Joybubbles was an early phone phreak. Born blind, he became interested in telephones at age four. He had absolute pitch, and was able to whistle 2600 hertz into a telephone, an operator tone also used by blue box phreaking devices. Joybubbles said that he had an IQ of “172 or something”. As a five-year-old, Joybubbles discovered he could dial phone numbers by clicking the hang-up switch rapidly (“tapping”), and at the age of 7 he accidentally discovered that whistling at certain frequencies could activate phone switches. A student at the University of South Florida in the late 1960s, he was given the nickname “Whistler” due to his ability to place free long-distance phone calls by whistling the proper tones with his mouth. After a Canadian operator reported him for selling such calls for $1 at the university, he was suspended and fined $25 but soon reinstated. He later graduated with a degree in philosophy and moved to Tennessee.
Joybubbles
