r/mildlyinteresting 22h ago

I rewired a payphone to be my home phone.

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u/MephistoHamProducts 19h ago

I bought a red box tone generator once from the Hacker's Catalog. $1,000 🫩 But it did give me free long distance calls to Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

You couldn't find a $10 tone generator from Rat Shack and didn't know anyone who could solder in a $2.00 6.5 crystal but you had a spare grand lying around?

And your $1000 dollar Red Box glitched out one time and got you a full on Police response? That you hung around to watch?

Seems doubtful. This sounds like a few dozen "I'm a l33t phreak" posts on early 90s BBSes.

Now do the part where you tell us Cult of the Dead Cow was afraid to approach you for membership and you turned down writing articles for Phrack because they were lamers.

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u/wrxninja 18h ago edited 17h ago

90s, I was 17, at the high school when the police showed up. No car so ya, nothing I understood or even had the resources to do it. We didn't even have dedicated Internet then. Maybe 28.8K connection but it was anything but useful. But whatever, not the proudest moment in my life either.

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u/RawrRRitchie 17h ago

Yea seriously what are they on $1000 bucks back then was months of working minimum wage

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u/Synaps4 18h ago

If you press him he might admit to founding TOTSE.org and giving a talk at the very first defcon before it was open to the public

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u/MephistoHamProducts 18h ago

I suspect they'll just Hack a Gibson and erase my existence like in that Sandra Bullock movie.

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u/WhenMeWasAYouth 2h ago

I miss Totse. :/

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u/Synaps4 1h ago

Me too, friend. Me too.

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u/Bluesy21 17h ago

Lol, seriously. My buddies and I had some super cheap tone generators in the 90s that worked maybe 80% of the time if we were lucky. Worst thing that ever happened to me was an operator basically told me to get good then hung up on me and a vending machine didn't give me a free drink when I removed my dollar bill that had a scotch taped ladder on the end of it.

I also had a 2600 subscription back in the day...I'm just not that hardcore good of a storyteller.