HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

See also, /r/weirdnumbers and, if you're into that sort of thing (that is, exploring the phone network), /r/phreaking

Old-skool phreaking[0] (eg, using blue boxes and red boxes) is mostly dead (at least in the US and most "first world" countries. Maybe there is some vestige of in-band signaling left somewhere else) but there is still some fun to be had exploring phones and phone networks.

Modern day phreaking is more about GSM sniffing[1], messing with the SS7 network[2][3][4], using SCTP[5]/SIGTRAN stuff[6], etc. etc. But, at least for the land-line / PSTN network, even some of the old "colored boxes"[7] still do useful things. You can always beige-box a landline phone, violet-boxes should still work, I think a gold-box would still work, etc.

If you want to dig deeper into how the PSTN works, a good, fun book is Understanding Telephone Electronics[8] by Carr, Winder, and Bigelow. Another interesting one is Digital Telephony[9] by Bellamy. Another "oldie but goodie" is Voice and Data Communications Handbook[10] by Bates and Gregory.

Also, don't ask me how or why I know any of this stuff... :-)

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzyuioto4y8

[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JCusqL-Gdk

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wu_pO5Z7Pk

[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_System_No._7

[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_Control_Transmission_Pr...

[6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SIGTRAN

[7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking_box

[8]: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Telephone-Electronics-J...

[9]: https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Telephony-Telecommunications-...

[10]: https://www.amazon.com/Voice-Communications-Handbook-McGraw-...

⬐ alcover

  > don't ask me how or why I know any of this stuff...

I think I know. You were a Ghost in the Wire !

⬐ mindcrime

Funny you would bring that up. So, all joking aside... my introduction to the world of phreaking / hacking was primarily reading Cyberpunk by John Markoff and Katie Haffner about 1995 or so. I was immediately in awe of Kevin Mitnick and his cadre of phreaker friends, and those were the guys/gals me and my little circle of phreaker friends most wanted to emulate. KM was one of my heroes back in those days (and truth be told, I guess he still is to a degree).

What is interesting is that it was only later that I came to know that that book was very controversial, is of doubtful veracity in parts, and may portray KM in a somewhat inaccurate light. Nonetheless, it launched me on my path to a (short and inauspicious) "career" as a phone phreak. But I've remained fascinated with Kevin's story all the way to the current day, and actually just finished reading The Cyberthief and the Samurai and a couple of other books about his story, which I had not read before.