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Before the invention of the personal computer and the internet, a maverick species of technological spelunker – the phone phreak – explored, documented and played with an intricate technical system: the phone network, such as the British Telephone System (BTS) in the UK or Ma Bell in the United States. Many phreaks were driven to tap into these systems for the sheer joy of learning but also to connect with their peers as they did on “party lines.” Phreaks dialed into these secret nooks and found their phreak-friends. On this original social network, they might share their latest technical exploit, concoct a phone prank, swap tips, or just joke around – and best of all it cost them nothing. That’s because phreaks figured out how to make free calls by emulating the tones required to make a call. One of the first phreaks – Joy Bubbles, a blind teenager with perfect pitch – whistled these tones. Others relied on a plastic toy whistle from the Captain Crunch breakfast cereal box and eventually, more and more phreaks made use of a compact mechanical device – the “blue box” – that generated them with a push of a button.

2. Hackers made your computer more secure

Hang out with hackers long enough, and you might hear someone quip, “Hackers gonna hack.” This unofficial motto isn’t mere talk. I’ve met scores of hackers, formerly part of the underground scene, who back in the 1980s and 1990s illicitly broke into and explored networked computer systems. They did so not to unleash mayhem, cause destruction, or even make a buck, but to satisfy their curiosity. As the internet became more readily available, some of these hackers transitioned from underground hacker, often demonised in the mainstream media, to become professional security researchers motivated by a sense of civic duty. When they stepped out of the shadows, they cast themselves as a special breed of “gray hats” – hackers willing to go out on a limb and speak up and out on all matters related to computer security in the public interest. Along with building tools that automated the discovery of vulnerabilities, or cracked weak password systems, they shamed vendors like Microsoft that deprioritised security.

Imagine that you worked as a government spy back in the late 1990s and your boss asked you to try something different: break into computer systems for intelligence gathering. Being computer illiterate, who would you turn to for help? In France, a now-defunct intelligence agency, the DST (Directorate of Territorial Security) boldly pursued unusual personnel for job reskilling their spies. The DST infiltrated the French hacker underground and compelled arrested hackers, many teenagers, to help their spies learn the technical art of computer intrusion. “It means finding in the life of a hacker the small youthful mistake which will make it possible to scare him,” as French cybersecurity journalist Jean Gusinel put it. He broke this cloak and dagger story back in the late 1990s after figuring out which hacker-turned-informant had helped the DST in their intrepid mission.

4. Two teenage hackers nearly dissolved the Peruvian government

One of the most powerful hacktivist hacks and leaks in recent times was pulled off by two Peruvian teenage hackers going by the handle “LulzSec Peru”. Inspired by their English-speaking counterparts, in 2013 they directed some of their first hacks at commandeering the Twitter accounts of famous politicians, like the President of Venezuela. Then in August 2014 they aimed higher. They landed and then distributed hacked emails from Peru’s Department of the Interior, teeming with evidence of low-level government corruption. After a flurry of press, the hack and leak forced a referendum to dissolve the government, and the count was one vote shy from forcing a change in leadership. Even if Lulzsec Peru’s audacious hack and leak failed to topple the government, it came very close – and it’s a good reminder that exposing corruption and other dirty tricks can lie just one hack away.

5. Some hackers hack their bodies to feel the earth quake

For hackers, any system, whether technological or not, is hackable. From this perspective, the human body is perfectly poised for imaginative modification or upgrades. For some, like Silicon Valley Technorati, they might body hack by seeking immortality through blood infusions or by storing brains in vats. For other hackers, their approach pivots in another direction. Take cyborg artist, Moon Ribas. She hacked herself by implanting sensors, connected to online seismograms, so she could feel earthquakes rumbling through her body. Each time the Earth quivered and quaked, the implants located in her feet would vibrate. She poetically likened this experience to something like a heartbeat, describing it as an “Earth beat.” For others, like Winter Mraz who fractured her spine, an RFID chip implanted in her hands, provide a practical benefit by automatically opening doors. Whether body hacking enables a deeper communion with nature or eases the burdens of injuries, it may seem like the stuff of science fiction but is part of the here and now among this intrepid class of hackers.

All 10 episodes of The Hackers are available now on 麻豆社 Sounds.