Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell
448Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell
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Overview
Exploding the Phone tells this story in full for the first time. It traces the birth of long-distance communication and the telephone, the rise of AT&T’s monopoly, the creation of the sophisticated machines that made it all work, and the discovery of Ma Bell’s Achilles’ heel. Phil Lapsley expertly weaves together the clandestine underground of phone phreaks” who turned the network into their electronic playground, the mobsters who exploited its flaws to avoid the feds, the explosion of telephone hacking in the counterculture, and the war between the phreaks, the phone company, and the FBI.
The product of extensive original research, Exploding the Phone is a ground-breaking, captivating book.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780802122285 |
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Publisher: | Grove/Atlantic, Inc. |
Publication date: | 02/11/2014 |
Pages: | 448 |
Sales rank: | 1,099,584 |
Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.30(d) |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Foreword Steve Wozniak xi
A Note on Names and Tenses xv
Chapter 1 Fine Arts 13 1
Chapter 2 Birth of a Playground 14
Chapter 3 Cat and Canary 29
Chapter 4 The Largest Machine in the World 41
Chapter 5 Blue Box 51
Chapter 6 "Some People Collect Stamps" 64
Chapter 7 Headache 85
Chapter 8 Blue Box Bookies 98
Chapter 9 Little Jojo Learns to Whistle 117
Chapter 10 Bill Acker Learns to Play the Flute 135
Chapter 11 The Phone Freaks of America 147
Chapter 12 The Law of Unintended Consequences 167
Chapter 13 Counterculture 185
Chapter 14 Busted 201
Chapter 15 Pranks 218
Chapter 16 The Story of a War 230
Chapter 17 A Little Bit Stupid 249
Chapter 18 Snitch 262
Chapter 19 Crunched 276
Chapter 20 Twilight 296
Chapter 21 Nightfall 311
Epilogue 325
Sources and Notes 337
Acknowledgments 393
Index 399
What People are Saying About This
A rocking great read about the unknown teenagers and hobbyists who defied AT&T when it was foolish to do so. In Lapsley's magnificent research he has uncovered what amounts to a secret pre-history of the computer and internet revolutions.”Tim Wu, author of The Master Switch
“With terrific reporting and story-telling. Phil Lapsley has put voluptuous flesh and bones on the legendary tales of the phone phreaks.”Steven Levy, author of Hackers and In the Plex
"The definitive account of the first generation of network hackers . . . . At turns a technological love story, a counter cultural history and a generation-spanning epic, Exploding the Phone is obsessively researched and told with wit and clarity. It captures a moment in time that might otherwise have been lost forever."Kevin Poulsen, author of Kingpin
“Before he was the god of sexy computers, Steve Jobs sold blue boxes to Hollywood stars and Bay Area hippies. Exploding the Phone connects the cultural lines that run from hacking Ma Bell to building personal computers. Here, for your amusement, is the story of the frothy counterculture that helped create today’s connected world.”Thomas A. Bass, Author of The Eudaemonic Pie and The Spy Who Loved Us
"Seldom are criminals this much fun. Even the phone company had a soft spot for these misfits. They are as well-behaved a band of troublemakers as you are ever likely to meet." Robert Sabbag, author of Snow Blind
“With verve and technical accuracy, Phil Lapsley captures the excitement of the days when phone hackers explored Ma Bell's cabled paradise of dial phones and electromechanical switches. . . . Here's the intriguing story of those first electronic adventurers.”Cliff Stoll, author of The Cuckoo's Egg
“A rollicking history of the telephone system and the hackers who exploited its flaws. [Lapsley] weaves together a brilliant tapestry of richly detailed stories A first-rate chronicle of an unexamined subculture.” Kirkus Reviews