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Blue box
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{{Short description|Device for hacking telephone networks}} {{About|the [[phone phreaking]] tool}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2021}} [[File: Blue Box at the Powerhouse Museum.jpg|thumb|280px|Blue box designed and built by [[Steve Wozniak]] and sold by [[Steve Jobs]] before they founded [[Apple Inc.|Apple]]. Displayed at the [[Powerhouse Museum]], from the collection of the [[Computer History Museum]]<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2012/10/steve-jobs-first-business-was-selling-blue-boxes-that-allowed-users-to-get-free-phone-service-illegally/ |title = Steve Jobs' First Business was Selling Blue Boxes that Allowed Users to Get Free Phone Service Illegally|date = October 6, 2012}}</ref>]] A '''blue box''' is an [[Electronics|electronic device]] that produces tones used to generate the [[in-band signaling]] tones formerly used within the North American long-distance telephone network to send line status and called number information over voice circuits. During that period, charges associated with [[long-distance calling]] were commonplace and could be significant, depending on the time, duration and destination of the call. A blue box device allowed for circumventing these charges by enabling an illicit user, referred to as a "[[Phreaking|phreaker]]", to place long-distance calls, without using the network's user facilities, that would be billed to another number or dismissed entirely by the telecom company's billing system as an incomplete call. A number of similar "color boxes" were also created to control other aspects of the phone network. First developed in the 1960s and used by a small phreaker community, the introduction of low-cost microelectronics in the early 1970s greatly simplified these devices to the point where they could be constructed by anyone reasonably competent with a [[soldering iron]] or [[breadboard]] construction. Soon after, models of relatively low quality were being offered fully assembled, but these often required tinkering by the user to remain operational. Over time, as the long-distance network became digitized, the audio call-control tones were replaced with [[out-of-band signaling]] methods in the form of [[common-channel signaling]] (CCS) carried digitally on a separate channel inaccessible to the telephone user. This development limited the usefulness of audio-tone-based blue boxes by the 1980s, and they are of little to no use today.
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