Hacking around on the telephone, the internet before the internet

One thing the author missed was the early BBS warez scene. Some people would use war dialers not to find open modems, but to systematically hack long distance calling card codes from the phone company and private companies. It would call the main number, then sequentially or randomly enter codes, then enter a target phone number like a BBS. If a modem picked up, the code worked and it would save it. If not, after x seconds it would hang up and start over. You'd leave it running overnight and maybe get a code or two, or none. They might last a few hours or a few weeks. There were also plenty of sites where people would post the codes, but those would usually get shut down pretty quick so best to hack your own. This would allow you basically free (to you) long distance access which you'd then use to connect to long distance bbs's to download games. This was mid 80's and started with Vic20/C64/Amiga as well as 286's when IBM's/Clones started hitting the streets. Then the internet became a thing and everyone moved to ftp's and hacking permissions to make hidden directories.

Reminds me that some of the best engineers of the last two decades started out as bored teenagers.

It wasn't so much the making free phone calls, but it was exploring the universe that was on the other side of the twisted copper pair coming into the house.

If you’re interested in the actual stuff phreaks spent time on try searching for “kp st inward operator”.

This will lead you down a rabbit hole of old information about exploration of the Bellcore system beyond basic toll fraud.

Evan Doorbell's phone phreaking recordings include interesting sounds from the phone network of the 70s and 80s, and some good technical descriptions of how various analog switching technologies and the telephone network worked "back in the day": https://www.evan-doorbell.com/

I've spent hours listening to these and they're a great mix of nostalgia and technical detail. I barely remember what the analog phone network sounded like, being born around the time when digital switching was being rolled-out heavily. It's neat to learn what some of the sounds on the network actually were.