The History of Phone Phreaking Blog

FBI Improves its FOIA Search Procedures

The FBI stunned me today.

It has quietly implemented changes that should significantly increase the chance that people requesting FBI documents under the Freedom of Information Act will actually find something useful.  And it has done so in a way that actually lessens the burden on such requesters.

Regular readers of this blog -- all three or so of you :-) -- will know that I've made heavy use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in my phone phreak history research.  One of my most frequent pen pals for these requests has been the FBI: at last count I've submitted about 300 FOIA requests to them.

This has caused me to become a reluctant expert in FBI FOIA procedures (for example, see here and here).  And I've learned that the FBI makes you jump through flaming hoops to have any chance of getting the records you're looking for.  For example, you need to know certain magic words (like asking for a search of the "manual indices") or else they only search for your requests in their computerized database... which would be ok if their computerized database went back further than 1973!  And you need to know to send requests not just to FBI Headquarters but also to any or all of the 56 FBI Field Offices that might have had something about the topic you're investigating.  (To its credit, if you jump through the right hoops, the FBI seems to have been pretty good about searching for records, at least in my experience.)

Well, today I got back a FBI FOIA request acknowledgment letter that mentioned the FBI conducted a search of "our central records system at FBI Headquarters and all FBI field offices."  Huh?!  I didn't even ask for a search of all field offices.  So I called David P. Sobonya, the FBI FOIA Public Information Officer, to ask if something had changed.

Mr. Sobonya said that as a result of Attorney General Holder's FOIA memorandum the FBI has improved its FOIA search procedures.  The FBI will now automatically search the records of both Headquarters and all FBI Field Offices with one simple request to Headquarters.  This should dramatically increase the chances of finding goodies while simplifying life for the FOIA requester.  In addition he said that they will now automatically search both the automated and manual indices, whether or not a requester asks for it.  Finally, he said they are now accepting emailed and faxed Privacy Act requests (whereas before they only accepted them via snail mail).

This is excellent news and should be a big improvement for FBI FOIA accuracy and ease of use.  Kudos to the Department of Justice and FBI for taking this important step.

Hot For Words: The Etymology of "Phreak"

Here is a somebody who really knows how to combine two potentially boring, geeky topics -- phreaking and etymology -- and make it interesting:

 

If only I had such natural, um, talents.

While I quibble with her statement that the phrase "phone phreaking" is redundant, she does an admirable job getting her facts right.  It does appear that the term "phreak" showed up in 1971, apparently introduced by Ron Rosenbaum in his Esquire article.  Prior to that phone phreaks called themselves "phone freaks."  Indeed, there was a half-joking organization of phone phreaks called "Phone Freaks of America" (PFA), later expanded to "Phone Freaks International" (PFI).  And she correctly avoids the common mistake of attributing discovery of the 2600 Hz Captain Crunch whistle to John Draper, since it was around long before he appropriated it as his nom de phreak. Nice work, Marina!

The Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009

The Senate is considering a bill that would outlaw caller ID spoofing:

"It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States, in connection with any telecommunications service or IP-enabled voice service, to cause any caller identification service to knowingly transmit misleading or inaccurate caller identification information with the intent to defraud, cause harm, or wrongfully obtain anything of value, unless such transmission is exempted ..."

I'm glad they added the "intent to defraud" part.

(Thanks, RIchard!)

HOWTO: Get Your FBI File

Several former phone phreaks have asked me how they can request their own FBI files.

It's really easy: Just go to GetMyFBIFile.Com and follow the instructions.  That web site creates the letters you need to mail to the FBI to get your files.  Just print the letters and mail them off.  You'll get an acknowledgment letter back from the FBI in about 10 days.  If they don't have any records you'll get a letter saying so about two weeks later.  If they do have records on you it will take anywhere from three to nine months for them to arrive depending on how long the records are and whether they were classified.

The cost?  $0.42 for a postage stamp and $0.10 per page if your file is more than 100 pages long.  Most files aren't very long, so most requests are free.

If you're turned off by typing your personal information into a random web site run by anonymous people, just leave your personal information blank.  The web site will generate letters with blanks in it that you can then fill out by hand.  You can also use the FBI's own request form if you're really paranoid.  But I think GetMyFBIFile is easier to use.  It also supports sending requests to FBI field offices.  This is really important: the FBI filing system is decentralized and many times FBI field offices have records that FBI HQ doesn't.  So if you spent most of your phone phreak career in Los Angeles but you now live in New York, you should send a request letter to both FBI HQ and the FBI LA field office.  Heck, while you're at it, send one to the NY field office too.  You can do this just by checking a box at GetMyFBIFile.Com.

Yes, you in the back with your hand up, do you have a question?  Ah.  Yes, that question comes up a lot.  Virtually every person I talk to about FBI files asks, "Isn't it true that if you don't have an FBI file and you request your file, the FBI will start a file on you?"

The FBI says that's not true.  I have no evidence to suggest otherwise; it seems like a lot of work and would clog up their filing system with a bunch of useless data.  (More than 17,000 people filed FBI FOIA requests last year.)

But let me turn the question around.  What evidence would you need to convince you that the FBI doesn't start files on FOIA requesters?  Say that the Director of the FBI himself stood in front of you and the nation and swore on the Bible, the Koran, the Bell System Technical Journal, and the Kernighan and Ritchie C programming language book that the FBI doesn't start files on people who request their FBI files under FOIA.  Would you believe him?

Your answer says a lot about how paranoid you are.  It also illustrates the difficulty of proving a negative.  :-)

17 Touch-Tone Pads That Never Were

mental_floss has a neat article about 17 Touch-Tone telephone keypads that didn't do well in the focus groups back in 1960.  Take a look and then think about it the next time you "dial" a call.  Thanks and a tip of the hat to Jason for spotting this gem!

DVDs From The Last HOPE Now Available

DVDs of talks at The Last HOPE conference are now (finally) available for purchase from the good folks at 2600.  My two talks were A Hacker's View of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and The History of Phone Phreaking, 1960-1980.   DVDs are $10 each, with quantity discounts if you order more than five DVDs in total (you can mix and match).

Google LIFE Magazine Photo Archive Announced

1939 operator cordboard. Source: LIFE Magazine / Google Images

More related to telephone history than phone-phreaking, but still very cool:  Google has just announced that it is hosting the LIFE Magazine photo archive containing millions of images, many never before published.  An example search might be:

http://images.google.com/images?q=Telephone+source%3Alife

This is an amazing resource for historians and history buffs.  I can't wait to see what people turn up in it.  Thanks and a tip o' the hat to Jason Scott for letting me know about this!

Some Oddly Haunting Old FBI Blue Box Photos

The FBI electronically scans documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.  This works great for text documents but can sometimes do strange things to photos.  I found the following collection of FBI evidence photos from a 1971 blue box bust in Montana to be oddly haunting.  (Click on any image for a higher-res version. And if you're reading this on an RSS reader that doesn't include images, do come and visit this blog with a browser; I think these are really cool photos...)

RIP: Amos E. Joel, Jr., 1918-2008

My email brought unwelcome news today: Amos E. Joel, Jr., a former Bell Labs engineer, died on October 25.  He was 90 years old.

I don't know what Mr. Joel's official title was at Bell Labs; he was described to me simply as "the head of switching."  And indeed, he was the primary author of the 639-page "Switching Technology (1925-1975)" volume of the History of Science and Engineering in the Bell System series.

I had spoken to Mr. Joel several times in the last few years while researching my book.  While he was  cagey about discussing certain measures the telephone company took to detect phone phreaks, he was always as helpful as he felt he could be, suggesting several good leads and making a few important introductions on my behalf.

The New York Times obituary called him a "cellphone pioneer" and noted that although he had more than 70 patents, he was "perhaps best known for 3,663,762, a 1972 patent that allows a telephone user to make an uninterrupted call while moving from one region to another."  I.e., it enabled cell phones as we know them today.

But when I think of Mr. Joel I think of patent 2,925,957, issued February 23, 1960.  According to an article in the New York Times at the time, "The Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. of New York received this week the largest patent ever granted.  It covers elaborate improvements to the AT&T automatic accounting system for customers' charges on long distance direct dialing.  [It] weights ten pounds and 12 ounces.  It consists of 354 sheets of drawings and 266 printed pages."

Phone phreaks will instantly recognize the system by its acronym: AMA -- Automatic Message Accounting.

Here is a proud A. E. Joel, Jr. with his giant patent.  Goodnight, Mr. Joel, wherever you are.

Why I Love the Freedom of Information Act

While researching my book I spend a lot of time going through old phone-phreak-related FBI files obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).  As you might imagine, most of these files are pretty boring -- lots of reports, inter-office memoranda, blah blah blah.  You have to kiss a lot of toads to find a prince(cess).

But every so often you get something unexpected, something ... eye-catching:

This gem comes to us courtesy of one of the FBI's files on Jesse and Martin Sklaroff, a father-son bookmaking team that was the subject of the very first Federal Title III wiretap under the then-new 1968 wiretap law.  The file gives no indication of who the mystery woman is or why this glamour shot was included in the file.

But I do like the fact the FBI protected her modesty by blanking out her face under FOIA Exemptions (b)(6) and (b)(7)(c) (unwarranted invasion of personal privacy).  Very thoughtful of them!  :-)