalizing enough that if you were

528
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: interested and motivated, you could go fill in the blanks

529
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,640
Speaker 1: and figure out how to do it. And it turned out,

530
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,240
Speaker 1: in fact that the guys who founded Apple, Steve Wozniak

531
00:29:20,280 --> 00:29:23,480
Speaker 1: and Steve Jobs, were two people who read this thing

532
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: and went and figured it out themselves.

533
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got into phone freaking. They built boxes, They

534
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:35,560
Speaker 2: built and sold digital blue boxes, and Steve Wozniak, out

535
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:40,479
Speaker 2: of all the circuitry he built as the wizard behind Apple,

536
00:29:41,240 --> 00:29:44,280
Speaker 2: he said that that digital blue box circuit was the

537
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 2: one that he was most proud of. They actually met

538
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 2: the captain, Crunch Guy, met mister Draper and they you know,

539
00:29:52,160 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 2: they were part of that community for a little while.

540
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:56,440
Speaker 2: They sold them for about one hundred and seventy two

541
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:58,760
Speaker 2: bucks in the early nineteen seventies, which is a lot

542
00:29:58,760 --> 00:30:01,040
Speaker 2: of money in today dollars. Uh So it was a

543
00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:04,560
Speaker 2: lot of money back then. They were never busted. Apparently

544
00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:08,520
Speaker 2: they were. Some cops came around when Steve jobs car

545
00:30:08,560 --> 00:30:11,160
Speaker 2: broke down one time and they were caught with a

546
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 2: blue box, but was was able to convince them that

547
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:18,480
Speaker 2: it was a synthesizer to play music on in the

548
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 2: copway right. Wok, He sounds good to me.

549
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:25,520
Speaker 1: So U was the next handle freaker handle was Berkeley Blue,

550
00:30:25,640 --> 00:30:30,360
Speaker 1: and Steve Jobs handle was of Tobar, which I think

551
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:34,920
Speaker 1: prefigured Dungeons and Dragons. That's a pretty good I guess

552
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 1: fighter's name.

553
00:30:36,720 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 2: Oh is that a D and D reff?

554
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:40,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dungeons and Dragons.

555
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:44,960
Speaker 2: No, But is that oaf Tobar from D and D.

556
00:30:45,640 --> 00:30:47,360
Speaker 1: I think it's a good name for a D and

557
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:48,040
Speaker 1: D characters.

558
00:30:48,080 --> 00:30:51,200
Speaker 2: What Oh, I got you and there link somehow?

559
00:30:51,600 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 1: No. No, but it just screams D and D to me.

560
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:55,840
Speaker 2: Yeah. I didn't play D and D, so I'm just

561
00:30:55,920 --> 00:30:56,400
Speaker 2: lost here.

562
00:30:56,840 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: I loved it. There's one other quote too, from the

563
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,960
Speaker 1: I guess Steve Jobs who said that without blue boxes,

564
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 1: the blue boxes that he and Wosneak came together to make,

565
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:07,880
Speaker 1: there would be no Apple. That was like their first

566
00:31:07,960 --> 00:31:08,640
Speaker 1: venture together.

567
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 2: Yeah.

568
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 1: That showed them that they could work well together, and

569
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:15,239
Speaker 1: they went on to found Apple after they did this

570
00:31:15,280 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: little blue box tint. That's pretty crazy, very crazy.

571
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 2: Another thing that emerged around this time was something called

572
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:25,400
Speaker 2: a beep line, which I had never heard of these

573
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:28,880
Speaker 2: and this is something that I probably should have known about.

574
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 2: But when you would call somebody back in the day

575
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:35,960
Speaker 2: and that person was on the phone and let's say

576
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:38,360
Speaker 2: they didn't have call waiting, or call waiting wasn't invented

577
00:31:38,400 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 2: at the time, maybe or they couldn't afford it, like

578
00:31:40,720 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 2: we couldn't. You would get a busy signal. But here's

579
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 2: the thing. That busy signal that you were dealt didn't

580
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:51,920
Speaker 2: mean that your voice path was shut off like you

581
00:31:51,960 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 2: were still if you sat there on that busy signal

582
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,640
Speaker 2: line and didn't hang up, and maybe this is how

583
00:31:57,640 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 2: people found out about it. Eventually, if you around long enough,

584
00:32:00,920 --> 00:32:03,120
Speaker 2: you would get someone else on that same busy signal

585
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:07,040
Speaker 2: line that had been you know, denied a phone call

586
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 2: in some other town. And if those people were teenagers,

587
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 2: they realize it was sort of the beginnings of like

588
00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 2: a party line where you could be like, hey, and

589
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 2: you're talking over this busy signal, mind you, So while

590
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,440
Speaker 2: this thing is going beep beep, I'm going, hey, this

591
00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 2: is Chuck. I live in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Like where

592
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 2: are you? And oh, I'm Angela. I live in Dallas, Texas.

593
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,040
Speaker 2: And then you strike up a conversation and you're having

594
00:32:33,040 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 2: some good, clean, teenage fun making connections talking to people

595
00:32:37,400 --> 00:32:41,280
Speaker 2: you ordinarily would never meet. And beep lines were very

596
00:32:41,320 --> 00:32:43,520
Speaker 2: popular in the nineteen sixties and seventies.

597
00:32:43,880 --> 00:32:47,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a Time article from I think nineteen sixty

598
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,400
Speaker 1: one that interviews the guy who ran I think the

599
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 1: Fall River, Massachusetts or somewhere in Massachusetts their telephone company

600
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:59,560
Speaker 1: or station, and that there was a radio station whose

601
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:02,720
Speaker 1: beepline was like the place to call into and when

602
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:05,880
Speaker 1: this team call them in a like a regional magazine

603
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: published something on it, calls jump from fifteen hundred to

604
00:33:09,080 --> 00:33:12,680
Speaker 1: twenty seven twenty eight thousand in a week, So they

605
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:15,840
Speaker 1: were very popular. And apparently once you could shout your

606
00:33:15,920 --> 00:33:17,960
Speaker 1: number to somebody you were trying to talk to over

607
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 1: the busy signal, but when you actually could talk like

608
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:24,440
Speaker 1: normal people on the phone, it was just never as fun.

609
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 2: Well it's funny. I mentioned, like maybe that's how people

610
00:33:28,560 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 2: found out, as they just stayed on that line. But

611
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 2: it seems like radio stations is where they actually found

612
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,520
Speaker 2: out about these things, because you would call in to win,

613
00:33:37,760 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 2: to be the fifth caller or whatever to win concert tickets,

614
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 2: and almost always you would get that busy signal and

615
00:33:43,960 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 2: so many people are calling in that they would find

616
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 2: each other on these busy signal lines and figured it out. Hey,

617
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 2: wait a minute, this is a thing.

618
00:33:51,360 --> 00:33:53,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, because usually when you got a busy signal, you

619
00:33:53,760 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: just you wouldn't make a sound, you wouldn't try to talk,

620
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: and you just hang up immediately. But if apparently that's

621
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: just how the phone lines worked. If you talked, you

622
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:05,280
Speaker 1: could hear somebody else talking back at you. It was

623
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: just like you said, you had to shout over the

624
00:34:07,160 --> 00:34:07,880
Speaker 1: busy signal.

625
00:34:08,520 --> 00:34:10,799
Speaker 2: I talked. I don't know why I never found this out,

626
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:13,360
Speaker 2: because every time I got a busy signal, I'd be like, Hello,

627
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:15,319
Speaker 2: what is this? Is someone there?

628
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:18,080
Speaker 1: Really? Really?

629
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 2: No? Okay, look we switch switching up roles here.

630
00:34:23,560 --> 00:34:26,080
Speaker 1: What was your favorite phone of all time that you

631
00:34:26,160 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 1: ever had?

632
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 2: You know, the first one that jumps to mine? And

633
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 2: I never had. I think later on I was able

634
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:36,000
Speaker 2: to have a phone in my bedroom when I was

635
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:39,239
Speaker 2: like sixteen or seventeen. But previous to that, I very

636
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:43,319
Speaker 2: much remember our very first cordless phone that had the

637
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:45,680
Speaker 2: intenna that you pull out and the cradle that it

638
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:48,080
Speaker 2: sat on, Like I just remember that being a very

639
00:34:48,080 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 2: big deal because I thought like, wow, we're literally living

640
00:34:51,160 --> 00:34:53,239
Speaker 2: in the age of the Jetsons, because I can because

641
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:54,399
Speaker 2: we're unbound by a chord.

642
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like you. I would have guessed I would

643
00:34:57,800 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 1: have put a lot of money on you saying the

644
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:04,120
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated football phone. Then you got with the subscription

645
00:35:04,400 --> 00:35:05,719
Speaker 1: back in the eighties, you remember that.

646
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I subscribe forever. But here do you

647
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,160
Speaker 2: know what happens? And this used to bother me as

648
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 2: like a thirteen year old is you subscribe and you

649
00:35:14,320 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 2: get that first thing? And my mom got me a

650
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 2: subscription when I was like ten. Huh, And you never

651
00:35:20,280 --> 00:35:22,200
Speaker 2: got any gifts after that, And I used to get

652
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:24,960
Speaker 2: so mad that, like what, only new subscribers get the gift,

653
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 2: Like you should get one every year for being a

654
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 2: loyal subscriber.

655
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: That's a great, great point. Did you email the editors

656
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: or sorry, did you write a letter to the editors.

657
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:35,319
Speaker 2: The Sports Illustrating I don't think so.

658
00:35:36,160 --> 00:35:39,239
Speaker 1: Did your mom hang out by the mailbox and the

659
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:41,799
Speaker 1: month the swimsuit issue came out to intercept it?

660
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:45,879
Speaker 2: No I did. Oh yeah, that was a very.

661
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:48,080
Speaker 1: Big disguise yourself as the mailbox.

662
00:35:49,040 --> 00:35:52,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was especially for young Baptist boy who thought that,

663
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:55,080
Speaker 2: like you know, playboys were for boting and stuff like that.

664
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:57,480
Speaker 2: That magazine was everything to me.

665
00:35:57,719 --> 00:36:02,040
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, all right, I think that that's a good

666
00:36:02,080 --> 00:36:03,239
Speaker 1: place for a break, don't you.

667
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna go think about Christie Brinkley and Carol Alton,

668
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,680
Speaker 2: Kathy Ireland, and we'll be right back in a few minutes.

669
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So we were talking about the golden

670
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:43,200
Speaker 1: age of freaking that was really kind of the sixties,

671
00:36:43,320 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 1: mid to late sixties to the mid seventies, probably about

672
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: a ten year period where people were figuring out how

673
00:36:52,719 --> 00:36:58,680
Speaker 1: to game the international phone network, but before AT and

674
00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:01,759
Speaker 1: T could really do anything about it, because I don't

675
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:05,000
Speaker 1: think we said the flaws in these systems, that's what

676
00:37:05,080 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: the systems depended on. It's not like they could go

677
00:37:07,520 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 1: in and reconfigure something here or there and shut down freakers.

678
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: Freakers were exploiting exactly like it would have taken billions

679
00:37:16,080 --> 00:37:18,399
Speaker 1: and billions of dollars. And eventually they did do that.

680
00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: Eventually they did upgrade from electro mechanical to straight up

681
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:29,360
Speaker 1: electrical and then eventually digital switches that aren't fooled by those. Apparently,

682
00:37:29,400 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 1: the way that they first really made freaking obsolete was

683
00:37:34,680 --> 00:37:38,760
Speaker 1: they separated the lines so you could make whistling sounds

684
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:42,320
Speaker 1: into the line. All you wanted that line wasn't accepting

685
00:37:42,360 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: that tone. The one you talked into wasn't the one

686
00:37:44,719 --> 00:37:47,800
Speaker 1: that accepted the tones anymore. So that kind of shut

687
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,920
Speaker 1: freaking down. But for that ten year period, this amazing

688
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,719
Speaker 1: community developed. There was a guy who we have to

689
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:57,320
Speaker 1: shout out. His handle was Mark Burnet, which is based

690
00:37:57,360 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 1: on a hilarious early proto meme that came out of

691
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,160
Speaker 1: the freaking community that's worth looking up. But he went

692
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:07,360
Speaker 1: around all up and down the West Coast with stickers

693
00:38:07,400 --> 00:38:11,040
Speaker 1: that he made that said, like wan an interesting phone call,

694
00:38:11,160 --> 00:38:13,640
Speaker 1: call this number, and then he would hang out on

695
00:38:13,680 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: this line and talk to people when they called and

696
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:18,400
Speaker 1: try to introduce him to freaking. He was like a

697
00:38:18,440 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: freaking evangelist. Yeah, and it became a thing among some

698
00:38:23,520 --> 00:38:27,759
Speaker 1: blind teenagers because there was a guy in Seattle who

699
00:38:27,800 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 1: called this sticker, the number on the sticker talked to.

700
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:32,919
Speaker 1: Mark Burnets got into it, and then I guess met

701
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 1: a blind teenager that he became friends with, introduced him

702
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,280
Speaker 1: to freaking. That teenager went to a summer camp, introduced

703
00:38:39,520 --> 00:38:43,240
Speaker 1: his blind friends to freaking. One of them moved east,

704
00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:46,200
Speaker 1: went to another summer camp, introduced those kids, and it

705
00:38:46,280 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 1: spread among like blind teenagers it was like a big deal.

706
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:53,520
Speaker 1: And there's a session, a hangout session that Ron Rosenbaum

707
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:56,919
Speaker 1: chronicled in the Little Blue Box Secrets of the Blue

708
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 1: Box article and of eight kids hanging out in this

709
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: one kid's kitchen. I think five of them were blind,

710
00:39:04,880 --> 00:39:07,440
Speaker 1: So it's like a really big cool thing among blind

711
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 1: teenagers too. So there's this huge thing that's developing. This

712
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:14,520
Speaker 1: the beginning of hacker cultures developing over this ten year period.

713
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,280
Speaker 1: Then at and T steps in and is like, we're

714
00:39:17,360 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 1: shutting this down. We're losing way too much money.

715
00:39:20,719 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know it was great about our new

716
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:27,360
Speaker 2: friend Kyle's article that he put together for us was

717
00:39:27,400 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 2: that Carl got right off the bat like that there's

718
00:39:30,560 --> 00:39:35,200
Speaker 2: a story element to these episodes, and he nailed it

719
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 2: with this third act reveal, which was this thing was

720
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 2: around for a while, it went away, but the legacy

721
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:47,799
Speaker 2: of it wasn't just these people had fun talking to

722
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:51,320
Speaker 2: each other on beeplines and hacking some free long distance

723
00:39:51,360 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 2: calls and stuff like that. The legacy of this thing

724
00:39:55,480 --> 00:39:57,560
Speaker 2: was what we're going to get to now, which was

725
00:40:00,239 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 2: the legal aspects of it and legal justifications for recording

726
00:40:05,520 --> 00:40:09,360
Speaker 2: phone calls and surveilling phone calls in the United States,

727
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:14,240
Speaker 2: which all came out of AT and T going after

728
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,920
Speaker 2: initially those bookies in Miami and Los Angeles that you

729
00:40:17,920 --> 00:40:21,280
Speaker 2: talked about. In nineteen sixty six, when the FBI rated

730
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 2: these bookies, they prosecuted one guy, this guy named Kenneth Hannah,

731
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, there was precedent, there was

732
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 2: legal ground the AT and T had that said we

733
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:33,920
Speaker 2: can go after these hackers. We can charge them with

734
00:40:34,040 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 2: a crime, in this case, fraud by wire And where

735
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 2: do we find these people, Well, we're going to wire

736
00:40:41,840 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 2: tap them. And that's what they did. It was an

737
00:40:43,800 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 2: operation called Green Star. Between sixty four and nineteen seventy.

738
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:51,600
Speaker 2: They tapped about thirty three million phone calls, recorded about

739
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,839
Speaker 2: half of those, and the United States later on would

740
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:57,280
Speaker 2: say this is great and just fine.

741
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:01,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really kind of goes to score just how

742
00:41:01,280 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 1: incredibly powerful AT and T was at the time. Like,

743
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 1: imagine one company having complete control over the Internet in

744
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:12,400
Speaker 1: the United States. Yeah, like that that gives you an

745
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 1: idea of like how powerful AT and T was. So

746
00:41:15,400 --> 00:41:17,200
Speaker 1: when they decided they were going to set up their

747
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:21,640
Speaker 1: own internal surveillance program and then take it to the Feds.

748
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:26,040
Speaker 1: They were fully aware that the Feds would totally play

749
00:41:26,080 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: ball and wouldn't be like, uh, what did you just do. Instead,

750
00:41:29,600 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: they'd be like, oh, yeah, we better go get these

751
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 1: laws passed to make sure that what you did was

752
00:41:33,760 --> 00:41:37,000
Speaker 1: legal retroactively. And then at the same time, let's go

753
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:40,680
Speaker 1: get those phone freakers, because they really were costing at

754
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: and T money. I saw an estimate in the mid

755
00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:46,040
Speaker 1: seventies they were losing thirty million a year, which is

756
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:49,120
Speaker 1: like one hundred and seventy five million today just a

757
00:41:49,200 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 1: phone freaking. Again, that's how expensive long distance was. It

758
00:41:52,960 --> 00:41:56,600
Speaker 1: wasn't just your parents, Chuck. Any sane person with a

759
00:41:56,680 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 1: job and a phone would know you don't call long

760
00:41:59,719 --> 00:42:03,960
Speaker 1: disas since on your phone. No, you just didn't do it.

761
00:42:05,719 --> 00:42:07,920
Speaker 2: No, it'd have to be you remember the calls like

762
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:11,480
Speaker 2: your parents would have to make to like the in

763
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:13,439
Speaker 2: laws of their parents or something, and then like how

764
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 2: short they would keep stuff.

765
00:42:15,000 --> 00:42:16,240
Speaker 1: Hey, how are you doing her? Fine? Okay?

766
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 2: Bye, yeah, yeah, everything's good, everything's good. We'll be there

767
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:25,840
Speaker 2: next week Tuesday, Tuesday. The maybe most shocking fact of

768
00:42:25,880 --> 00:42:28,480
Speaker 2: this whole episode to me is the fact that the

769
00:42:28,560 --> 00:42:31,320
Speaker 2: last circuit that could be blue boxed in the United

770
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 2: States was disconnected two thousand and six. Yeah, in rural Minnesota,

771
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:39,759
Speaker 2: they still had one circuit that was that you could

772
00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 2: blue box your way in. But they had been you know,

773
00:42:43,280 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 2: largely eliminated in the in the nineteen seventies and then

774
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 2: into the eight or I guess into the eighties really,

775
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 2: and you know, kind of with that phone freaking there

776
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 2: was no incentive anymore. Now that when you know, when

777
00:42:55,600 --> 00:42:58,040
Speaker 2: the Internet certainly came along and you could just talk

778
00:42:58,080 --> 00:43:01,280
Speaker 2: to anyone anywhere at any time, there was no incentive

779
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 2: to do any sort of long distance hacking. And it

780
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 2: was just a moment in time basically where this thing

781
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 2: was allowed to exist, and it existed because of particular

782
00:43:11,920 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 2: equipment that then went the way of the DODO. But

783
00:43:14,800 --> 00:43:16,520
Speaker 2: like you said, it went, it went. They handed the

784
00:43:16,520 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 2: baton right off to internet hacking, and it was a

785
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:21,680
Speaker 2: pretty seamless, uh you know, transition.

786
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, Like they would literally, just like Matthew Broderick did,

787
00:43:25,560 --> 00:43:28,759
Speaker 1: take their phone and connect it to their computer through

788
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:32,000
Speaker 1: what's called an acoustic coupler, which basically was like whatever

789
00:43:32,080 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: tone your phone made, it did it into the computer

790
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: through that coupler. And again they were like dialing numbers

791
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,840
Speaker 1: to find interesting numbers or to find other people's motives

792
00:43:40,840 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: so they could hack into it. So it's yeah, it's

793
00:43:43,640 --> 00:43:47,360
Speaker 1: perfect word. It was a seamless transition to computer hacking.

794
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:51,160
Speaker 1: But it's not like that's all that people did from

795
00:43:51,200 --> 00:43:53,719
Speaker 1: that point on was everything everything to do with the

796
00:43:53,719 --> 00:43:57,520
Speaker 1: Internet and computers. Freaking as far as like phone. Interest

797
00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:00,960
Speaker 1: in phones and phone networks still continues still today and

798
00:44:01,040 --> 00:44:04,800
Speaker 1: it's gotten. If it was illegal before, it's eye poppingly illegal.

799
00:44:05,160 --> 00:44:07,600
Speaker 1: The kind of phone freaking that people are doing today.

800
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, like cell phone hacking and stuff like that.

801
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, spoofing a cell tower to intercept phone calls and

802
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: then decoding them so you can eavesdrop in on people's

803
00:44:17,000 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 1: sell conversations. Like, Yeah, there was a I think a

804
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 1: do you remember was it a Wired article I sent

805
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:28,160
Speaker 1: you from I think twenty ten that chronicles some some

806
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 1: like a conference where a group was like, hey, get

807
00:44:31,800 --> 00:44:35,120
Speaker 1: this for fifteen hundred dollars and parts you can get

808
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:38,720
Speaker 1: from the internet. You can make a spoofed cell tower

809
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:42,600
Speaker 1: and intercept calls. And this was twenty ten, so you

810
00:44:42,600 --> 00:44:44,800
Speaker 1: could probably make one for ten bucks in five minutes

811
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: now or buy it for ten bucks on the Internet.

812
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:51,920
Speaker 1: It's just amazing what they're doing now. It's interesting that

813
00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:54,239
Speaker 1: it still has to do with the phone. It's not

814
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:58,120
Speaker 1: just computer base. It's there's still interest in messing with

815
00:44:58,239 --> 00:44:59,040
Speaker 1: phone networks.

816
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:01,640
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I believe we've even talked about on the

817
00:45:01,640 --> 00:45:03,839
Speaker 2: show that thing where you'll get a call on your

818
00:45:03,840 --> 00:45:07,799
Speaker 2: cell phone that says like American Express incoming call, and

819
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:10,680
Speaker 2: it's not, it's it's someone has I can't remember what

820
00:45:10,719 --> 00:45:13,560
Speaker 2: they called it, because we ended up it happened to

821
00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:15,440
Speaker 2: us and we ended up talking to American Express and so,

822
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:18,839
Speaker 2: and now that's called whatever. Not masking or maybe it

823
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:22,719
Speaker 2: was masking when they can just basically create, you know,

824
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:24,600
Speaker 2: originate a call saying it's from you, and all of

825
00:45:24,640 --> 00:45:27,440
Speaker 2: a sudden, you're you know, talking about your account details

826
00:45:27,440 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 2: and stuff like that.

827
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 1: Oh man, yes, social engineering.

828
00:45:33,360 --> 00:45:36,000
Speaker 2: No, I just mean, like, you know, a phone call

829
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 2: coming in that's saying it's from American Express, but it's not.

830
00:45:38,680 --> 00:45:40,839
Speaker 1: It's from a thief, right, and they're trying to get

831
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 1: your credit info right so they can go off and

832
00:45:43,880 --> 00:45:46,279
Speaker 1: make their own card and charge it to you.

833
00:45:46,760 --> 00:45:48,400
Speaker 2: I guess. So. I mean, some.

834
00:45:48,280 --> 00:45:50,720
Speaker 1: People try so hard at such bad things.

835
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:53,440
Speaker 2: I know, we've talked about it before. Put that energy

836
00:45:53,440 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 2: toward just good upstanding legal hard work and you could

837
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:01,719
Speaker 2: probably make money. Yeah you know, yeah, old.

838
00:46:01,520 --> 00:46:04,080
Speaker 1: Man, here, you got anything else?

839
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:07,200
Speaker 2: I got nothing else. Big thanks to Kyle, Welcome aboard,

840
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:07,880
Speaker 2: great job.

841
00:46:08,320 --> 00:46:12,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, way to go, Kyle. And we both said congratulations

842
00:46:12,840 --> 00:46:15,880
Speaker 1: a Kyle and thanks, which means obviously we've just triggered

843
00:46:15,920 --> 00:46:16,520
Speaker 1: listener mail.

844
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:20,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is just short and sweet. When I couldn't

845
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:25,719
Speaker 2: think of that word in the widow episode, I think

846
00:46:25,760 --> 00:46:27,920
Speaker 2: we have the word. Hey, guys, was listening to Widowhood,

847
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:30,400
Speaker 2: Chuck couldn't bring to mind a word for when you

848
00:46:30,520 --> 00:46:33,360
Speaker 2: come to a conclusion based on your own experience, and

849
00:46:33,400 --> 00:46:36,720
Speaker 2: I started freaking out with an F not a pH,

850
00:46:36,800 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 2: because I can never bring that same word to mind either.

851
00:46:39,840 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 2: It's so bad that I actually asked my wife quite often, Hey,

852
00:46:42,640 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 2: what's that word I can never remember? And she just

853
00:46:44,960 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 2: says anecdotally, Oh, yeah, so that was a word. I'm

854
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:50,279
Speaker 2: guessing that's the word you were looking for, Chuck. I've

855
00:46:50,280 --> 00:46:52,799
Speaker 2: tried different ways to get the word to stick in

856
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,359
Speaker 2: my mind, but nothing is worked. I bet somewhere out

857
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:58,240
Speaker 2: there someone to study this, and there's a podcast episode

858
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:02,000
Speaker 2: because I think. I think everyone has weird words. They

859
00:47:02,000 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 2: either can never spell correctly or remember it's it's kind

860
00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:06,480
Speaker 2: of a weird phenomenon.

861
00:47:07,200 --> 00:47:10,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. I have a breed of warm season grass right

862
00:47:10,719 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: now at my house, and I cannot, for the life

863
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:15,160
Speaker 1: of me remember the kind.

864
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 2: It is Zoysia.

865
00:47:16,400 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: It's not zoysa, something else, crab grass grass. I looked

866
00:47:23,600 --> 00:47:25,839
Speaker 1: it up. No, that's cool season. I looked up all

867
00:47:25,840 --> 00:47:29,120
Speaker 1: different kinds of southern turf grass. It's warm season. It's

868
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,840
Speaker 1: not listed. I don't know what's going on. It forms

869
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 1: like a thick carpet of grass. It's so pretty.

870
00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 2: I bet someone I'll let you know.

871
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,359
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess so. I would love it if they did.

872
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:42,839
Speaker 2: Well. As long as you got an inch of staining water,

873
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:44,120
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. It's going to grow.

874
00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:47,799
Speaker 1: It's a quarter inch. Let's not be preposterous, all right.

875
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: That was from Joel Dawson.

876
00:47:49,840 --> 00:47:52,040
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Joel, And again thanks a lot, Kyle.

877
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: And if you want to be like Joel, you can

878
00:47:54,239 --> 00:47:56,960
Speaker 1: send us an email too. Send it off to stuff

879
00:47:57,000 --> 00:48:03,400
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is

880
00:48:03,400 --> 00:48:04,759
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio.

881
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:08,480
Speaker 2: For more podcasts my Heeart Radio visit the iHeartRadio app,

882
00:48:08,640 --> 00:48:11,560
Speaker 2: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.