AT&T usually had to react to the publication of phone phreak articles after the fact. With the Esquire article, for example, the phone company had no clue it was coming until it hit the newsstands, and then it had to scramble and figure out what to do. But this time the phone company caught a lucky break. Ramparts’ contract printer in Milwaukee, perhaps worried about enraging Ma Bell, sent an advance copy of the June issue to the phone company.
The phone company was not amused. The friendly illustrations and reassuring text in Oklahoma’s three-page article—“do not be intimidated by the spaghetti dish of wiring you see, only a small, identifiable portion concerns you”—enabled anyone to build a black box and receive long-distance calls without the caller being billed. The Esquire article may have inspired a generation of phone phreaks but at least it didn’t give step-by-step instructions to all the world on how to make free calls with just a few dollars of easy-to-get components. Ramparts did.
This could not be allowed to happen.
AT&T chose its battleground wisely: California. Ramparts was headquartered in California but, more important, California had something that other states did not: section 502.7 of the California Penal Code. Added to California law in the early sixties, 502.7 made most telephone-related shenanigans illegal in the Golden State. But in 1965 telephone company lobbyists managed to get its scope dramatically expanded and the new 502.7 made it a crime to sell—or even give away—“plans or instructions” for any device that could be used to steal telephone service. And what was Ray Oklahoma’s article if not plans or instructions?
The timing was tight. On May 12, after the June issue of Ramparts had been mailed out to subscribers and shipped to distributors but before it had hit the newsstands, Pacific Telephone contacted the magazine and its middlemen. The tone was polite but the company’s demands were firm. To start with, Ramparts must recall its June issue or face civil and criminal charges, up to felony conspiracy charges for the magazine’s editors. In addition, the magazine’s editors reported later, “Telephone Company attorneys demanded that the copyright of the ‘phone phreak’ article be assigned to the Bell System so that they could prosecute underground or other publications that might reprint it; that the film and plates from which the article had been printed be delivered up; and that Ramparts agree never to print a similar article in the future.” Finally, Pacific Telephone requested the Ramparts subscriber list “so that they could place those who had received our June issue under surveillance.”
“In the past ten years,” wrote its editors, “Ramparts has incurred the wrath of power in many forms.” From Ramparts’ perspective, regardless of what California law might say, this was a clear violation of the First Amendment, an affront to all that journalists held holy. It was prior restraint on a supposedly free press, an unacceptable tactic that the government had tried and failed to impose just a few years ago when the New York Times was set to print the Pentagon Papers—and that case was actually a matter of national security. In this case, it was just the telephone company whining. Ramparts’ entire history and radical ethos had primed it for this fight.
And yet it caved. As its editors explained later, “We were willing to have the matter go to court . . . But the Bell System had hostages we had to consider. Their attorneys indicated that the whole network handling Ramparts was also vulnerable to civil and criminal charges. That meant that the over 500 wholesalers and thousands of retailers distributing the magazine could also be prosecuted. It was clear from our conversations that the largest corporation in the world lacked neither the will nor the resources to do it. To protect this distribution network, the lifeblood of this and other publications, we agreed to recall our issue.”
The result was that some ninety thousand copies of the June issue never made it to newsstands or were withdrawn once they reached them; the roughly sixty thousand that had already been mailed to subscribers were unaffected. Ramparts’ editors estimated the costs of the recall, including uncollectible advertising revenues, at almost $60,000.
“Within a week,” its editors concluded, “American Telephone and Telegraph had achieved what the CIA, Pentagon, FBI and other targets of Ramparts’ journalism over the last ten years hadn’t been able to bring about: the nationwide suppression of this magazine.”
Oddly enough, the 052 conference disappeared just about the time the Ramparts issue came out. As it turned out, the reason 052 had made such a great conference system was that it actually was a conference system, one intended for use by AT&T corporate executives. The suits at AT&T were less than amused at its appropriation by the phone phreaks, and telephone company security had been monitoring the phone phreak conferences on 052 since February.
Ray Oklahoma disappeared just about the time the Ramparts issue came out too; he was arrested by the FBI in Oklahoma City for Fraud by Wire and spent eleven days in jail before his father was able to come and bail him out. The charges were all related to using a blue box to call the 052 conference, he remembers. “As far as I know,” he says, “they didn’t know I had anything to do with the Ramparts article.” He pleaded guilty and was given five years’ probation. He also agreed to write an open letter to other phone phreaks discouraging them from the hobby. His letter ran in an Oklahoma newspaper and concluded with: “I know it looks easy but you will get caught. Look at me. My college days are ruined at least for now. I have lost money on bond and other expenses. Plus the anxiety and fear. I hope you don’t make the same mistake. I can only hope you [. . .] don’t do as I have done because I am sorry.”
As the summer wore on, and phone phreaks and conference call setups were disappearing and people were being arrested, it seemed high time to take a vacation. National Airlines had been running a series of controversial television ads featuring attractive stewardesses in revealing minidresses saying things like, “Hi! I’m Tammy! Fly me to Miami and back with a stopover for only $100!” Miami was a good choice of destination in 1972. The Republicans and Democrats both had decided to host their national conventions in Miami Beach that summer—the Dems in July, the Republicans in August. Abbie Hoffman’s Youth International Party seized the moment by hosting a pair of events in Miami on the same dates; true to form, the Yippie events would be part protest, part theater, part smoke-in. The publicity poster for the Yippie gatherings featured a hairy-legged Hoffman in a minidress in midflight, having just leapt into the air. The caption read, “High! I’m Abbie, fly me to Miami.”
Unable to help itself, the front page of YIPL’s June–July 1972 issue sported a cartoon telephone with wings proclaiming, “Hi, I’m Telly! Fly Me to Miami!” The Youth International Party Line capitalized on the Yippie gathering by announcing that the World’s First Phone Phreak Convention would be held July 11–15 in Miami Beach. “The Celebration of Change will include, in addition, teach-ins on telephones, contests, meetings with nationally known phone phreaks,” the newsletter reported. “Plus the unveiling of new devices never yet revealed. Courses are going to be held on Phone Politics, Phone rip-offs, establishment rip-offs, and peoples technology. [. . .] At the same time there will be other events too, such as antiwar demos, women’s rights, health care, anti-smack information and actions, and many other happenings.”
The YIPL issue reprinted a simplified version of the Ray Oklahoma article from Ramparts and concluded with an appeal to “Support Captain Crunch!” “As some of you might know from a recent Rolling Stone article, the FBI and the phone co. has arrested the supposed Cap’n Crunch of Blue Box fame for allegedly making a few Box calls. We are now setting up the Cap’n Crunch Defense Fund, for the benefit of such obviously political telephone busts. The money will go for support of those harassed and busted for phone co. specials, and for legal and bail fees. Please contribute what you can, it might be you next.”
John Draper had to attend the World’s First Phone Phreak Convention. How could he not? Thanks to the Esquire article and the publicity from his recent
bust, he was probably the best-known phreak in the world at the time—more famous even than Joe Engressia, the man Esquire had dubbed the granddaddy of phone phreaking. Draper would enjoy the publicity and adulation he would receive at the conference; he always enjoyed being in the limelight. And afterward he would head up to New York City and visit Bill Acker, who was taking classes and staying at a YMCA in Queens. It would be a nice little vacation from his legal troubles.
Draper boarded a flight from San Francisco to Miami and, as his plane took off and banked toward the beaches of Florida, his legal troubles multiplied. Draper had overlooked one sniggly little detail. The terms of his release after his arrest required him to obtain the court’s permission if he wanted to leave the San Francisco Bay Area, and this he did not do. John Draper didn’t know it yet but he was now officially a fugitive.
An informant brought Draper’s departure to the attention of the FBI a few days later. The FBI and an assistant U.S. attorney wasted no time in appearing before Judge Peckham, who immediately revoked Draper’s recognizance bond and issued a bench warrant for his arrest on July 11. That very afternoon FBI agents raided Draper’s Miami hotel room but missed him by scant hours.Unbeknownst to them, the phone phreak convention had been postponed and was now to be held in New York City later that month. Draper had already left for the airport, a witness told them, carrying—naturally enough—“a tape-recorder and a brown valise with wires protruding from the top.”
FBI agents caught up with Draper the next day in New York City, arresting him at the YMCA in Queens where Bill Acker was staying. Appropriately, Draper was talking on the hallway pay phone when the FBI agents found him, his trusty tape recorder perched atop the pay phone and loaded with another cassette of blue box tones. Unable to come up with $10,000 bail, Draper spent the next several days in the care of the United States marshal service until he was flown back to California to appear before Judge Peckham. Peckham denied Draper’s motion to suppress the evidence for his California bust and set a date for trial.
Despite the absence of its headliner, the World’s First Phone Phreak Convention took place in New York City on July 29, 1972. The phreaks congregated in the basement ballroom of the Hotel Diplomat, a Times Square hotel that was developing a reputation for hosting rock ’n’ roll shows and fringe political gatherings—Yippies, Communists, and Libertarians all had held conventions there. Alan Fierstein (“Al Bell”) of YIPL was the master of ceremonies, presiding over attractions that included a black-and-white film showing three simple ways to make free phone calls from pay telephones, a presentation on the black box for receiving free calls, and breakout sessions on building answering machines and blue boxes. Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman led a workshop on the legality of phone phreaking and exhorted the attendees to support the Captain Crunch defense fund. A spy from New York Telephone later reported to the FBI that some seventy-five people were in attendance.
The telephone company and the FBI continued their stepped-up enforcement efforts as summer turned to fall. About a week after Labor Day, on September 12, 1972, the FBI conducted a series of raids across the country. Over the course of three days agents arrested fourteen people in eight cities, including Minneapolis, Dallas, Houston, and Memphis, charging them with manufacturing, selling, and using blue boxes. But here was the interesting thing: they weren’t phone phreaks, or even bookies or hippies. This time the people arrested were all upstanding members of society, including real estate agents, stock brokers, two executives with a vending company, and the president of an air freight firm. A subsequent news release from AT&T described it as follows: “Cheat Ma Bell! Rip-off the phone company! Beat the system! Popular phrases like these were quite fashionable not so very long ago. Just about everyone attributed them to well-known anti-establishment types, to the New Left, and to the self-styled phone phreaks.” It went on to note, “The 14 persons [arrested] were not those type-cast as the rip-off set. Rather, they were ordinary middle to upper-middle class Americans. Everyone seemed to be getting into the act. While the arrests pointed out that toll fraud is geographically as well as socially and economically wide spread, another more important fact became crystal clear—the Bell System was cracking down on the problem which had reached epidemic proportions. [. . .] Some people who wouldn’t dream of stealing from a candy store seem more than willing to commit theft by wire.”
“For years,” the release continued, “Bell System companies were quite lenient with persons who committed toll fraud. Whenever possible, the company would first attempt to stop the calls, collect on them, and stay out of court. But that was before more than $20 million per year was being lost. Overnight, it would seem that the lamb has turned into the lion. Today, the Bell System is a vigorous—and successful—prosecutor.”
True enough. By the end of 1972 AT&T was on track to chalk up a total of fifty-seven electronic toll fraud arrests. The numbers might look even better if the company could convict Captain Crunch before the end of the year. That wasn’t looking like too much of a stretch. Despite Abbie Hoffman’s best fund-raising efforts, the Captain Crunch defense fund failed miserably, netting a total of $1. Unable to continue to pay for a private attorney, Draper would have to be represented by the public defender’s office.
Draper’s trial was November 29, 1972. Of thirty-three prospective jurors, two were named Bell. “Don’t think that didn’t give us pause,” one of Draper’s attorneys remarked later. The evidence against Draper was extensive. First there were the tape recordings of his illegal telephone calls. Then there was the expert witness testimony from telephone company security agents. And there were the friends he’d called who would testify that it was indeed Draper who had made the phone calls, and even that Draper was indeed the infamous Captain Crunch. It wasn’t so much that Draper’s friends were rats; it was more that they had little choice. Before trial the FBI had tracked down and interviewed some of the people who Draper had called. In each case the FBI asked if they remembered receiving any calls from Draper. Not surprisingly, most people suffered sudden attacks of amnesia and were unable to remember anything. The FBI would then play a tape recording of the call, with Draper and the person’s voice clearly audible. In most cases the person would then agree that his “recollection had been refreshed” and that now he did, in fact, remember receiving such a call. The FBI agents would then hand their new witness a subpoena to testify at trial.
“Draper didn’t look very legendary as he stood with his head bowed while the prosecution offered its overwhelming evidence gathered by investigations from San Francisco to Sydney,” wrote the reporter from the San Francisco Chronicle. Outgunned, Captain Crunch gave up the ship, changing his plea from “not guilty” to “no contest.” The judge sentenced him to a one-year suspended sentence, a $1,000 fine, and five years’ probation, during which he was required to “refrain from illegal use of the telephone or other electronics devices for fraudulent means.” As part of the plea deal, all but the first of the seven counts against him—the one charging him with an illegal call to a radio station in Sydney, Australia—were dismissed. In essence, Draper would pay $1,000 for a two-minute overseas call.
Judge Peckham concluded Draper’s sentence with a promise of sorts: “Your electronic gymnastics may have been thought to be a prank, a frivolity, or a harmless vocational endeavor, but on the next occasion—if there ever is one—you will receive a prison sentence.”
If only Draper had heeded the good judge’s warning.
Fifteen
Pranks
LIKE THE FLAP of a butterfly’s wings causing a hurricane half a world away, the ripples of unintended consequences from Ron Rosenbaum’s “Secrets of the Little Blue Box” continued to spread. “You know how some articles just grab you from the first paragraph? Well, it was one of those articles,” Steve Wozniak recalls. “It was the most amazing article I’d ever read!”
Wozniak happened to pick up a copy of Esquire from his
mother’s kitchen table the day before starting classes at Berkeley in the fall of 1971. Rosenbaum’s article “described a whole web of people who were doing this: the phone phreaks. They were anonymous technical people who went by fake names and lived all over the place,” he recalls, how they were “outsmarting phone companies and setting up networks that nobody imagined existed.” It seemed unbelievable. And yet, he says, “I kept reading it over and over, and the more I read it, the more possible and real it sounded.”
Oddly enough, part of what made the article seem so real to him were the characters. Despite their fanciful nature and funny names, Wozniak remembers, “I could tell that the characters being described were really tech people, much like me, people who liked to design things just to see what was possible, and for no other reason, really.” There was something about the whole thing that just rang true, despite how crazy it seemed. “The idea of the Blue Box just amazed me,” he says. The article even gave a few of the frequencies it used. As for Joe Engressia being able to whistle free calls? “I couldn’t believe this was possible, but there it was and, wow, it just made my imagination run wild.”
The twenty-year-old Wozniak put down the magazine. He picked up the phone and called his friend Steve Jobs—then a seventeen-year-old senior in high school—to tell him about it. Less than an hour later the duo were on their way to raid the library at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. SLAC was the atom smasher at Stanford University. It had a great technical library, Wozniak says, and he had a long history of sneaking into it to look stuff up. “If there was any place that had a phone manual that listed tone frequencies,” he says, it would be SLAC.
The two dug through the reference books and before long they struck pay dirt: an international telephone technical standard that listed the MF frequencies. “I froze and grabbed Steve and nearly screamed in excitement that I’d found it. We both stared at the list, rushing with adrenaline. We kept saying things like ‘Oh, shit!’ and ‘Wow, this thing is for real!’ I was practically shaking, with goose bumps and everything. It was such a Eureka moment. We couldn’t stop talking all the way home. We were so excited. We knew we could build this thing. We now had the formula we needed! And definitely that article was for real.” Jobs agrees: “We kept saying to ourselves, ‘It’s real. Holy shit, it’s real.’”
Exploding the Phone : The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell (9780802193759) Page 24