The Blue Box and Ma Bell
phrack.org
phrack.org
My favorite "hack" (I didnt hack anything, I was 12 when this happened) :
Latch-Key-Kid growing up in the mid 80s, lake tahoe...
Parents get me a calling card from MCI in case I ever need to call them...
I hadn't started smoking pot yet, and I had a photographic memory at the time. I had that number memorized instantly.
At first I used it only when I needed to... after not too long I realized we weren't receiving a bill in the mail. I used that card FOR SIX YEARS before it stopped working, Never once received a bill.
I also had a Captain Crunch Whistle, but I was unfamiliar with 'Captain Crunch' at the time I had it...
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Back then, my best Friend Morgan (who we grew up in tech together) had a 411 game that we played...
We would call 411, and have a ontest on how long we could keep the OP on the phone and how much info we could social engineer out of them by asking where they were, how many OPs in the call center, and anything else -- we were still too stoopid to be actually getting any actionable intel from 411 - it was simply just how long we could keep them on the phone...
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That year, we ran up a $926 long distance bill calling into PCLink and a BBS in San Jose to play trade wars and The Pit... [Grounded for a month]
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The 80s was so damn fun.