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Awesome. I missed the era, but it sounded like an amazing time for the phreaks.

• Animats 11y ago
  Phone hacking is bigger than ever now, but it's done by businesses and governments. Whenever you get a telemarketer call with a bogus reply number, that's a form of phone hacking. Somewhere there's a VoIP to PSTN gateway hacked to fake caller ID. "Lawful interception" is sometimes done by hacking SS7 signalling. There are services that will rent you fake phone numbers for a few minute at a time to get verification callbacks. ("attlines.com" seems to be down, but there are others.)
  • function_seven 11y ago
    You're absolutely right, but these new forms just don't seem as magical as the old in-band signaling. I can only imagine the thrill of discovering the right tones to play into the receiver to make Ma Bell do your bidding. Slowly mapping the network and figuring out what trunks connect where, finding the secret phone numbers that only telephone repair people are supposed to use, etc. It just seems kind of lame to set up a SIP gateway and (ab)use the naive ANI/CLID facilities. I mean, it is the "correct" way to hack the PSTN these days, but it just isn't as cool.