Editing Phreaking

A slang term, phreaking is made up of two words; phone and freak. Phreaking generally entails learning about or exploiting systems which have to do with the phone system, but also encompasses voice-over-ip (VoIP). 

==History==

Phreaking, in the sense of exploiting the phone system, started in the mid 50's, because of AT&amp;T's recent addition of direct-dial long-distance ability. During this time, some people began experimenting with the phone system, in other words hacking the phone system. (p.s. someone add moar, I'm lazy)

=== Information Gathering ===

Looks like some anons have been gathering intel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TouchToneTerrorists

=== Joybubbles ===

Josef Carl Engressia, aka Joybubbles, was a blind genius, who was sexually abused by a nun as a child. Being gifted with perfect pitch, he discovered that by whistling a tone of 2600 Hz, he could reset trunks, allowing him various possibilities to route phone calls through the system.

== Boxes ==

Though many do not work now, because of changes to a digital system from analog, there are a few that do--these are mostly here for completion.

=== Red Box ===

Basically, in the early days (and some places today), the insertion of a coin would cause a specific tone to be output. People found that by recording these and playing them back, they could get free phone calls. There is a lot more to it, but the editors are lazy.

=== Blue Box ===

This was a box that gave the normal person the ability to act as an operator, again, because of certain tones.

=== Beige Box ===

This 'box' is built at least once by everyone and their grandmother. All it is, is two alligator clips spliced with the line from a phone cord.

=== DiTTo Box ===

This is a phone with an added mic mute switch that can output audio to an external source such as a stereo or tape recorder, a sort of phreaker's wiretap. DoctoR DiTTo's original tutorial can be found [http://www.artofhacking.com/TUCOPS/PHREAK/BOXES/misc/DITTO.TXT here].