Phone Phreaks: What Can We Learn From the Earliest Network Hackers?

Before smartphones and iPads, before the Internet or the personal computer, a misfit group of technophiles, blind teenagers, hippies, and outlaws figured out how to hack the world's largest machine: the telephone system. Phil Lapsley will trace the birth of the telephone, the rise of AT&T's monopoly, the discovery of the Achilles heel in Ma Bell's network, and the advent of the kids and outlaws -- the "phone phreaks" -- who hacked the telephone network for fun and profit in the 1960s and 1970s. He will then draw some connections between the phone hackers of yore and more recent network hacking incidents, such as the Aaron Swartz case.

Speaker: Phil Lapsley

Wozniak Lounge