A blue box was a device that produced the correct frequency and sequences to 
fool the phone network into passing long-distance calls for free, and doing 
other mischief. We may have discussed this on this listserv before. NLS BARD 
has a 2011 book, "Exploding the Phone", which goes into a lot of detail 
about people who were phone phreaks, including some who were blind. It was 
scary to note that I had met or read e-mail from about 6 of these folks.
73,

Lloyd Rasmussen, W3IUU, Kensington, MD
http://lras.home.sprynet.com
-----Original Message----- 
From: Phil Scovell
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 11:57 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Before There Was Caller I D

Jim,

Is a blue box one of those devices way back when that allowed you to call
long distance for free?

Phil.
K0NX




----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Miller" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 5:03 AM
Subject: Re: Before There Was Caller I D


> Jim, as I recall there were a couple people on this list, I forget who
> they
> were, it's been a while since it came up but I think we had a couple of
> them
> on this list at one time.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jim Gammon" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 22, 2015 1:12 AM
> Subject: Re: Before There Was Caller I D
>
>
>> Wow Phil, you was one bad boy! Glad I wasn't your friend back
>> then.  We might have gotten into some big trouble together.  Were
>> you one of those Blue Box guys? You don't have to answer that.  I
>> was not.  73, Jim WA6EKS
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: Phil Scovell <[log in to unmask]
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Date sent: Tue, 21 Apr 2015 20:34:08 -0600
>> Subject: Before There Was Caller I D
>>
>> School was out and to the best of my knowledge, this happened in
>> 68 or 69.
>> Two teenage blind friends of mine were talking on 75 sideband
>> late at night;
>> probably about midnight or a little after.  My roommate from the
>> school for
>> the blind was spending a few days with me in Omaha.  He lived in
>> a small
>> town 35 miles west of me.  I was tuning around the band as my
>> friend and I
>> were talking in my combination bedroom hamshack when I came
>> across our two
>> buddies from school.  We sat and listened to them rag chewing for
>> awhile and
>> then I got an idea.  Using my own private line my mom let me
>> have, because I
>> was running a lot of phone patches, you understand, and because I
>> simply was
>> able to talk my mom into it, I dialed one of the guy's home phone
>> numbers,
>> letting it ring once, and then hanging up.  A minute or so later,
>> I dialed
>> the other guy's number, letting it ring once, and then hanging
>> up.  They
>> both commented on their phones ringing.  I did it again and then
>> again.
>> Eventually, they figured out something was wrong so they took the
>> phone off
>> the hook because, they said, they didn't want their parents to
>> wake up.  A
>> few minutes later, they reported on the air that they were
>> putting their
>> phones back on the hook so my finger, using a touch tone phone of
>> all
>> things, dialed them up yet again.  Finally, they said they were
>> leaving
>> their phones off the hook for the rest of the night.  Never once
>> did they
>> put two and two together and my friend and I never told them what
>> we had
>> done.  However, and this is the funny part, a couple days later,
>> I was
>> talking to one of these guys and he said, "Man, did I screw
>> something up big
>> time."  I asked him what he was talking about.  He told me about
>> someone
>> ringing his phone in the middle of the night but he said, instead
>> of taking
>> the phone off the hook for the rest of the night, he shorted the
>> two phone
>> patch leads together which grounded out their phone.  He promptly
>> forgot
>> about it.  The next day, the telephone company came and asked to
>> check out
>> their phones and phone wiring because they had traced down a
>> neighborhood
>> short to their house.  So my friend had shorted out an entire
>> neighborhood.
>> No, are you crazy?  I never, to this day, told either one of my
>> friends who
>> had dial their phone in the middle of the night; especially since
>> one had
>> screwed up half the little town he was living in at that time.
>> Don't you
>> tell anybody either.  Of course, that couldn't work as well today
>> with
>> caller I D.  Oh, sure, you could block your call, I guess, but
>> don't rain on
>> my parade.
>>
>> Phil.
>> K0NX
>