BBS The Documentary: Episode 6 of 8: HPAC (Hacking Phreaking Anarchy Carding)

[@Darxide23]

My uncle's best friend got raided by the actual FBI in the late 80s/early 90s and hauled off for questioning for an entire day. He broke into some government system, but neither of them ever figured out what it actually was and the questioning was apparently very vague to figure out what they knew. It was just an innocuous dial-in, but apparently was a front end for something big enough that they almost charged him. My uncle likes to tell that story a lot because he never pulled off any big hacks so he lives vicariously through that story, lol.

[@fluxcapacitor1621]

I was into phreaking in the early to mid 80s. Long distance phone companies were helpless. Metro and MCI were easy because they only had 5 & 6 digits. Sprint was the most difficult because they had 8 digits. One night of running the dialer would yield 50+ codes. One time I was trying to use a code to place a call then a person answered instead of the computer that I was calling. I used a pay phone to place a call using same code then he answered again. It was someone in their security department that was trying to trick me into giving him my contact information. He wanted to take a message for the person I was calling(a computer). I knew it wasn't the guy running the BBS because the man was old and we were all high school age. There was no such thing as caller id and they couldn't trace calls. I called him out on it then gave him so much crap that he hung up on me! "If you could trace this call the you wouldn't be asking for my phone number! You can't do anything!"

[@tgriff5747]

Wow man brought me back to my tweens in the 90s. Didn't pay for long distance for years bc of the phreaking phone box I learned to built of a l33t bbs. Lol

[@joshuagibson2520]

Thank you National City Bank. Your PBX let me call all over the country for a good 2 years about 1994.

[@fluxcapacitor1621]

There was a produce company in Georgia that had an 800 number we would use to relay calls. Get them to hang up then wait long enough and you're get a dial tone out. One day we called and the gig was up. She refused to hang up. We called from a phone booth at a gas station next to our school then left the receiver hanging. We went back after class and she was still there. "I'm not going to hang up!" It still makes me laugh.

[@joshuagibson2520]

@@fluxcapacitor1621 lmao. Phreakin awesome!

[@LarsJacobsenDK]

The movie “Wargames” kinda explains what, to a large extend, hacking was about back then.

[@Haplo-san]

I'm curious if Sinbad cracked any for Amiga 500. The name feels familiar.

[@itakofkarstaag]

Kinda wild watching the opening to this in 2024 after Harley-Davidson has declared complete servitude to the powers-that-be.

[@worldcomicsreview354]

There was a second wave of this stuff at the turn of the century, as the internet exploded and edgelord teens all gravitated towards "those sites that tell you how to make bombs" the news was freaking out over. I was a small part of it myself, though (mostly!) had more sense than to mix up random chemicals and blow my hands off.

[@davidmiller9485]

the paladin books weren't all that accurate either.

[@thewolf61691]

We're a long ways past dumpster diving for esns

[@fragglet]

Video title is wrong - carding should be cracking

[@lowbarentertainment]

Carding was using long distance calling cards.