Talk:Phreaking

message: The article lacks context, in that it doesn't mention that long-distance phone calls used to be darned expensive!  In the 1960s a 10-minute direct dial transcontinental phone call, carried by the AT&T monopoly, would cost $20 in 1960s dollars, or in gold terms, half an ounce of gold.  The history of phreaking as mentioned in the article doesn't start until after MCI began competing with AT&T Long Lines for long distance service.  The article also fails to mention the former numbering system for AT&T telephone credit cards, which consisted of a seven digit phone number, a three digit number corresponding to your calling area (NY was "021") and then a letter which differed according to the last digit of the phone number.  The letter codes were widely shared, for example in 1960s 'underground' newspapers, and phreaks would then bill the calls to bogus AT&T credit card numbers.  Phreaking, or more properly its subset toll fraud, resulted from 1) the high cost of calls; and 2) public hatred of the Bell monopoly.  Another subset of phreaking was the practice of installing unauthorized telephone extensions!  Until about 1975 phones were manufactured by AT&T subsidiary Western Electric and were always rented, never sold.  If you wanted a second telephone in your home, you had to pay for its installation, as well as several dollars a month for its rental!  1975 was also about the time the RJ-11 modular phone jack was invented -- prior to that telephones were 'installed' by permanently attaching them to the junction box with wires that were screwed into a terminal block.  Mbstone (talk) 09:01, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Stuff that's missing in current version 

message: In approximately 1957, a blind seven-year old named Joe Engressia, who as an adult changed his name to "Joybubbles", skilled with perfect pitch, discovered that whistling the fourth E above middle C (a frequency of 2600 Hz) would stop a dialed phone recording. Engressia had stumbled on the tone that would cause a trunk to reset itself, though the eight-year-old didn't realise this at first.
So which was he; seven or eight?
The Lilac Pilgrim (talk) 21:14, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Glaring error 

message: There were some MAJOR factual errors that I fixed. Strom Carlson and I are going to try and beef up this article a bit and correct the mistakes.
Black Ratchet 17:07, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Major Overhaul: Part Deux

message: I changed the comment about FREQuency being a "more plausible" origin for the term "phreak". That's not really very plausible, but I did leave it in as an alternate explanation. I was an active phone phreak and knew many other phone phreaks, and the term "phreak" was simply a cute way to spell "freak". We were a bunch of freaks, freaking around with the phone system. That's where "phreak" came from, not FREQuency. For example, the black box, loopback numbers, and social engineering were all part of phone phreaking even though they had nothing to do with audio frequencies. Indeed, one could be a phone phreak and never deal with audio frequencies at all.
Michael Geary 08:36, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Freak vs. FREQuency 

message: In the late 1990s phreaking and computer hacking saw enormous growth as hobbies and a subculture with the growing popularity of the Internet.
Is this for real?  I would argue that it died out in the early/mid 1990s as telcos added tighter barriers and adopted digital circuits, while the proliferation of the Internet and VoiP gave phreakers better things to do.  Maybe [b]hacking[/b] increased, but hacking != phreaking.  -71.49.161.98 17:00, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Popularity 

message: i always new the alt.2600 news group was about phreaking but now know the significance of the 2600. Thanks for the article!
===another n00b comment/question===
has the introduction of fiber optic cables as the primary phone line changed phreaking?  If so, how, and should it be mentioned in the article? --talk to me crimes against humanity
:Most of the changes in phreaking have been caused by the digital switchover; digital phreaking would not really be affected by fiber optics, as optic cables themselves are generally run between switching offices.  If one were to forge digital signals, they should survive the digital->fiber->digital crossover just fine.  In terms of phreaking optic lines themselves, it is tremendously difficult to "bug" or alter them, and new encryption techniques rely on the wavelength of the light itself as a "signature" showing no tampering of the line occurred.  Rainman420 23:59, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: newbie comment

message: has the introduction of fiber optic cables as the primary phone line changed phreaking?  If so, how, and should it be mentioned in the article? --talk to me crimes against humanity
:Most of the changes in phreaking have been caused by the digital switchover; digital phreaking would not really be affected by fiber optics, as optic cables themselves are generally run between switching offices.  If one were to forge digital signals, they should survive the digital->fiber->digital crossover just fine.  In terms of phreaking optic lines themselves, it is tremendously difficult to "bug" or alter them, and new encryption techniques rely on the wavelength of the light itself as a "signature" showing no tampering of the line occurred.  Rainman420 23:59, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: another n00b comment/question

message: "One could argue that the inception of the telephone by Antonio Meucci could be the origin of phreak-like experimentation." 
This is presented as fact, but the identity of the inventor of the telephone is disputed. If no-one responds within 24 hours, I'll update the article to reflect this.
--Dazzla 03:03, 9 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Inventor of the telephone

message: Added 'Alan from Canada' under the "History of phreaking" topic. Alan was doing the same things in Canada that Group Bell was doing in the USA, minus the recordings. Quite a famous person in the Canadian underground scene.
--othtim 05:13, 29 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: small change

message: I think it's widely assumed that the infamous hoax "the blotto box" would be impossible at any level...  Telephone lines contain fuses to prevent surges (such as lightening strikes) from traveling very far.  I think it's safe to change the wording to reflect it's impossibility.  Rainman420 00:01, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: The blotto box 

message: The fifth paragraph in the "History of Phreaking" page is still quite a chore to read. Maybe it should be split into shorter sentances? I split it up a bit already. I think that 12 commas in one sentance is too many, heh. :)
----
I cleaned up the previous stuff about the N2 in Wawina. If someone has more to add, please feel free to fill it in. Obviously, the cutover has't occured yet, but everything posted is factual. I'll update it again after the cutover to describe the new sounds. 
----
The cutover occured. The portion about Wawina is now factual.
--Othtim 20:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  minor cleanup 

message: Contrary to popular belief, MF signaling with 2600 Hz control is not yet gone. One last place exists in Livengood, Alaska. The page has been edited to reflect this.
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If you had read the article, you would have noticed it talked about the "continental" United States. 
----
Eh, I take that back. MF it is. KP + 7 digits + ST. Sorry.
--Othtim 06:39, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: MF is not dead, yet

message: okay, so for some reason today i have decided to learn up on phreaking. the last time i've wondered what phreaking is must have been 10 years ago on CompuServe public chat forums where people publicly solicited info on phreaking. my main source of info today was one of the greatest sites of all time: textfiles.com (of course, most are horribly outdated by a decade and a half!)
There is a section of the end of multi frequency. I want to know: is this it for phreaking? Or is there any more future for phreaking?
I am royally confused and would appreciate more clarity. You know, I make (anonymous via proxy, like this one) edits of math articles, and non-mathematicians always say they cannot easily understand what the mathematicians are talking about. Now I finally understand what they are saying :). --63.226.57.47 11:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  phreaking today 

message: There is way too much overlap between this and the 2600 Hz article. I would suggest that the 2600 Hz article be deleted and merged into this one (or the 2600 section in this article reduced to a sentence or two) Cornlad 19:59, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overlap with 2600 Hz article 

message: This article seems only to deal with blue boxing. What about other exploits still being used (red boxing, beige boxing) and others that no longer work (green boxing)? Alpha Omicron 19:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other phreaking techiques 

message: I'm thinking of getting rid of the Captain Bizzaro/John Marshall link in the "famous phreaks" section. I've never heard of a phreak by that name. Also the link goes to the Wiki for John Marshall, who was some justice in yesteryears. Anybody know anything about him? I-baLL 16:35, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Captain Bizzaro aka John Marshall 

message: I think it would be more precise to talk about what happened in late 80's and 90's , what was C5 phreaking on international 800 , and why not give away some .wav sample on blueboxing calls...
What was the bbs phreaking scene, who was scavenger, give away some software dialers example on pc,amiga, atari etc..
I just would like to have some affirmation from other phreaks before giving up some stuffs about this on wikipedia
I just felt obliged to add some information about international blueboxing and both software for Atarai ST/STE which I myself wrote "back in the days", and some bluebox plans that I created together with a German friend of mine, you'll find all of the above here:
Sampling of an international boxed call, bluebox plans and software for Atari ST/STE Bluebox as well as some known PC blueboxing programs from back in the days.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by ZaphodB-SE (talk • contribs) 07:33, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  What about phreaking in 90's and C5 signaling ? 

message: The "George Hoffman" and "John Swanson" people in the "famous phreaks" section are going. I'm removing them right now.
--Othtim 07:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Not Famous

message: What? The notability of the subject is disputed? *cough* We'll have to fix that... :S
Anyways, in other news - I don't feel this article accurately reflects an international perspective. Does anyone have suggestions for making this article more correct from an international perspective? Right now it's very biased towards how phreaking evolved in North America.
--Othtim 07:00, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: International Perspective

message: I think something about modern-day phreaking should be added. It'd really make the article much more informal. I also really can't tell you how many times I've been asked that question :P
--ThoughtPhreaker 04:57, 8 Febuary 2007 (UTC)
:I suggest that the "End of MF" section be removed, or at the very least, placed somewhere else. It's place at the end of the article causes confusion. Having the "End of MF" at the end of the phreaking article ends the article with a death. Really, the last line is, "On June 15th, around 1:40am, Eastern Daylight Time, any new incoming calls were unreachable." Makes it sound like phone phreaking died at the end of this article. Also, it's not really internationally relevant. Hell, it's not even relevant to most american phone phreaks, save a few. I think it should be cut, possibly put in a different article (like 2600hz?).
:Also, I noticed that some new info about diverters and such was added. Awesome!
:--Othtim 10:57, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Modern-day Phreaking

message: I removed most of the links, and just re-removed a link to f41th magazine.  I'd proposed removing the PLA and nettwerked links as well, but thought it worth discussing first.  Most external links are considered inappropriate by Wikipedia:External links, and I find that 99% of community, (maga)zine, blog, etc sites are not suitable for inclusion.  Textfiles.com's archives are a clear keeper, and I think the old blue box article, beyond that it is mostly a slippery slope into porn referrals. ;).  The vast majority of phreaking related sites should not be listed here.  comments appreciated, new links  considered..  ∴ here…♠ 17:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I removed the PLA site, as it's mostly for merchandising and community forums, neither of which are appropriate. The netwerkked.net site does have some useful reference information, so I left it, but it's borderline. -Amatulic 17:36, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: nettwerked.net has files that are not hosted anywhere else on the internet (save hackcanada.com, but they are sister sites). It's considered by most canadian hackers to be "the" repository for canadian phone phreaking information. If anything new or interesting happens in the world of phone phreaking in Canada, chances are you'll see/hear/read about it on nettwerked or hackcanada. --Othtim (talk) 03:03, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links 

message: I recommend merging the info at Evan Doorbell into this article.  He's a notable phreak, and has even been mentioned here on the phreaking article for a long time. He definitely provided a ton of primary source material, and I see his recordings being used elsewhere in research of that era. Despite the autobiographical information that he's been providing at phonetrips.com, I just don't think that there's enough third-party reliable sources to justify a full bio at this time. --Elonka 22:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Won't make sense as this article is about phreaking and not phreakers specifically. So I think it'll be a bad idea to merge a biography with an article that, as of present, does not contain any biographical information. I-baLL 14:52, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Merge

message: I reverted Tqbf's changes to the Famous Phone Phreaks section, since at least in my opinion, any well-noted phreak within the scene deserves mention there. If anybody feels differently, feel free to revert.
:It's a good idea to sign your name after your edit. You can do this with four tildes at the end of your comment.--Othtim (talk) 04:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Famous phone phreaks 

message: William Quinn (dec0der) is a notable phone phreak. Perhaps not notable enough to have his own article, but definately notable enough to be featured in the addendum of the phreaking page. Here is some information surrounding his case and indictment: 
*http://seclists.org/isn/2004/Jul/0053.html 
*http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/July04/quinnindictmentpr.pdf
*http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B00E0DA1E3BF930A25754C0A9629C8B63
His case was covered in the New York Times and Computer World magazine, among others. He (Quinn) is also very well known for being the host of Default Radio, which remains as one of the most popular phone phreaking Podcasts ever, along with Radio Freek America.
He also submitted a number of articles to well known publications such as 2600 (Verizon's Call Intercept, Winter 2004). He also wrote a number of electronic articles that were distributed via the normal channels (such as oldskoolphreak.com). These articles primarily focused on exchange scanning and manipulation of Verizon SASS and DATUs and are widely recognized within the community. --Othtim (talk) 04:19, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  In defense of Quinn's place in this article 

message: Lucky225 (Jered Morgan) is notable enough to have a footnote in this article. First off, he has his own stub article on wikipedia. 
Lucky also has a few media publications of his own.
*http://www.securityfocus.com/news/9061 - Kevin Poulson and Lucky225 for a SecurityFocus article
*http://216.247.229.195/issue/2004/sepoct/columns/lucky225.asp Lucky's article for VON Magazine
Lucky also was a co-host of Default Radio, which again (like dec0der) marks him as a rockstar of the phreak underground. He's also had talks at DEFCON 11 and DEFCON 12, as well as H2K2. He's discovered many Caller-ID related exploits, and he's been publishing articles in 2600 (and many other smaller electronic magazines) since 1999. --Othtim (talk) 04:33, 19 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  In defense of Lucky225's place in this article 

message: Joe Engressia (...) discovered that whistling (...) a frequency of 2600 Hz would stop a dialed phone recording
What's that, a "phone recording"? --Jerome Potts (talk) 04:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "dialed phone recording" 

message: The article says that the switchover from the last N2 to T1 led to gradually increasing "static" over a period of five or more days.  This is not what I'd have naively expected - could someone explain why this happened? 70.15.114.2 (talk) 22:01, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Static? 

message: Apparently 2-1-1 only works in a few places in the U.S. where it is implemented by nonprofits and trapped by the phone company.  Given that anarchist assistance beat FEMA to New Orleans by a few days, I find myself wondering if any phone phreaks have put their minds to the question of redirecting unimplemented 2-1-1's in case of emergency (or desperate need for amusement ;) ). 70.15.114.2 (talk) 22:16, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  2-1-1 

message: The following were removed due to not being notable:	
* Brad Carter: RBCP - RedBoxChiliPepper
* Lucky225 Jered Morgan	
* Strom Carlson
Notable phreaks would include others like Erik Bloodaxe.  The three listed above do not have independent articles written about them.  The criteria of having given Defcon talks is not enough to be notable.  Defcon has notoriously low criteria for acceptance.  In contrast, many of the other phreaks listed as famous in this article have had multiple independent books written about them.  For example, mainstream journalists John Markoff and Katie Hafner have written about Justin Petersen and Kevin Mitnick.  -- Sidfilter (talk) 04:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Notability issues with Carter, Lucky225, Carlson 

message: This article does not actually explain what phreaking is, nor does it actually explain what these people do/have done. Its like a essay without an opening paragraph.
174.114.87.236 (talk) 19:49, 22 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  What is going on in this article? 

message: This was introduced to me in the 1980's as 'tapping' and was known as that throughout the UK and Australia as far as I am aware. During many phone conversations with phreaks in the US I found that tapping was also the common term for it. Perhaps this should be added, but I am not inclined to do so myself as I cbf'd making an account due to wikidramu and admin banathons that occur here. Just thought I'd drop in a tip off. <3 121.217.137.98 (talk) 23:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Switch hook and tone dialer 

message: Would this be the right place to describe non-US phone phreaking? I believe that during the late 60s and early 70s the London telephone system could be phreaked by dialing GUL 06 followed by the first two digits of the number you required (usuallu the area or international access code) ... wait for a click and then finish dialing. This was a strowger system not a tone-based system. It was a mechanism for operators on one exchange to route calls via another if their local system developed a trunk fault. The Post Office would put a printer on this circuit and sometimes call the dialed number to see if they could find the culprits ... who usually called from telephone boxes (ie pay phones in the street). Other UK methods dating from strowger days include hop-dialing ... chaining local access codes to dial long distance (would give very poor lines) and, as Subscriber Trunk Dialing was being rolled out, using a local access code to reach an STD exchange, get new dial tone, and dialing out again. Anyone have sources for such things?   Delverie (talk) 13:18, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This is definitely the proper article for such an addition.  I had no idea there was such capabilities and misdesigns in the UK phone system.  What is "GUL 06"?  Is that a special signal, or something that anyone could dial?  —EncMstr (talk) 16:06, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK Phreaking 

message: “The last 2600 controlled trunk in the continental United States was operated by the independent Northern Telephone Company with an N2 Carrier system serving Wawina, MN until June 15th, 2006 when it was replaced by T1 carrier[14]. The last 2600 controlled trunks in North America were located in Livengood, AK and survived a further 5 years, being finally retired in March, 2011.” How is Alaska not “continental United States”?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gidoca (talk • contribs) 21:54, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it should be contiguous United States, not continental United States, but the redirect from the latter suggests that this is commonly confused term.  Indeed, the next older version, before the redirect indicates that Alaskans and "Lower-48ers" had divergent use of the terms.  —EncMstr (talk) 22:25, 4 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, yes, that makes sense. I changed it now to read "contiguous". --Gidoca (talk) 11:03, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alaska 

message: The person who wrote "To report that a phone call was long distance meant an elevated importance universally accepted as, the calling party is paying by the minute to speak to the called party; transact business quickly." might have known what they meant, but I don't! 86.155.0.191 (talk) 16:37, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to rewrite.  Back in the day, the phrase "its long distance." meant "This is important enough this person is paying a lot of money, by the minute, to talk to you now!  No time to screw around."  Convey that in a better sentence. Trackinfo (talk) 17:52, 2 October 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Garbled 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Phreaking. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add  after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120314023659/http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol43-1964/bstj-vol43-issue05.html to http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol43-1964/bstj-vol43-issue05.html
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
Cheers. —cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 05:58, 29 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: 2600 Hertz is given a subsection under History and it's own section (the only one other than history). I recommend combining them, but since it's a somewhat significant change and there's a chance it is the way it is for a reason, I wanted to suggest it here instead of unilaterally changing it as my first edit on the topic. TheMikeBest (talk) 14:17, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see an issue, 2600 does not stand out as a formatting issue.  It is the logical second of the steps in the development of phreaking, hook switch, 2600 Hz (or single frequency), then multiple frequency.  The prose following the subsection is not written in such an elemental fashion, perhaps that might be better explained, but the subheaders are fairly appropriate. Trackinfo (talk) 14:41, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that it belongs under history, but I'm not sure it needs its own subsection. I think that subsection can, and should, be added to the first entry under history. The big issue I see with that is that the article would then have only one section (History) with several subsections. What I propose, and was admittedly vague about when I brought it up, is removing the History section and make all of its subsections their own sections, merging the "2600 Hz" section into "2600 hertz" section. The problem, as I see it, is that it breaks up the article unnecessarily and makes people jump around the page. Rather than divide up the article chronologically, why not divide it by topic? This is mostly what's done anyway, and the sections can be put into (more or less) chronological order. TheMikeBest (talk) 14:42, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

text: For alternate phrasing and explanations of the topic, it may be worth looking at the old 2600 hertz article from before it was redirected to this page: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2600_hertz&diff=454428326&oldid=452696725 TheMikeBest (talk) 14:44, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the 2600 Hz article.  I do not see why it was merged and see no discussion to cause it to be merged.  Maybe I am looking in the wrong place, but I suspect it was a unilateral change made by somebody. Trackinfo (talk) 19:01, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and I think that while the technical uses of the 2600 Hz frequency are pretty much dead, it's historical and cultural significance is enough to justify having its own article. TheMikeBest (talk) 21:47, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Unless someone can express a reason to NOT establish that article--I don't currently see other people talking here--I say we should reestablish it. Trackinfo (talk) 21:57, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

text: I think we should go ahead and do it. TheMikeBest (talk) 00:59, 2 May 2016 (UTC)

text: I added the main article template to the Phreaking#2600_hertz subsection. Should we move some or all of the text from Phreaking#2600_Hz as well? TheMikeBest (talk) 19:23, 2 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  2600 Hertz 

message: The last non-SS7 trunks were upgraded in the early two-thousands. A guy who goes by "The Goatroper" A.K.A. "NoTone" knows a lot of about the last non-digital tech and networks.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.196.91.6 (talk) 22:45, 25 April 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  This died in early two-thousands 

message: Bshjwnwbwhuwiwkwjn 2409:4063:6E97:7AE0:6DC5:9A92:E6:CB15 (talk) 13:25, 12 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pagl