When you picture a electronic computer political hack , you probably think of a guy in a balaclava helmet hunched over a computer screen displaying the computer code from the movieThe Matrix . Or at least you do if you ’re astock photographer .

In truth , most hacks trust on an amount of societal engineering , or pull a fast one on masses in some way to hand over their security details and/or money . Others can rely on malware – software that allows a hacker to access or control your machine – and , just occasionally , a whistling obtained from a Cap’n Crunch cereal boxful .

Back before the geological era of mobile phones andVoice Over Internet Protocol , making long - distance telephony calls was expensive , need extra charges on top of the usual rates . It was n’t a cost that everybody was uncoerced to pay off , and a residential area of " phreakers " sprung up who would undertake to make foresighted - distance phone Call for free by manipulating telephone set company systems .

Oldtelephonesystems were really surprisingly easy to mess up around with . When an operator ( and later , individual ) pushed numbers , they would emit two tones corresponding to the position of the number on the dial launch area . Anyone of about 30 and aged will be very familiar with the quality these combined frequency made .

" Now , a flock of people remember and still think that those button on the phone in reality directly manipulate the earpiece system . But they do n’t . They literally just make sounds , " video plot developer and YouTube tech communicator David Murray explained in a talk mail to his channelThe 8 - spot Guy .

" The shade is all the earphone society worry about and you’re able to really generate these tones outwardly . "

It is possible to just tape the tones you want onto a cassette tape ( if you ’re young , picture a Spotify track you had to wind up with a pen ) and then play that tape down the phone line the next time you needed to use them .

" The phone caller does n’t wish where the tone follow from as long as it hears tone that it recognizes . "

Rather than just tape the tones , it was potential to double them with instruments . If you knew which tone of voice to play , that stand for unlimited destitute calls to any long - space telephone number you felt like . Enter Cap’n Crunch .

John Draper , a formerUS Air Force electronics technicianand future computer programmer and cyberpunk , noticed that the whistle toy inside Cap’n Crunch food grain parcel play absolutely at around the 2,600 Gustav Hertz needed to hack the phone lines . He used the tones created to make destitute phone calls over AT&T , and the whistle became iconic in the phreaking community .

While cute , broth photograph photographer should n’t line up their catalogue to hackers blow on slide whistles . It did n’t take long for hackers to come up up with an automated system to replace having to manually sing out a tune every time you want to make a phone call , like an elf in a foresighted - distance human relationship . Draper make a " blue boxful " equipment which could replicate headphone company tones .

These boxes caught the attention ofApplefounders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in their college day . They went on to build their own versions , sell them around UC Berkeley .

“ We build up the best one in the mankind , it was the first digital blue box in the globe , ” Jobs said in a1994 consultation . “ It was the magic of the fact that two teenagers could construct this loge for $ 100 worth of piece and control hundreds of billions of dollars of substructure in the full telephone web in the whole reality from Los Altos and Cupertino , California . If we had n’t made those blue box , there would be no Apple . ”

But it have the beauty out of earphone hacking using a food grain toy to make phone calls .