[1969] Joe Engressia ('The Whistler', 'Joybubbles' and 'High Rise Joe') considered the father of phreaking. Joe, who is blind, was a mathematics student at USF in the late 1960s when he discovered that he could whistle into a pay telephone the precise pitch --the 2600-cycle note, close to a high A-- that would trip phone circuits and allow him to make long-distance calls at no cost.
[1971] John Draper ('Cap'n Crunch') learns that a toy whistle given away inside Cap'n Crunch cereal generates a 2600-hertz signal, the same high-pitched tone that accesses AT&T's long-distance switching system. Draper builds a blue box that, when used in conjunction with the whistle and sounded into a phone receiver, allows phreakers to make free calls.
[1971] Esquire magazine publishes Secrets of the Little Blue Box with instructions for making a blue box, and wire fraud in the United States escalates. Among the perpetrators: college kids Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, future founders of Apple Computer, who launch a home industry making and selling blue boxes.
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