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phreaking: /freek´ing/, n. [from ‘phone phreak’] 1. The art and science of cracking the phone
network (so as, for example, to make free long-distance calls). 2. By extension, security-cracking in any other context (especially,
but not exclusively, on communications networks) (see
cracking). At one time phreaking was a semi-respectable activity among hackers;
there was a gentleman's agreement that phreaking as an intellectual game
and a form of exploration was OK, but serious theft of services was taboo.
There was significant crossover between the hacker community and the
hard-core phone phreaks who ran semi-underground networks of their own
through such media as the legendary TAP Newsletter.
This ethos began to break down in the mid-1980s as wider dissemination of
the techniques put them in the hands of less responsible phreaks. Around
the same time, changes in the phone network made old-style technical
ingenuity less effective as a way of hacking it, so phreaking came to
depend more on overtly criminal acts such as stealing phone-card numbers.
The crimes and punishments of gangs like the ‘414 group’ turned
that game very ugly. A few old-time hackers still phreak casually just to
keep their hand in, but most these days have hardly even heard of
‘blue boxes’ or any of the other paraphernalia of the great
phreaks of yore.
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