Phone Phreaking: The Net Before The Internet

[JamesWhitehead]

There was a very rudimentary form of phone-phreaking which created a minor scandal in my Hall of Residence way back. It had evidently been in use for years by UK students but college alarm-bells rang when overseas numbers started to ratchet up their losses.

Students phoning home would use the isolated pay-phone in "B-Block." Recipient of the call could immediately call them back via the operator, reversing the charges. Student would generously accept the call, on behalf of the college. This would not work in call-boxes, which used an X as part of the number to designate them, but the university had no safeguards to prevent this simple wheeze! More innocent times!

 

[Schrodinger's Zebra]

A question for the more technically-minded on this thread (that would be probably everyone but me).

In the 'new fangled' dialling system of telephones ("tone dialling"), a beep, (or tone, of course!) is heard whenever a button on the handset is pressed (or when a number on a 'retro imitation dial phone' is dialled).

Is it not possible to whistle (Joybubbles-style) the exact same tone of these button-presses to achieve the same thing as Phone Phreaking?

I suspect it isn't, but I'm not entirely certain why; probably because I have not digested enough knowledge of this Phone Phreaking concept yet to fully understand how they did what they did.

 

[Victory]

I remember around the early 1990's, you could access the answering machine messages of some models by using a small portable keypad which you held at the phone receiver.
Each answering machine had a PIN code.
When you keyed in that PIN code into the portable device, it emitted tones which triggered the answering machine to play back stored messages.

Somehow these keypads were also used in a scam to make free calls from pay phones.

Cost BT a lot of money.

 

[EnolaGaia]

A question for the more technically-minded on this thread (that would be probably everyone but me).

In the 'new fangled' dialling system of telephones ("tone dialling"), a beep, (or tone, of course!) is heard whenever a button on the handset is pressed (or when a number on a 'retro imitation dial phone' is dialled).

Is it not possible to whistle (Joybubbles-style) the exact same tone of these button-presses to achieve the same thing as Phone Phreaking?

I suspect it isn't, but I'm not entirely certain why; probably because I have not digested enough knowledge of this Phone Phreaking concept yet to fully understand how they did what they did.

The short answer ... Now that phone company / service switching systems have gone fullly digital (100% in the USA) there are no central switches that can be controlled or subverted using audible tones. The audible button-press sounds persist in your phone unit as a user feedback cue; they no longer affect the remote switcher(s).