Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

phreaking
     
         /freek'ing/ "phone phreak" 1. The art and science of
        {cracking} the telephone network so as, for example, to make
        free long-distance calls.
     
        2. By extension, security-{cracking} in any other context
        (especially, but not exclusively, on communications networks).
     
        At one time phreaking was a semi-respectable activity among
        hackers; there was a gentleman's agreement that phreaking as
        an intellectual game and a form of exploration was OK, but
        serious theft of services was taboo.  There was significant
        crossover between the hacker community and the hard-core phone
        phreaks who ran semi-underground networks of their own through
        such media as the legendary "TAP Newsletter".
     
        This ethos began to break down in the mid-1980s as wider
        dissemination of the techniques put them in the hands of less
        responsible phreaks.  Around the same time, changes in the
        phone network made old-style technical ingenuity less
        effective as a way of hacking it, so phreaking came to depend
        more on overtly criminal acts such as stealing phone-card
        numbers.
     
        The crimes and punishments of gangs like the "414 group"
        turned that game very ugly.  A few old-time hackers still
        phreak casually just to keep their hand in, but most these
        days have hardly even heard of "blue boxes" or any of the
        other paraphernalia of the great phreaks of yore.
     
        [{Jargon File}]
     
        (1994-11-09)