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Author Lapsley, Phil, 1965-

Title Exploding the phone : the untold story of the teenagers and outlaws who hacked Ma Bell / Phil Lapsley.

Publication Info. New York : Grove Press ; [Berkeley, Calif.] : Distributed by Publishers Group West, [2013]
©2013

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Berlin-Peck Memorial Library - Non Fiction  384.6 LAPSLEY    Check Shelf
 Bristol, Main Library - Non Fiction  384.6 L319    DUE 04-17-24
 Enfield, Main Library - Adult Department  909 LAP    Check Shelf
 Manchester, Main Library - Non Fiction  384.0973 LAPSLEY    Check Shelf
 Middletown, Russell Library - Adult Nonfiction  384.65 LAP    Check Shelf
 New Britain, Main Library - Non Fiction  384.6 L31    Check Shelf
 Newington, Lucy Robbins Welles Library - Adult Department  384.0657 LAPSLEY    Check Shelf
 Plainville Public Library - Non Fiction  384.6 LAP    Check Shelf
 West Hartford, Noah Webster Library - Non Fiction  384.0657 LAPSLEY    Check Shelf
 Windsor, Main Library - Adult Department  384.0973 LA    Check Shelf
Edition First edition.
Description xvi, 431, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 24 cm
Note Map on endpapers.
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 339-406) and index.
Contents Fine arts 13 -- Birth of a playground -- Cat and canary -- The largest machine in the world -- Blue box -- "Some people collect stamps" -- Headache -- Blue box bookies -- Little Jojo learns to whistle -- Bill Acker learns to play the flute -- The phone freaks of America -- The law of unintended consequences -- Counterculture -- Busted -- Pranks -- The story of a war -- A little bit stupid -- Snitch -- Crunched -- Twilight -- Nightfall.
Summary Before smartphones, before the Internet and before the personal computer, a misfit group of technophiles, blind teenagers, hippies, and outlaws figured out how to hack the world's largest machine: the telephone system. Starting with Alexander Graham Bell's revolutionary "harmonic telegraph," by the middle of the twentieth century the phone system had grown into something extraordinary, a web of cutting-edge switching machines and human operators that linked together millions of people like never before. Unfortunately for the telephone company, the network has a billion-dollar flaw. And once people discovered it, things would never the be the same. Phil Lapsley's Exploding the Phone tells this story in full for the first time. It traces the birth of long distance communication and the telephone, the rise of AT&T's monopoly, the creation of the sophisticated machines that made it all work, and the discovery of Ma Bell's Achilles' heel. Lapsley expertly weaves together the clandestine underground of "phone phreaks" who turned the network into the electronic playground, the mobsters who exploited its flaws to avoid the feds, and the counterculture movement that argued you should rip off the phone company to fight against the war in Vietnam...AT&T responded with "Greenstar"...The FBI fought back, too...Phone phreaking exploded into the popular culture, with famous actors, musicians, and investors caught with "blue boxes," many of them built by two young phone phreaks named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak...The product of extensive original research, including exclusive interviews and declassified government documents, Exploding the Phone is a captivating, ground-breaking work about an important part of our cultural and technological history -- Publisher's description.
Subject American Telephone and Telegraph Company -- History.
AT & T (Firm) -- History.
Telecommunication systems -- Security measures -- History.
Telephone companies -- Security measures -- History.
Telephone systems -- Security measures -- History.
Computer engineers -- United States -- History.
Counterculture -- United States -- History.
ISBN 080212061X
9780802120618: $26.00
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