Phreaking Out: The Incredible Era of Phone Hacking in the 60’s and 70’s
When I first heard about “Phone Phreaking” I was in the car. It was about two months ago and I was mesmerized by an NPR program. Phone Phreaking was a 1960’s phenomenon that continued into later years. It was a cult, an in-club for a select group of young folks, mainly, to commune from afar and break the law by hacking the phone. These were teens, outlaws, misfits, techies, the nerds of yesterday gone wild, invading the secrets of mass communication and learning a language that only machines could speak.
It was true to the times, it was The Who’s “Tommy” coming to life. A blind boy with hypersensitive hearing hacking the establishment and decoding the tones and whistles of the phone dialer. The dial tone was a soothing heartbeat used to comfort himself through his horrible childhood of pain and abuse. His name was Joe Engressia Jr. and he was seven years old in the 1950’s.
Listen to the story. Radiolab: Escape:
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On WNYC, Leonard Lopate interviews Phil Lapsley who wrote, “Phone Phreaks: Exploding the Phone,” further describes the phone phreaking phenomenon.
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click for article>
Joybubbles, aka Joe Engressia Jr.’s New York Times obituary.
In 1991 Joe Engressia had his name legally changed to Joybubbles, and declared himself forever five years old. He had suffered from a life of abuse, endured blindness but honed his 170+ IQ thought it never brought him good jobs or great fortune. He felt he never had a childhood and decided to retreat into one though he was fifty-eight years old.
His second life as a youngster included becoming a minister in his own Church of Eternal Childhood and collecting tapes of every “Mr. Rogers” episode. When asked why Mr. Rogers mattered, he said: “When you’re playing and you’re just you, powerful things happen.”
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Listen here:
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Interview on Haxor Radio Show
Audio links…Very moving, tragic
Stories and Stuff – Joybubbles
A list of downloadable MP3 files of the Stories and Stuff recordings that Joybubbles made.
I knew Joybubbles.
We lived in the same apartment bldg. on 22nd. street off Nicollet in
MPLS.
He lived on the 1st floor.
If I was passing thru the foyer I’d stop
and talk while he sat in a foyer chair waiting
for his Metro van ride.
I have electrical engineering background so
we talked shop. He explained his history ESS/phone hacking,
but he told me with out going into too many details
how he had done this and that as a phone freak, how had he
a “run in” with the FBI, and that now he was calling kids
and leaving stories on the phone for people to listen to.
He was also a big braille reader-very fast too. He would get his books and newspapers in braille on paper, and he had access to a braille terminal where he could type to people and would receive messages with a braille strip with rows of pins that I believe vibrate or poke up in braille patterns for him to swipe his fingers across.
He did mention abuse as a kid, and that he came from Florida after
dropping out of a math major in college.
These meetings were around 1999? to 2005. He told me that had been suffering from chest pains by the time I moved out. He was very sanguine about his deteriorating health, he didn’t want to bother
with medical help. I never entered his apartment, but I
occasionally looked into his apartment while I helped him carry groceries.
His apartment was pretty disorganized but not dirty. I also
noticed piles of cassettes and few wires running here and there.
Since he was blind his apartment was dark all the time. He never told me his birth name. He seemed like a very intelligent, mellow, nice guy.
what a fascinating obit. just this week i read another about a bullfighter/neurosurgeon in the times. what interesting humans share the planet with us. helaine
I have to tell you, Helaine, that this was one of the most incredible NPR programs I have heard. If you play a few of the sound tracks you will get a hint of what these people could do and the articles and shows describe what could be done with the phone phreaking skills.