Phil Lapsley’s “Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell” tells the story of the underground “phone phreaking” culture of the pre-PC era. That group included Steve Wozniak (who wrote the book’s forward and Steve Jobs, and this guy, among others.
Fascinating stuff. They figured out how to make free telephone calls (at a time when long distance calling was ridiculously expensive), but for most of them it was about fulfilling their intellectual curiosity.
Read reviews from the Wall Street Journal and Salon.