During the Cold War, a shadowy group hacked its way into a system the technologist and entrepreneur Phil Lapsley calls “the world’s largest machine.” AT+T’s phone network was a vast enterprise of early cyberinfrastructure, combining hardware, information architecture, and an army of human experts. It was an irresistible lure to the phone phreaks, a group of curious folk who saw the government-protected monopoly’s empire as both a puzzle and a playground. Exploding the Phone, Lapsley’s delightful account of their adventures, sheds light on an underappreciated chapter in the history of technology. It also reveals the forerunners to the hacking subculture of today.
Read Full Article »
