The Next HOPE (2010): "Cats and Mice: The Phone Company, the FBI, and the Phone Phreaks" (Download)
Sunday, July 18, 2010: 12:00 pm (Tesla): Ever since the first blue box arrest in 1961, the telephone company, the FBI, and the phone phreaks engaged in a long-running game of cat and mouse. This talk explores the moves and countermoves between the two sides from 1960 to 1980, covering advances in phreaking -- new ways to hack the phone system and evade detection -- as well as advances in finding and prosecuting those pesky phone phreaks. Based on exclusive interviews with phreaks, FBI agents, and telephone company security officers for his forthcoming book on the history of phone phreaking, Phil Lapsley will focus on some of the more dramatic battles between the two sides that occurred during the heyday of analog phone phreaking, including the 1962 Harvard "spy ring," a certain well-known phone phreak's wiretapping of the FBI in 1975 (yes, you read that right), and the hacking of the military's AUTOVON telephone network in the mid-1970s.