The website 2600 was begun in 1984 by, among others, Emmanuel Goldstein, a pseudonym taken from George Orwell's ,1984. Goldstein's real name is Eric Gordon Corley.
Emmanuel Goldstein with sign for Hollywood's 16-year-old nemesis, the DVD KidEmmanuel Goldstein with sign for Hollywood's 16-year-old nemesis, the DVD Kid
The number 2600 is the frequency in hertz that, when sounded over a phone line, would give one access to long distance lines in order to "hack" into them and make free calls. It seems that a free whistle contained in Captain Crunch cereal boxes back in the1980s made this precise 2600 hertz tone and magically opened up the phone lines for free calls.
From those roots a movement grew.
With the appearance of the internet in the 80s, Goldstein writes, smart kids everywhere discovered that their keyboards could give them entrà ©e into cyberspace, a term coined by William Gibson in his 1984 sci-fi classic Neuromancer for the world accessible through a computer portal.
Then consider that the internet was virtually invented and developed by the military in the 1960s and 70s as something called ARPANET or Advanced Research Projects Agency Network.
In 1963, J.C.R. Licklider wrote of an "intergalactic computer network." He was under contract with the Defense Department and was head of the Behavioral Sciences and Command and Control programs in ARPANET. By 1971, email was operating, then file downloads, and so on. The internet's original purpose was apparently for defense contractors to share information easily.
Kids everywhere launched themselves into the cyberspace and, in many cases, outwitted the adults. By the 1980s, hackers were being investigated by the FBI. One young hacker told his tale to 2600 in 1984.
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