Slate Reprints Blue-Box Article That Inspired Jobs

Slate has reprinted the piece that Ron Rosenbaum wrote for Esquire in 1971, explaining to the world that there was an underground movement of people hacking the phone system. (Rosenbaum is now a columnist for Slate.) According to the article's new introduction and followup piece by Rosenbaum reflecting on its impact — and to the New York Times obituary for Steve Jobs — this article inspired Jobs and Wozniak to start building blue boxes themselves, an effort that made them several thousand dollars.

Comments

Re:Esquire, then Xerox

[lucm]

I don't have Woz phone number, I lost it when I switched from my iPhone to my iPhone2 (or was it from my iPhone2 to my iPhone3, or from my iPhone3 to my iPhone4 - it's hard to keep track of all those times I shelled out 600$ over the last 5 years just to be part of The Cool People).

As for history, can you send me an hyperlink, one that does not require Flash since I plan to read it on my iPad (after I'm done cleaning it for the 19th time today)? Or even better, is there an app for that, since all of my smart devices have a shitty browser and require an Objective-C version of existing websites?

And don't call me a douche, I prefer iSucker because I rent my music and eBooks from Apple (which makes sense, I don't even control the software that I can install on my the devices I paid for so there is no point in owning music either).