May 1, 2022
There's power in music, but not all tones are created
equal. During the reign of Bell Telephone there was one tone in
particular that opened up a world of possibilities: 2600 Hz. The
devotees of this note were called phreakers, and in some cases they
knew the telephone system better than Bell employees themselves.
This episode were diving in to the early history of phreaking, how
a bag of tricks was developed, and why exploring the phone grid was
so much fun.
Selected sources:
http://explodingthephone.com/
- Phil Lapsley's book and website
of the same name
https://archive.org/details/belltelephonemag09amerrich/page/205/mode/2up
- All about the Holmes Burglar
Alarm system
http://explodingthephone.com/docs/dbx0947.pdf
- FBI's records on Barclay and
the Blue Box
