blue box
n. 1. obs. Once upon a time, before
all-digital switches made it possible for the phone companies to
move them out of band, one could actually hear the switching tones
used to route long-distance calls. Early phreakers built
devices called `blue boxes' that could reproduce these tones,
which could be used to commandeer portions of the phone network.
(This was not as hard as it may sound; one early phreak acquired
the sobriquet `Captain Crunch' after he proved that he could
generate switching tones with a plastic whistle pulled out of a box
of Captain Crunch cereal!) There were other colors of box with more
specialized phreaking uses; red boxes, black boxes, silver boxes,
etc. 2. n. An IBM machine, especially a large (non-PC)
one.
n. 1. obs. Once upon a time, before
all-digital switches made it possible for the phone companies to
move them out of band, one could actually hear the switching tones
used to route long-distance calls. Early phreakers built
devices called `blue boxes' that could reproduce these tones,
which could be used to commandeer portions of the phone network.
(This was not as hard as it may sound; one early phreak acquired
the sobriquet `Captain Crunch' after he proved that he could
generate switching tones with a plastic whistle pulled out of a box
of Captain Crunch cereal!) There were other colors of box with more
specialized phreaking uses; red boxes, black boxes, silver boxes,
etc. 2. n. An IBM machine, especially a large (non-PC)
one.
Related:
- phreaking /freek'ing/ n.
[from `phone phreak'] 1.
The art and science of cracking the phone network... - phreaking: /freek'ing/ [from `phone phreak'] n. 1. The art and
science of cracking the phone network (so as,
for example, to make free long-distance calls).... - box: n. 1. A computer; esp. in the construction `foo box'
where foo is some functional qualifier,
like `graphics', or the name of an OS (thus, `UNIX... - box n.
1. A computer; esp. in the construction `foo
box' where foo is some functional qualifier,
like `graphics', or the name of an OS (thus, `Unix... - toy n.
A computer system; always used with qualifiers.
1. `nice toy': One that supports the speaker's hacking... - toy: n. A computer system; always used with qualifiers.
1. `nice toy': One that supports the speaker's hacking... - sidecar n.
1. Syn. slap on the side. Esp. used of
add-ons for the late and unlamented IBM PCjr.
2. The IBM PC compatibility box that could be bolted... - bit-paired keyboard n.,obs.
(alt. `bit-shift
keyboard') A non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have
originated with the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several
years on early computer equipment.
The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see EOU), so... - war dialer n.
A cracking tool, a program that calls a given
list or range of phone numbers and records those which answer with
handshake tones (and so might be entry points to computer or
telecommunications systems).
Some of these programs have become quite sophisticated...
