The story of Joybubbles. A blind hacker who conquered the telephone world

20 September 2024 8 minutes Author: Lady Liberty

Joseph Engressia, known as Joybubbles, went down in history as a blind telephone freak who could control telephone lines by whistling. He became a legend in the world of hackers thanks to his unique skills and influence on the development of telephone technology. Although his knowledge was used ethically, his contribution to freaking is defining for an entire era.

The legend of phone phreaking and its impact on the hacker world

Joseph Engrecia was born completely blind, but that didn’t stop him from becoming the most famous phone freak. With perfect hearing, he could whistle into the receiver a sequence of signals that allowed free calls to be made. With his life, he proved that even visually impaired people can influence technological progress. He was born in 1949 in Richmond, Virginia. At a school for the blind, Joseph faced difficult life circumstances, but found solace in telephone experiments. Playing with the telephone, he learned how to interact with telephone networks by pressing the call reset lever. This technique allowed him to dial numbers by the pulse method. He used his skills to call his friends, gradually improving his abilities. His talent for whistling signals became the basis of his reputation as a freak who could break telephone lines with a whistle.

Like many other congenitally blind people, Eneglesius compensated for his lack of sight with keen hearing and excellent musical abilities. She not only perfectly distinguished the nuances of different melodies, but also accurately reproduced the sounds, to the great joy of those around her. Then, when Joseph was nine years old, a seemingly trivial event changed his life forever. During a normal phone conversation, Engressia whistled into the receiver, and the connection was interrupted. It turned out that the frequency on which the boy was whistling was 2600 Hz, which the AT&T telephone exchange used to control the connection.

Joseph began to study this phenomenon and soon learned how to use the whistle to control the telephone system, interrupting or transferring calls to other lines. At that time, he did not yet know the name of the phenomenon he discovered, but, not knowing it, Joseph Engresia became one of the first freaks (hackers of telephone networks). Later, other freaks used various devices to imitate the service tones of a telephone exchange. For example, the famous freak and hacker John Draper used a toy whistle made from a box of cornflakes, and progressive freaks of the 1970s, such as Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, used a clever electronic device with a speaker called the Blue Box Made by. In the case of Joseph Engressi, the device was his own.

This video shows Joseph Engresia operating a telephone line using a whistle, without the use of any special devices.

Joe regularly entertained his classmates with phone tricks. He learned to whistle not only popular tunes, but also the signals that controlled the telephone lines. So if one of his friends wanted to make a free phone call, he knew who to call. Young Joseph not only managed calls, but also began to understand how telecommunications work, and ordered technical literature about telephones from the Library for the Blind and devoured hundreds of pages. This allowed him to dive deeper into the world of technology and telephone systems.

After graduating high school, Engressia enrolled at the University of South Florida to study philosophy, but he never gave up his hobby. After learning how to make long distance and international calls for free, Joseph began selling the service to his friends for $1. As he later recalled, it was not for the sake of profit, but out of pure hooliganism. So he was caught, and after a hasty investigation in 1968, Engrs was expelled from the university and fined $25. After that, he managed to recover and finish his studies.

In his spare time, Engressia continued to hack the telephone network for his own amusement. Around this time, the nickname “Joybubbles” (roughly translated as “pleasure bubbles” or “soap bubbles”) was born and became famous among freaks. Joseph called random numbers and spent long hours talking to the callers, sometimes calling commercial and community organizations, inventing raffles that gave him immense pleasure. Unlike many of his colleagues, Joy Bubble never used his technology for harm or enrichment. He was interested in the technology itself and the opportunity to communicate with the world for free. Joseph often shared his knowledge and taught others the art of phone hacking for free, but always insisted on an ethical approach In the early 1970s, Joey Bubble became a very well-known and respected figure among the geeks and, like other phone hackers, came under secret surveillance by the FBI Engrasia’s favorite hobby .

One of Engracia’s favorite hobbies was calling the numbers of automatic timekeeping services in different cities. He switched between time zones to hear the exact time and reveled in his unlimited power over the telephone network. Joseph often called street phones across the country and even in other countries to talk to passersby, hacked AT&T’s phone network, and used a whistle to call the US government’s direct line to demonstrate his abilities.

In 1971, Esquire magazine published an article about “telephone hippies.” The article drew public attention to the phenomenon of fracking, not least law enforcement agencies. As a result, Joseph was arrested a second time for wire fraud and sentenced to community service. Joseph was so adept at phone fraud that he was assigned to clean payphones at an AT&T facility, and it was probably the worst time of his life, he later recalled.

In 1975, he decided to stop freelancing. Engressia moved to Denver, but because he was blind, he could not find work for a long time. To his surprise, FBI agents who had previously accused Joseph of illegal activities helped him find work. Under their guidance, Joy Buble landed a job in technical support at Mountain Bell Telephone Company, where he helped set up equipment and troubleshoot subscriber lines. Joseph recalls that he knew more than his colleagues with an engineering background because of the knowledge he gained as a freelancer.

Eventually, Joseph got tired of his monotonous job at the telephone company. He resigned from Mountain Bell and moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he began living on a disability pension. Trying to do something useful, Engressia organized a telephone service at home called Stories and Stuff, where she told funny stories over the phone to seriously ill people and acted as a counselor for blind children. At the same time, Joseph continued to be interested in technology. Engressia wrote articles and often spoke at technology events, sharing his experience and philosophy. His stories about the early days of mining were full of humor, and he became a popular guest at hacker conferences.

In 1991, Joseph Engresia officially changed his name to Joy Bubble. With age, he began to understand that the past does not determine the future, and decided to return to the happiest time of his life – childhood, to the moment when he first crossed the threshold of the school for the blind. Joy Bubbles announced that he will be five years old forever. And for those who, like him, decided to stay in kindergarten forever, he founded the Church of the Eternal Child under the slogan “We will never grow up.”

The Church of Eternal Childhood was not a religious organization, but embodied the founder’s personal desire to return to the past in order to preserve the simplicity and immediacy of childhood. Joy Bubble believed that the qualities inherent in childhood – curiosity, joy, playfulness and free spirit – are sacred and should be nurtured throughout life. He wanted to create a space, both conceptually and physically, where these qualities could be fully expressed and where children could be freed from the cynicism of the adult world.

Although the Church of the Eternal Child did not hold regular services or meetings, Joseph provided a framework for his personal spiritual journey. Joy Bubble was an avid collector of children’s radio programs and records, especially old radio programs. He organized a “cassette service” in his church, recording these programs on audio cassettes and sending them out free of charge to everyone, accompanied by his whimsical reflections. This ministry was part of Angelia’s mission to spread joy around the world. In addition, the church continued to operate a toll-free number where anyone who needed help could just talk about anything, get support and hear interesting stories.

On August 8, 2007, Joseph Engressi was found in his house in a state of dismemberment, and doctors diagnosed congestive heart failure as the cause of death. With his death, it is believed that the era of telephone freaks finally ended: Joy Bubble was one of the last “techno hippies” of the 1970s. However, perhaps it was he who clearly proved that the real magic of technology is not in the machines, but in the people who manipulate them. Engression has inspired many to explore telecommunications and find new ways to use technology. And most importantly, he proved that even members of the cyber underground can selflessly dedicate their lives to helping others.

Of course, if he or she wants to.

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