Who's to say what the greatest hack was? Hacks are like art or music. Who is to say what the greatest song ever was? Ok, Limitless.... but aside from him.


Ron Rosenbaum’s “Secrets of the Little Blue Box”, Esquire 1971 is a masterpiece.

http://www.lospadres.info/thorg/lbb.html


I was drawn to it through an article about Steve Jobs and Wozniak prior to Jobs getting kicked out of Apple by the Pepsi guy. Jobs and Wozniak read this article and their first product was the phone phreaking "Blue Box".

This article had a huge influence on me. Hacking, electronics & anti social shananigans.

Cap'n Crunch wasn't blind. You are conflating two different characters.


I ask him who this Captain Crunch person is.

"Oh. The Captain. He's probably the most legendary phone phreak. He calls himself Captain Crunch after the notorious Cap'n Crunch 2600 whistle." (Several years ago, Gilbertson explains, the makers of Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal offered a toy-whistle prize in every box as a treat for the Cap'n Crunch set. Somehow a phone phreak discovered that the toy whistle just happened to produce a perfect 2600-cycle tone. When the man who calls himself Captain Crunch was transferred overseas to England with his Air Force unit, he would receive scores of calls from his friends and "mute" them — make them free of charge to them — by blowing his Cap'n Crunch whistle into his end.)
Blind Kid - Joe Egressia:

The next number I choose from the select list of phone-phreak illuminati, prepared for me by the blue-box inventor is a Memphis number. It is the number of Joe Engressia, the first and still perhaps the most accomplished blind phone phreak.

Three years ago Engressia was a nine-day wonder in newspapers and magazines all over America because he had been discovered whistling free long-distance connections for fellow students at the University of South Florida. Engressia was born with perfect pitch; he could whistle phone tones better than the phone-company's equipment.
Never heard about this cable hack. Plus, plus. Totally organic and home made.

Early cable makes me think about that book that chronicaled the start of ESPN. Very interesting times.