phreaking

/freeking/ , n. [from phone phreak ] 1. The art and science of cracking the
phone network (so as, for example, to make free long-distance calls). 2. By
extension, security-cracking in any other context (especially, but not
exclusively, on communications networks) (see cracking ). At one time
phreaking was a semi-respectable activity among hackers; there was a
gentleman's agreement that phreaking as an intellectual game and a form of
exploration was OK, but serious theft of services was taboo. There was
significant crossover between the hacker community and the hard-core phone
phreaks who ran semi-underground networks of their own through such media as
the legendary TAP Newsletter. This ethos began to break down in the
mid-1980s as wider dissemination of the techniques put them in the hands of
less responsible phreaks. Around the same time, changes in the phone network
made old-style technical ingenuity less effective as a way of hacking it, so
phreaking came to depend more on overtly criminal acts such as stealing
phone-card numbers. The crimes and punishments of gangs like the 414 group
turned that game very ugly. A few old-time hackers still phreak casually
just to keep their hand in, but most these days have hardly even heard of
blue boxes or any of the other paraphernalia of the great phreaks of yore.

