Hackers and Computer Security

Before the internet and the attendant problems of internet security, there was another type of hacker. In the early 70´s hackers were "phone phreaks", who found ways to manipulate the phone system. One of the first phreaks was John Draper who figured out how to make a long-distance call for free by blowing a precise tone into a telephone that tells the phone system to open a line. Draper discovered the whistle as a give-away in a box of children´s cereal. Draper, who later earned the handle "Captain Crunch," was arrested repeatedly for phone tampering throughout the 1970s.