                   -----> Courtesy of the Jolly Roger<-----

         ***** The AAG Proudly Presents The AAG Proudly Presents *****
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         *              Secrets of the Little Blue Box               *
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         *                     by Ron Rosenbaum                      *
         *                 Typed by One Farad Cap/AAG                *
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         *        -A story so incredible it may even make you        *
         *             feel sorry for the phone company-             *
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         *                  (First of four files)                    *
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         ***** The AAG Proudly Presents The AAG Proudly Presents *****

Dudes... These four files contain the story, "Secrets of the Little Blue Box",
by Ron Rosenbaum.

-A story so incredible it may even make you feel sorry for the phone company-

Printed in the October 1971 issue of Esquire Magazine.  If you happen to be in
a library and come across a collection of Esquire magazines, the October 1971
issue is the first issue printed in the smaller format.  The story begins on
page 116 with a picture of a blue box.
                                      --One Farad Cap, Atlantic Anarchist Guild


The Blue Box Is Introduced: Its Qualities Are Remarked

I am in the expensively furnished living room of Al Gilbertson (His real name
has been changed.), the creator of the "blue box." Gilbertson is holding one of
his shiny black-and-silver "blue boxes" comfortably in the palm of his hand,
pointing out the thirteen little red push buttons sticking up from the console.
He is dancing his fingers over the buttons, tapping out discordant beeping
electronic jingles.  He is trying to explain to me how his little blue box does
nothing less than place the entire telephone system of the world, satellites,
cables and all, at the service of the blue-box operator, free of charge.

"That's what it does.  Essentially it gives you the power of a super operator.
You seize a tandem with this top button," he presses the top button with his
index finger and the blue box emits a high-pitched cheep, "and like that" --
cheep goes the blue box again -- "you control the phone company's long-distance
switching systems from your cute little Princes phone or any old pay phone.
And you've got anonymity.  An operator has to operate from a definite location:
the phone company knows where she is and what she's doing.  But with your
beeper box, once you hop onto a trunk, say from a Holiday Inn 800 (toll-free)
number, they don't know where you are, or where you're coming from, they don't
know how you slipped into their lines and popped up in that 800 number.  They
don't even know anything illegal is going on.  And you can obscure your origins
through as many levels as you like.  You can call next door by way of White
Plains, then over to Liverpool by cable, and then back here by satellite.  You
can call yourself from one pay phone all the way around the world to a pay
phone next to you.  And you get your dime back too."

"And they can't trace the calls?  They can't charge you?"
"Not if you do it the right way.  But you'll find that the free-call thing
isn't really as exciting at first as the feeling of power you get from having
one of these babies in your hand.  I've watched people when they first get hold
of one of these things and start using it, and discover they can make
connections, set up crisscross and zigzag switchin