“Before smartphones, back even before the Internet and personal computer, a misfit group of technophiles, blind teenagers, hippies, and outlaws figured out how to hack the world’s largest machine: the telephone system. Starting with Alexander Graham Bell’s revolutionary ‘harmonic telegraph,’ by the middle of the twentieth century the phone system had grown into something extraordinary, a web of cutting-edge switching machines and human operators that linked together millions of people like never before. But the network had a billion-dollar flaw, and once people discovered it, things would never be the same.”

The book club is debuting our first non-fiction book for discussion. Cyberpunk culture is always about pushing the limits of technology, and being subversive in a society where control of information is limited to large corporations. Cyberpunks exploiting the phone system, or “phreakers”, are among the first computer hackers to have ever existed. “Exploding the Phone” explores the underground subculture of phone phreaks and tells the story of how these people discovered critical flaws in the immense telecommunications system.

Book Details

Month	March 2017
Meetup Date	Saturday April 8 2017 18:00:00
Meetup Location	XION
Referer	okeeblow
Amazon Link	http://a.co/8CL3ORG

Bonus Material

Hackers: The History Of Hacking A great documentary from the 90’s about the early days of computer hacking. The beginning of the film features interviews from Steve Wozniak, John Draper, and Denny Teresi, whom are all featured in Exploding the Phone.