![]() The blue box wasn’t the last gadget the phone phreaks community made, and this was the first form of “hacking” which later became internet hacking. ![]() ![]() There were also a group of blind phreakers, who, it is claimed, had perfect pitch and could produce this tone themselves by whistling into the phone. Cap’n Crunch Bosun Whistle © 1971markus via WikimediaĪlthough John Draper is the subject of the legend, he is not the first person to realize that a 2600 Hz tone could be used to get free calls. Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs are said to have made their own bluebox before they made the Apple computer and John Draper was a big technical adviser to them and others, called “phone phreaks.” He also became one of the first Apple employees. A box (the first one discovered was blue) was used to get free long-distance and international calls using 800 numbers, employing not only the 2600 Hz tone but a series of tones called “multifrequency” or MF tones. This practice gave rise to what was called blueboxing, which was the first automated tool fraud technique used to defraud phone companies. See also: What Was Cap’n Crunch’s Full Name? The technical reason for this is beyond my understanding (I’m just regurgitating my research), but it has something to do with sending the tone down a long-distance trunk, which would terminate the call, and then seize another trunk for reuse once the tone stopped. In reality, the line on the other end would remain open, allowing you to continue the call without being charged for it. At least, it would terminate the call as far as AT&T knew. If you dialed a long distance number and then blew the whistle into the mouthpiece, this tone would terminate the call. He is said to have discovered that the whistle, when you blew it, produced a nearly precise 2600 Hz tone. The whistle, at some point, gave rise to the famous legend of John Draper, a.K.a the hacker Captain Crunch. One famous free prize was a toy whistle called a bosun’s whistle. They’d have comic books and all sorts of great things. Not that I recommending doing using DTMF tones in any way, shape or form.As much as the TV cartoons influenced my devotion to Cap’n Crunch - which has waned but never truly wilted - there were also free prizes in the boxes which were a bit more high-quality (to a kid’s mind) than other cereal-box prizes. Speaking of phones, this page has the pure DTMF tones themselves. (I’m holding my breath.) Hey, we talked on the phone, I sent it to them and it came back. I don’t know if the show ever aired but I was promised a credit. Hats off to the producers of a television show on phone freaking that stumbled across this page and borrowed my Cap'n Crunch whistle so Woz himself could blow it at the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. (Can you say 'Radio Shack project'?)Ī big shoutout to Michael at Wall of Sound for jogging my memory, which inspired me to put this page together. My introduction to such matters took a quantum leap forward when as a young, impressionable high schooler I read Secrets of the Little Blue Box by Ron Rosenbaum, Esquire Magazine (October 1971) and the infamous June 1972 Ramparts magazine article (PDF) on how to make a black box. Draper later went on to construct blue boxes, another phone phreak gadget. John Draper, Joe Engressia, and Bill from New York were pioneering phone phreakers who played with Cap’n Crunch whistles. Blow a Cap'n Crunch whistle into a phone and make free long distance phone calls! Remember, this was back when long distance calls were expensive, unlike today. In other words, blowing a Cap'n Crunch whistle sidestepped the phone system’s billing system back before digital phone switching (ESS) was introduced. The sound of a Cap'n Crunch whistle’s mimics one that used to be used by the phone company’s switching equipmen.Ī tone at 2600Hz told the AT&T long lines that a trunk line was ready and available to route a new call. People quickly learned that blowing a Captain Crunch whistle into a phone made free long distance phone calls. Now compare the whistle’s sound to a pure 2600 Hz tone.Ī 2600Hz tone is special. Listen to a real Cap'n Crunch whistle being blown. Or as the whistle itself says, a ∼ap’n Crunch bo’sun whistle. If you blew the toy in the cereal box it made a 2600 Hz tone. Back in 1971 Cap’n Crunch cereal gave away a plastic whistle called the Captain Crunch whistle.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |