It had nothing to do with expensive phone calls. (Although it is true a lot of hacking has been done purely because someone didn't have the money for a given se

It had nothing to do with expensive phone calls. (Although it is true a lot of hacking has been done purely because someone didn't have the money for a given service) Phreaking was (and is) just a way for an overly curious person to see what they can do with a big mysterious black box. Much like the first hackers trying to work around the first passwords on the first time-sharing computers, phreakers see what they can work around in the telephone network. Bypassing voicemail PINs, changing Caller ID, hijacking PBXes, setting up conf lines for free, listening in on others' phone calls, obscuring your real phone number from the phone companies through op-diverting, spoofing IMEI, decrypting GSM to watch texts and calls in real time, free internet through holes in the paywall of data card providers... And if you're a high school kid who needs to call his mom but the stupid COCOT at school won't let you dial local exchanges, you dial a 1-800 number, reset the trunk, and then dial any number you want. Never know when hacking will come in handy.