As I was framing this shot, I thought about hackers magazine I used to see on the shelves at Borders. It is a small format magazine, almost like a booklet, with the last page always displaying a picture of some type of paid phone from around the world. I guess they started do this in tribute to whoever is trying to hack into these phones to place a free call. Well, Borders is gone and I have not really looked closely at the computer magazines shelves in a while and was not even sure if this publication still exists. Quick search reveals that they are still around, 2600 Hacker Quarterly magazine, indeed still in print. Not sure who buys them, not sure who bought them before or these days, in fact how any of those print magazines stay in business. But that is whole other topic.
Wow, these still exist?
hehe, yep
Haven’t seen one of these in a long time!
they are around, not many in US though
I do actually know someone who read 2600. They were known as “phone phreaks” and the challenge went way beyond merely a free call. Particularly rewarding was seeing if you could actually sneak into enough phone systems to call across the country. It was quite challenging in the early days of touch-tone phones. Free long distance could be accessed if you knew how to whistle at precisely a certain pitch. Some phreaks went on to computer hacking, but I think a lot of them just enjoyed getting the best of Ma Bell and didn’t initially care too much for computer cheating. Haven’t talked to any phreaks in many years, though, so who knows how many of them joined up with Anonymous?
Wow… I haven’t seen one of these since I was a kid. A friend’s dad put one in for his kids to use instead of tying up the house phone… LOL