It happened for me a year or so ago, around early '05, when I was 15 (so do the math, I'm 16 now). My friend was talking to me about how there was such a thing called phone hacking, and proceeded to tell me about how pay phones use tones to tell how much money you put in. He then told me about redboxing and linked me to this site's redboxing page. I looked around on this site and didn't think much of it at the time, as I was way too into figuring out how to redbox. My friend started telling me about how you all were pranking fast food places using a scanner a few months later. I thought about how cool that was and how some of my friends and I really wanted to try it and get a scanner. We all haven't gotten one yet >< It was about then that I started to go to the site more often, maybe once a week or so. I read the history, checked out some of the articles, and stuff like that. I also looked at other phone hacking pages, learning more and more about different ways I can hack. I then learned on how phreaking was slowly dying, and not many people do it as much anymore. It made me sad, because I've missed out on the phone phreaking days. If only I was born years earlier...sigh. When the radio started up, I listened to it. I loved it, and still do. It's hilarious and has some really sweet stuff on it. I wish the episodes would come out faster. Then, I started visiting the site more than twice a week or more. When Skype became free, I started being a cheap ass and manually started scanning numbers in New York (funny story: I thought I had been doing NY at first, but it turned out to be Washington DC. I found some strange stuff there) and my own home area. I also tried 1-800 numbers. I was basically in search of DATUs, modems/carriers, elevators, and test messages. When I heard modems, I decided to give my newly-found Cisco Networking skills (yes, I take that class in school) to connect to it using Hyperterminal. Sometimes, I would find some very cool things. I found a government-protected one that told me to leave or I would be prosecuted under the full extent of the law. Along with my own scans, I dialed numbers from other lists to see for myself what the modems said, and also to see if they changed. Most are still the same.
I wish you all would go and produce scans again for random areas. I missed out on all that stuff. That was another reason I checked out this site. I was looking to see if you all had numbers, but sadly I found out that it was all discontinued.
Right now, I'm trying to figure out how I can make some sort of program that can scan using Skype so I don't need to sit there and dial each number individually...ugh. Basically, I am a phreaker/hacker at heart. I love to do it. It's interesting to discover strange things, like using payphones and connecting to their test lines. Now, I go to the site probably every day.
So there's my story.
<3 PLA
