What is “Phreaking”
Phreaking in its simplest definition is the exploration of the telephone networks. As long as there have been telephones, there have been interested parties. Let’s begin back in the 1950s, AT&T has just unveiled their latest and greatest invention for the telephone system, this miraculous invention is called an automatic switch. The advent of the automatic switch enabled AT&T to run large telephone trunks trans-continentally virtually connecting the entire country. When this happened, the general public began to interact with the telephone network. The term phreaking, which is a slang term taking “Phone and Freak” and combining them, represents a small group of the population who take a special interest in the bells and whistles of the modern telecommunications systems.
Let’s take a look at some of the finer memories of phreaking. When I became affiliated with the computer security (“hacking”) scene, I did so with the hope of learning what I thought were cool things, I went from hanging out with people who couldn’t care less about computers and were just happy they worked, to hanging out in crowds of people fascinated by the intricacies of computer and telephone operation. Unfortunately, I was too young to participate in the young culture, but I quickly found a foothold when I read about a man called Cap’n Krunch. Cap’n Krunch or John Draper found that the whistle included in the popular cereal produced a perfect 2600Hz tone. One could use this whistle to trick the system into thinking that money had been inserted into the pay phone and the service would connect the call.
Later revelations built upon the history of playing sounds into phones to achieve free phone calls lead to the creation of “boxes”. The boxes were each created to perform a task and were designated by color. For instance, consider the blue box. The blue box was discovered by accident, the function of the device mimics the routing of telephone calls over the trunk lines, using the box correctly would lead to unlimited free phone calls for the user. The uses weren’t just for exploration however; the mafia frequently used the box to make phone calls of a criminal nature.
Phreaking in today’s society is a dying art. The advent of broadband internet has overshadowed the real use of dial up and the telephone network itself. Phreakers still exist; they’re just older, and more detached from the rest of the scene. Phreaking was and still always will be a tool to some and a pain to others. Phreaking started as a hobby and wound up a valuable past time for some of the scene’s greats. The world of Phreaking proves that one just needs a little imagination and ingenuity to accomplish great things, some of these great things were completely legal, others were not, regardless of their intent, and they shaped the telephone network we know today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this article and I encourage you to independently research the topic more!
