using the code has no
computer expertise, but calls his Mom in New York, Kingston or Caracas
and runs up a huge bill with impunity. The losses from this primitive
phreaking activity are far, far greater than the monetary losses caused
by computer-intruding hackers.

In the mid-to-late 1980s, until the introduction of sterner telco
security measures, COMPUTERIZED code theft worked like a charm, and was
virtually omnipresent throughout the digital underground, among phreaks
and hackers alike. This was accomplished through programming one's
computer to try random code numbers over the telephone until one of
them worked. Simple programs to do this were widely available in the
underground; a computer running all night was likely to come up with a
dozen or so useful hits. This could be repeated week after week until
one had a large library of stolen codes.

Nowadays, the computerized dialling of hundreds of numbers can be
detected within hours and swiftly traced. If a stolen code is
repeatedly abused, this too can be detected within a few hours. But
for years in the 1980s, the publication of stolen codes was a kind of
elementary etiquette for fledgling hackers. The simplest way to
establish your bona-fides as a raider was to steal a code through
repeated random dialling and offer it to the "community" for use.
Codes could be both stolen, and used, simply and easily from the safety
of one's own bedroom, with very little fear of detection or punishment.

Before computers and their phone-line modems entered American homes in
gigantic numbers, phone phreaks had their own special
telecommunications hardware gadget, the famous "blue box." This fraud
device (now rendered increasingly useless by the digital evolution of
the phone system) could trick switching systems into granting free
access to long-distance lines. It did this by mimicking the system's
own signal, a tone of 2600 hertz.

Steven Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple Computer, Inc.,
once dabbled in selling blue-boxes in college dorms in California. For
many, in the early days of phreaking, blue-boxing was scarcely
perceived as "theft," but rather as a fun (if sneaky) way to use excess
phone capacity harmlessly. After all, the long-distance lines were
JUST SITTING THERE.... Whom did it hurt, really? If you're not
DAMAGING the system, and you're not USING UP ANY TANGIBLE RESOURCE,
and if nobody FINDS OUT what you did, then what real harm have yo