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***The part about the 55515 makes me think that all those fake 555 phone numbers on TV and in movies is some kind of spell***

My understanding, being somewhat involved while in the industry, is that in early television production, ATT agreed to use that preliminary digital code for its own business - NO area codes or exchange segments available. That allowed show writers and producers to use it on shows and movies without having to worry about some poor schlepp in West Tumbleweed, Miniconsin getting inundated in crank telephone calls - and suing someone's bloomers off. 🤔😌

In about 1948 Bell Labs published in one of their technical journals a proud report for the computer age of many (all?) of their digital codes they were going to use in high speed switching and routing equipment, including proposed satellite access codes. (For example, the 'disconnect' tone for all calls was - and may still be - 2600 hz)

Someone at Bell Labs woke up and realized they had just given away their whole operating platform including all service billing bypass codes❗ Bell Telephone had a mad dash to recover as many of those published issues as they possibly could - and did a fairly good job of it.

But not quite good enough - naturally. Phone hackers, like 'Captain Crunch', built what became known as the 'Blue Box' which allowed him in his computerized van to pull up to a random terminal box along the road, hook up anonymously to some phone line, and start 'stacking up' trunk lines, satellite up links and build a round the world 'Round Robin' back to another phone line in his van.

The Blue Box looked and worked just like a Touch Tone pad on a house phone - except the tone codes were different, naturally.

I knew someone who built a Blue Box back in the 70s. I don't think they were much interested in more than to see if the technology worked. It did❗

I know by the 80s Bell/ATT redesigned their network operating system to stop the phone hackers. I really am not sure how successful they were but I suspect pretty darn successful❗🤷

I know by the 80s Bell/ATT redesigned their network operating system to stop the phone hackers. I really am not sure how successful they were but I suspect pretty darn successful❗🤷

I remember seeing a documentary several years ago about that whole culture. They had interviews and news features from the 1970s. That was the first time I heard about Captain Crunch.

I also remember a 60 Minutes episode from the 1970s. They spent a few minutes demonstrating a device that could remotely turn any phone into a microphone - even with the device hung up. If I remember correctly, it used a signal picked up through induction. Anyone involved in a conversation within the range of the phone could be heard from a thousand miles away. Never heard anything in the news about that. I suspect it was a topic TPTB did not want to be made known.

🤣

In the 90’s the box tones were still going strong.

I hung out on an underground BBS with loads of interesting folks and a mountain of information. I was chatting with a dude in open text one evening, he was just hanging out playing around with his box software and a wardialer (way to rapidly run through phone numbers to find computers and answering machines and other interesting numbers). A noob came in bugging folks about where was all the 3L33t action…

So I posted back to him that if he wanted the dankest of knowledge he was going to have to go through *679-113-4776.

I am reading something or other, and the guy I was chatting with is not around for about a half hour and pops back in with “YOU MFer” and I was all what???

HE dialed up my noob troll and had spent the previous 30 or so minutes explaining to the cops that he wasn’t punking them and didn’t have an emergency.

I told him didn’t think he’d fall for that and he was laughing by then, he just ran with it without thinking. *67 disables “automatic number ID” (but doesn’t work on 911 or 800 numbers, so when it is followed by 911 you look like a sneaky idiot)
911 - self evident
3-4776 just some filler trash numbers 🤣

That was on the old NirvanaNet, my local node was &TOTSE, The Temple Of The Screaming Electron. That node was powered by about a dozen 286’s in a guys closet all pushing sub 56.6Kb modems. Interesting times, whole system filled with arcane knowledge/Deeeeep rabbit holes. I learned mountains there, still have 3 ring binders with stuff I printed out…

I think I still have the bulk of alt2600’s e-zines on 3.5 inch floppy disks.