CUSTOMISATION / HOBBY TECH
REVIEW
2600 Magazine
Lifetime Subscription
T
he year is 1984, and there’s a buzz
surrounding telecommunications
networks and computing systems.
The term ‘hacker’, originally coined to mean
those who use their skills and knowledge to
overcome obstacles in computing or
otherwise, has begun to take on a darker
meaning in the mainstream press. What’s
more, two college dropouts have been well
established as nouveau riche, thanks to the
success of a fruit-themed computing
company, which was funded in part by the
sales of a gadget designed to scam free long-
distance calls from the telephone company.
Enter 2600, founded by the
pseudonymous Twenty Six Hundred and
a hacker group that called itself Phreakers,
Hackers And Laundromat Service Employees
(PHALSE). The launch issue in January
1984 nearly didn’t happen. A high-profile
FBI case the year before ‘almost derailed
the entire thing’, the publisher recalls, but
the team ploughed ahead anyway with the
release of what would later be known as
The Hacker Quarterly.
Since then, 2600 has been running
continuously, moving from its monthly
newsletter format to a quarterly magazine- complete with full cover, in place of the
old format’s masthead. It covers a range of
topics of interest to hackers of the new or old
definition alike.
The early issues are dominated by news
about telephone networks, including the
divestiture of Ma Bell into the Baby Bells, as
well as the move from crossbar exchanges to
the new digital types. There’s also coverage
of the infamous Blue Box tone generators
that could get you free phone calls, sales
of which partially funded the founding of
Apple Computers a decade earlier. However,
computer systems would prove of increasing
interest as time went on.
While first and foremost an anarchic
underground publication, 2600 would receive
mainstream recognition as its popularity
grew. Some of this recognition, such as the
seizure of its bulletin board system (BBS), The
Private Sector, by ‘overzealous New Jersey
authorities’, was unwelcome. Other attention,
including a number of campaigns exposing
scams targeting the hacker community, or
bringing the public’s attention to telephone
companies’ charging customers for Touch-
Tone support, which actually saved them
money, were considerably more welcome.
Today, 2600 is less about multi-frequency
tones and crossbar switching, and more
about topics such as homomorphic
encryption, virtual private networks
Thanks to a forward-thinking approach to back
issues, you too can own every copy of 2600 –
going back to its foundationAn archive extracts to nearly 3GB of PDFs,
with more to follow every yearPDF copies are provided free from DRM, making
them compatible with any e-reader, PC, phone
or tablet
(VPNs), 3D printing, hardware upcycling
and even lighter topics, such as the joys of
mechanical keyboards.
That’s not to say it’s forgotten its roots.
Every issue includes full-colour photographs
of interesting or otherwise unusual
payphones, sent in by readers throughout the
world. One way in which 2600 truly adheres
to its founding principles is in its lifetime
subscription. In 1988, shortly after the move
to a quarterly format, 2600 Enterprises
introduced the option to receive every single