A Look Back at One of the Original Phreaks 98
tmalone writes "The New York Times is running an end of year piece about the most interesting people who have died this year. One of their picks is Joybubbles, also known as Josef Engressia, or 'Whistler.' He was born blind and discovered at the age of 7 that he could whistle 2600 hertz into a phone to make free long-distance calls. He was one of the original phone phreaks, got arrested for phone fraud, and was even employed by the phone company. The article deals more with his personal life than with his technical exploits, but is a very interesting story."
Sneakers? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Talk about... (Score:3, Insightful)
In some cases, I'm sure they still had problems. However, as a couple of anecdotal data points, I've known a couple of people that were busted back in the early-mid nineties and given that choice. They both worked out quite well.
A lot of it, I think, comes down to why they were doing it - exploration and learning vs trying to defraud, etc.
Re:The whole nine yards (Almost) (Score:3, Insightful)
It was never that really hot information... There were commercially available wristwatches that would dial the phone for you by holding it up to the phone, etc.
As a prank, when I was in grade school, circa 1990, a friend and I made a BASIC program on our school IBM's that would give a fake login screen that would "allow" you via simple commands to "dial FBI" completely with realistic "modem" dialtone and carrier tones. It would be hilarious to watch some of the other students get so excited to type "help", then a few silly commands, and finally "DIAL FBI" and get carried away to see an ASCII art warning screen we drew up. The best thing was, after they "logged in" they would get dropped, and never tell the teachers what was going on because of their "illegal" activity. Those sneaky kids!
I forgot where we got the tone listing, but I think it was in a book in the school library. It was amazingly realistic when played on the speaker.
As for whistling to dial, it is a myth as far as I know. A person can whistle 2600; it is not that hard. I hate how mythical powers get embodied to people that exploited lame design and in band signaling by the phone companies. To whistle to dial is impossible, because multiple tones are required.
Re:Talk about... (Score:2, Insightful)