Editing Phreaking (section)

==Phone hacking==
{{Refimprove section|date=July 2014}}
In the 1980s, the revolution of the [[personal computer]] and the popularity of computer [[bulletin board systems]] (BBSes) (accessed via [[modem]]) created an influx of tech-savvy users. These BBSes became popular for computer [[Hacker (computer security)|hackers]] and others interested in the technology, and served as a medium for previously scattered independent phone phreaks to share their discoveries and experiments. This not only led to unprecedented collaboration between phone phreaks, but also spread the notion of phreaking to others who took it upon themselves to study, experiment with, or exploit the telephone system. This was also at a time when the telephone company was a popular subject of discussion in the US, as the [[monopoly]] of [[AT&T Corporation]] was forced into divestiture. During this time, exploration of telephone networks diminished, and phreaking focused more on toll fraud. Computer hackers began to use phreaking methods to find the telephone numbers for modems belonging to businesses, which they could exploit later. Groups then formed around the BBS hacker/phreaking (H/P) community such as the famous [[Masters of Deception]] ([[Phiber Optik]]) and [[Legion of Doom (hacking)|Legion of Doom]] ([[Erik Bloodaxe (hacker)|Erik Bloodaxe]]) groups. In 1985, an underground e-zine called ''[[Phrack]]'' (a combination of the words phreak and hack) began circulation among BBSes, and focused on hacking, phreaking, and other related technological subjects.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lunceford |first=Brett |title=Building Hacker Collective Identity One Text Phile at a Time: Reading Phrack |url=http://www.bodyrhetoric.com/phrack.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.bodyrhetoric.com/phrack.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |access-date=25 June 2022}}</ref>

In the early 1990s, groups like Masters of Deception and Legion of Doom were shut down by the [[US Secret Service]]'s [[Operation Sundevil]]. Phreaking as a subculture saw a brief dispersion in fear of criminal prosecution in the 1990s, before the popularity of the [[internet]] initiated a reemergence of phreaking as a subculture in the US and spread phreaking to international levels.{{cn|date=February 2024}}
<!-- At the turn of the 21st century, phreaks began to focus on exploring and playing with the network, and the concept of toll fraud became frowned upon among some phreakers, primarily under the influence of the website Phone Trips, put up by second-generation phreaks [[Isaac Kashdan#Family|Mark Bernay]] and Evan Doorbell.{{Relevance inline|discuss=Self promotion?|date=July 2014}}{{cn}} -->

===Toll fraud===
The [[Bell System divestiture|1984 AT&T breakup]] gave rise to many small companies intent on competing in the long-distance market. These included the then-fledgling [[Sprint Nextel|Sprint]] and [[MCI Inc.|MCI]], both of whom had only recently entered the marketplace. At the time, there was no way to switch a phone line to have calls automatically carried by non-AT&T companies. Customers of these small long-distance operations would be required to dial a local access number, enter their calling card number, and finally enter the area code and phone number they wish to call. Because of the relatively lengthy process for customers to complete a call, the companies kept the calling card numbers short – usually 6 or 7 digits. This opened up a huge vulnerability to phone phreaks with a computer.

6-digit calling card numbers only offer 1 million combinations. 7-digit numbers offer just 10 million. If a company had 10,000 customers, a person attempting to "guess" a card number would have a good chance of doing so correctly once every 100 tries for a 6-digit card and once every 1000 tries for a 7-digit card. While this is almost easy enough for people to do manually, computers made the task far easier.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0306/S00026.htm |title=W32.Bugbear.B Worm Identified As Targeting Banks &#124; Scoop News |publisher=Scoop.co.nz |date=2003-06-09 |access-date=2014-07-24}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|author=Angela Moscaritolo |url=http://www.scmagazine.com/att-sues-two-over-scheme-to-steal-customer-data/article/209763/ |title=AT&T sues two over scheme to steal customer data |publisher=SC Magazine |date=2011-03-18 |access-date=2014-07-24}}</ref> "Code hack" programs were developed for computers with modems. The modems would dial the long-distance access number, enter a random calling card number (of the proper number of digits), and attempt to complete a call to a computer bulletin board system (BBS). If the computer connected successfully to the BBS, it proved that it had found a working card number, and it saved that number to disk. If it did not connect to the BBS in a specified amount of time (usually 30 or 60 seconds), it would hang up and try a different code. Using this method, code hacking programs would turn up hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of working calling card numbers per day. These would subsequently be shared amongst fellow phreakers.

There was no way for these small phone companies to identify the culprits of these hacks. They had no access to local phone company records of calls into their access numbers, and even if they had access, obtaining such records would be prohibitively expensive and time-consuming. While there was some advancement in tracking down these code hackers in the early 1990s, the problem did not completely disappear until most long-distance companies were able to offer standard 1+ dialing without the use of an access number.

===Diverters===

Another method of obtaining free phone calls involves the use of "diverters". Call forwarding was not an available feature for many business phone lines in the late 1980s and early 1990s, so they were forced to buy equipment that could do the job manually between two phone lines. When the business would close, they would program the call diverting equipment to answer all calls, pick up another phone line, call their answering service, and bridge the two lines together. This gave the appearance to the caller that they were directly forwarded to the company's answering service.  The switching equipment would typically reset the line after the call had hung up and timed out back to dial tone, so the caller could simply wait after the answering service had disconnected, and would eventually get a usable dial tone from the second line. Phreakers recognized the opportunity this provided, and they would spend hours manually dialing businesses after hours, attempting to identify faulty diverters. Once a phreaker had access to one of these lines, they could use it for one of many purposes. In addition to completing phone calls anywhere in the world at the businesses' expense, they could also dial [[1-900]] phone sex/entertainment numbers, as well as use the line to harass their enemies without fear of being traced. Victimized small businesses were usually required to foot the bill for the long-distance calls, as it was their own private equipment (not phone company security flaws) that allowed such fraud to occur. By 1993, call forwarding was offered to nearly every business line subscriber, making these diverters obsolete. As a result, hackers stopped searching for the few remaining ones, and this method of toll fraud died. Many (different type) of diverters still exist and are actively "phreaked" in the United States as of 2020. It is rare to find a diverter solely used for Answering Service forwarding anymore, but the many other types such as phone-company test numbers and remote PBX DISAs are still used as diverters.{{Citation needed|date=March 2020}}

===Voice mail boxes and bridges===
Before the BBS era of the 1980s phone phreaking was more of a solitary venture as it was difficult for phreaks to connect with one another.{{Citation needed|date=January 2018}} In addition to communicating over BBSs phone phreaks discover [[voice mail]] boxes and [[Party line (telephony)|party lines]] as ways to network and keep in touch over the telephone. They usually appropriate unused boxes that are part of business or cellular phone systems. Once a vulnerable mailbox system is discovered, word would spread around the phreak community, and scores of them would take residence on the system. They use these systems as a [[dead drop|"home base"]] for communication with one another until the rightful owners discover the intrusion and wipe them off. Voice mailboxes also provide a safe phone number for phreaks to give out to one another as home phone numbers and personal cellular numbers would allow the phreak's identity (and home address) to be discovered. This is especially important given that phone phreaks are breaking the law.

Phreakers also use "bridges" to communicate live with one another. The term "bridge" originally referred to a group of telephone company test lines that were bridged together giving the effect of a party-line. Eventually, all party-lines, whether bridges or not, came to be known as bridges if primarily populated by hackers and/or phreakers.

The popularity of the Internet in the mid-1990s, along with the better awareness of voice mail by business and cell phone owners, made the practice of stealing voice mailboxes less popular. To this day bridges are still very popular with phreakers yet, with the advent of VoIP, the use of telephone company-owned bridges has decreased slightly in favor of phreaker-owned conferences.

===End of multi-frequency in the United States===
The end of [[multi-frequency]] (MF) phreaking in the lower 48 United States occurred on June 15, 2006, when the last exchange in the contiguous [[United States]] to use a "phreakable" MF-signalled trunk replaced the aging (yet still well kept) N2 carrier with a [[T-carrier|T1 carrier]]. This exchange, located in [[Wawina Township, Minnesota]], was run by the Northern Telephone Company of Minnesota.<ref name=Wawina>{{cite web |url=http://www.phworld.org/sounds/wawina/ |title=Telephone World - Sounds & Recordings from Wawina, MN |publisher=Phworld.org |access-date=2013-11-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203064451/http://www.phworld.org/sounds/wawina/ |archive-date=2013-12-03 }}</ref>

===From 2010 to present===
Recent notable instances of phreaking involve hacking of [[VOIP]] systems. In 2011, the government of the Philippines and the [[FBI]] arrested four hackers for phone phreaking through [[Private branch exchange|PBX]] hacking.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/11/how-filipino-phreakers-turned-pbx-systems-into-cash-machines-for-terrorists/|title=How Filipino phreakers turned PBX systems into cash machines for terrorists|date=30 November 2011 }}</ref> In 2015, Pakistani officials arrested a prominent phreaker who had amassed more than $50 million from PBX hacking activities.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ibtimes.com/inside-story-how-pakistan-took-down-fbis-most-wanted-cybercriminal-1860808|title=The Inside Story Of How Pakistan Took Down The FBI's Most-Wanted Cybercriminal|website=[[International Business Times]]|date=30 March 2015 }}</ref>