mediated history

The ProQuest historical newspapers are amazing.  There are so many articles on an early hacker activity, “Phone Phreaking,” which is basically the exploit in pay phones that allowed early hackers to bypass the phone companies by making the right noise into the phone, allowing them to do bypass call operators and communicate with the computers that controlled the phones directly.  There are many articles that explain “what are phone phreakers?” as well as how they are seen as an annoyance by the phone companies, but these articles also talk about the proficiency and “strong moral codes” of these phreakers, which is making my “Hackers” banner in my blog really appropriate.  A large focus on the newspaper articles in the 1970s about phone  phreaking actually praise these hackers for being “ingenious” and “creative.” The articles are also very surprisingly technical, talking about the exact instruments used by hackers without giving away too much back information.  For instance, “The Blue Box is basically a system of electronic oscillators that emit precise double tones that exactly simulate the tones used to activate the worldwide telephone switching system.”  These early newspapers are great.

Phone Phreaks Hold a Convention: Phone Phreaks Convene

Unfortunately, the Flickr Commons database doesn’t have much from the late 1980s or early 1990s, which was when the hacker influence really became popular because of the low level of hacker protection in many systems, the introduction of the world wide web through phone companies, and the increased abilities of computers. When looking through the databases, I tried to look up large umbrella terms, like “internet” or “hacker,” hoping to find the old newsletters or group pictures of university clubs who worked on engineering or computers. Has to settle with an early picture of a computer designed by NASA.

~ by aledere1 on September 17, 2012 .