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Alkydere posted:So this post isn't entirely bitching about dial-up noise: Some of the earliest computer hackers, known as "Phone Phreakers" at the time, were blind people. If you knew how the dual-tone system worked and had really good pitch (being blind helped with that part but was far from necessary) you could pick up a phone and dial a number by whistling. Or more importantly: send a signal that could let you program the switchboard to do whatever the gently caress you wanted. Of course most Phreakers, even the blind, used multi-frequency tone generators. One of the biggest tools in the Phreakers' arsenal was the Cap'n Crunch bosun whistle: a free plastic whistle packaged in Cap'n Crunch boxes that produced a nearly pure 2600 Hz. tone. The exact same frequency tone used by AT&T switch boards to signal that one end of the line was ready and available to accept a new call: basically disconnecting one end of the call and putting the automated switch board into debug mode so you could do whatever you wanted (like free long ranged calling in a day and age when long ranged calls were kind of expensive). My dad was a Phreaker! He used to bounce calls through France so he could call my Mom at college, 20 miles away. He claims he once "wandered" into the emergency phone line for scrambling jets at a nearby airforce base. There are still some blind folk who can do amazing computer related things - when I volunteered at the local center for the blind, there was a kid who could tell where he was in any windows installation by listening to the hard drive sounds.
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Nov 28, 2015 20:54
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 22:07 |
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Wait, wait, back to the Berlin supplies. What in the world can you do with 19 live cattle? All the other items are for like a hundred thousand people, over a six month period. Was this so that for just one day, everyone could have fresh meat?
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Aug 3, 2018 22:55
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My dad was a phreaker back in his 20's. He used to use an exchange in France to get free calls to my mom across the state. Or so he claims anyways. He also claims to have once accidentally caused a nearby Air Force base to scramble their jets, because no one knew what the mysterious tones on their emergency line meant. Take it with a grain of salt, in other words.
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Nov 26, 2019 19:25
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barbecue at the folks posted:Since learning about it in this thread yesterday, I mentioned Mensur to a friend who had just returned from a stint as a visiting fellow at a prestigious German university. He told me that someone had tried to recruit a friend of theirs, a fellow Finn, to a 'fencing' club. The friend was, surprise surprise, a tall and blonde man. Being of a leftist political persuasion, he feigned innocence and asked if anyone else than a tall blonde, say, for example, a person with darker hair or skin, were allowed in. The answer was something along the lines of "*wink* *wink* Probably not! *wink* *wink*" He passed on joining as he wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of being recruited into a completely apolitical little blood-letting club. Jesus! I find this hilarious, because my brother’s fencing coach was black. Multiple fencers that were his students made it to the olympics. He was a really nice guy, too. Nazis are such shitheads.
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Nov 29, 2020 19:29
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So, you prefer evidence free medicine?
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Mar 8, 2022 21:06
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When my great great grandfather came over to America, he didn’t know English very well. Being a Jew, he didn’t really understand when the ship’s registrar asked what his last name was. He didn’t have one. Apparently the question ‘how does a stranger know you’ was a little confusing, so he said ‘Everyone knows I’m Leah’s son’. So our last name translates to Leah’s son. Could be worse.
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May 12, 2022 20:07
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My one grandpa was enlisted for WWII, but was in Hawaii and never saw action. My great uncle, on the other hand, was involved in lots of fighting in Europe, including an incident where someone in his platoon stepped on a mine, and he was the only survivor. Guess which one never wanted to talk about it, and which one insisted on having “Lt Col” in front of his name for the rest of his life. God, my grandfather was such a dick, and yet I now have a retirement fund thanks to his gifting his grandkids some stocks. Don’t quite know how to feel towards such a generous rear end in a top hat.
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Mar 23, 2023 18:24
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| # ¿ May 13, 2024 22:07 |
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I’m of Jewish descent. My family name supposedly came from my great great grandfather. When asked for his nonexistent last name, he said “I’m Leah’s kid”. So our last name essentially is just Leah’s kid in Yiddish, with a letter removed. Probably not true but it makes a good story.
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Mar 28, 2024 22:17
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