# Book: The History of Phone Phreaking



## DoctorZ (Jan 12, 2019)

There is another sub-culture that existed in parallel to the Vagabond/Hippie/Hobo life style. For the most part it's gone now, but an excellent book has been written chronicling it's whole history. It was Phone Phreaking.

For those not familiar with the term, Phone Preaks were similar to Computer Hackers of today. They found a way to pretty much take over the entire telephone system and use it to make free long distance calls, drive Operators crazy, disable telephones, and do live chats across the world!

It is an excellent read for those down times while traveling or waiting to catch-out. The name of the book is Exploding The Phone, by Phil Lapsley. You can find out more at this web site as well as ordering info: http://explodingthephone.com/

It's one of the most fun books I've ever read.


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## train in vain (Jan 12, 2019)

I used to have a massive binder full of info about this. Technology is cool and all but things used to be more fun haha. I recently decided to do some circuit bending again after many years and new toys suck for it.


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## Matt Derrick (Jan 12, 2019)

i was way into the phone phreaking scene back in the day all the way up until around the time i graduated college, which is when most of that died out (most people were starting to get cell phones at that point). i still think there's some excellent ideas and funny stories to read, especially in the old text zines of phone losers of america.


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## DoctorZ (Jan 12, 2019)

Matt Derrick said:


> i was way into the phone phreaking scene back in the day all the way up until around the time i graduated college, which is when most of that died out (most people were starting to get cell phones at that point). i still think there's some excellent ideas and funny stories to read, especially in the old text zines of phone losers of america.



Yah, all the Phone Phreakers became the computer hackers of today, although I've heard there still is some limited Phone Phreaking going on, but most of it is just for fun since long distance is free. Here's an interesting video though:


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## Crazy Hobo Johnny (Jan 13, 2019)

*I remember back in the 1980s my neighbor next door worked for the phone company, she was an engineer. She told me how to hack into cordless phones and make free phone calls! I use to listen to people back then on cordless phones with a radio scanner. *


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## DoctorZ (Jan 13, 2019)

Crazy Hobo Johnny said:


> *I remember back in the 1980s my neighbor next door worked for the phone company, she was an engineer. She told me how to hack into cordless phones and make free phone calls! I use to listen to people back then on cordless phones with a radio scanner. *



I used to listen to the neighbor kid set up drug deals and plan house burglaries with my police scanner when I lived in Minneapolis.

I also knew a guy who used to drive around the neighborhood with his cordless phone hand-set until it would come up on another system. Then he'd "catch up" on all his long distance calls.


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## Crazy Hobo Johnny (Jan 13, 2019)

DoctorZ said:


> I used to listen to the neighbor kid set up drug deals and plan house burglaries with my police scanner when I lived in Minneapolis.
> 
> I also knew a guy who used to drive around the neighborhood with his cordless phone hand-set until it would come up on another system. Then he'd "catch up" on all his long distance calls.


*Yup, that's what my neighbor lady said about hacking the cordless phones.
There's also ways to hack inside your cell phone by making it a scanner and listen to people by doing some modifications inside the cell phone! Disclaimer: it is illegal to this but a guy demonstrated it to me! That's why I don't give out debit and prepaid card numbers over the cell phone! I forgot and should added this that was demonstrated to me years ago so I'm sure the cell phone industry has made cell phones more harder to hack into but you never know!*


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