Recommended Reading: Exploding the Phone By Phil Lapsley

The folks over at VoIP Supply have started what they hope will be a series of interviews of bloggers in the VoIP-o-sphere. It happens that I was featured in the first installment in the series, which was posted a couple of weeks ago.

The article was derived from a short list of questions that they passed to me in September. Their line of questioning noted that people who write also tend to read a lot. On that basis, they asked for some recommended reading. While I read a lot more online than traditional books these days, I answered with a short list of items, both online and offline.

I thought that it worth expanding a little about the books I mentioned, the first of which was Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell by Phil Lapsley. This book from 2013 is an informative and entertaining romp through The History Of Phone Phreaking. It’s an interesting mix of personalities, companies and events. Taken at the macro level is describes an odd sort of clash of cultures.

The web site in support of the book has some interesting stuff, too. In particular, the author’s recorded presentation to HOPE 2012 is quite interesting.

That is, it’s certainly of interest to phreaks. The question is, are you a phreak? I am.