Did You Know It Started By Hacking Phones?
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Our modern society is dominated by "hackers" turned business people: think Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos. But the hackers who inspired those folks started out hacking phones, not computers.
Calling themselves "phone phreaks," they were a group of socially awkward but precociously bright teens in the '50s and '60s looking for amusement. At the time, the phone system was the world's most complicated computer system accessible to the public.
One phone phreak in particular, a blind kid from Virginia named Josef Engressia, was a phone hacking pioneer. Already able to operate a rotary phone by tapping the hookswitch like a telegraph key at the age of nine, he discovered he could make free long-distance calls by whistling into the receiver at exactly 2,600 Hz. Thanks to having perfect musical pitch, he went on to exploit many other openings in the system; he could connect or disconnect calls, dial anywhere in the world, or jump to any switchboard in the phone system. All for free. He was kicked out of college for selling calls to any location in the world for a flat fee of $1. Like any good hacker, after being convicted of phone fraud, he decided to use his talents to help debug problems in Mountain Bell's telecommunications system.
Later in life, having changed his name to JoyBubbles, he ordained himself as a minister in his own Church of Eternal Childhood and collected videotapes of every episode of Mister Rogers.
it was this childish disdain for the rules that caught the eye of Steve Wozniak when he read a 1971 article in Esquire magazine about the phone phreaks. The article inspired Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs to start their first business: a physical blue box that allowed people to make free long-distance calls. It turned out to be illegal, so they went to Plan B: an easy-to-use personal computer.
Image credit & copyright: Beyond the Little Blue Box
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Resteemed. Your post worth a read
thank you very much for the resteem
I saw a tv show that went into this, "phone freaking", a few years ago and had thought of it recently. Strange stuff !
I guess everything breaks down into different frequencies ultimately; and the rules are radically different than the laws of human perception, which commonly tends to be...rather dull.
Hey good topic to expand on.
This is historically legendary.
You should do more on the subject and go in depth.
Break it up into a mini series even.
Explore the differences of phreaking groups around the world.
This is a story about roots and beginnings. All will appreciate it.
The phreaking community is probably still active somewhere online.
You might even find some willing to reminisce over those days through an interview.
Well done. You should also call upon the boosters.
You deserve to be rewarded accordingly.
thank you very much for the fantastic feedback, I joined ssteemit months ago but never used it till this post. Glad you liked it
Yeah I see your blog and realized that. That is why I wanted to encourage you. Good opportunity here for those who find the right niche or fill the voids.
Revisiting history which is gave rise to this whole interconnected world is a winner with most.
Good luck!
posting that really gives new knowledge to me. hopefully can give criticism and suggestion to my steemit account because i just joined in steemit community @dernan