Summary of Phil Lapsley's Exploding the Phone

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 In 1967, Jake Locke got a letter from someone who claimed to have his notebook. It was written in some sort of alien hieroglyphics, and his roommate said it looked like Russian. Locke didn’t know what to think.

#2 The author responded to an ad placed in the newspaper by a spy ring. He was sent a letter in Russian, and then a postcard with a handful of questions. He spent every waking hour working on the postcard questions.

#3 An inward is a special telephone operator who can help you make calls that would otherwise be difficult to make. You can’t call an inward by dialing their number, but you can call them up and ask them to complete a call to someone.

#4 One postcard question down, one to go: What equipment were the students at MIT using. Locke found an article in the Crimson about some MIT students who got in trouble for playing with the telephone. He found out that the library was close to his dorm.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822520622

IRB Media

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Insights on Phil Lapsley's Exploding the Phone

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 15

Insights from Chapter 16

Insights from Chapter 17

Insights from Chapter 18

Insights from Chapter 19

Insights from Chapter 20

Insights from Chapter 21

Insights from Chapter 22

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

In 1967, Jake Locke got a letter from someone who claimed to have his notebook. It was written in some sort of alien hieroglyphics, and his roommate said it looked like Russian. Locke didn’t know what to think.

#2

The author responded to an ad placed in the newspaper by a spy ring. He was sent a letter in Russian, and then a postcard with a handful of questions. He spent every waking hour working on the postcard questions.

#3

An inward is a special telephone operator who can help you make calls that would otherwise be difficult to make. You can’t call an inward by dialing their number, but you can call them up and ask them to complete a call to someone.

#4

One postcard question down, one to go: What equipment were the students at MIT using. Locke found an article in the Crimson about some MIT students who got in trouble for playing with the telephone. He found out that the library was close to his dorm.

#5

The telephone company accepted the students’ apology, and the 121-page Fine Arts 13 notebook that contained the records of their researches was impounded. The article described how the students had used inward operators to complete calls all over the world.

#6

Locke began to spend a lot of time on the telephone, looking for missing exchanges and patterns. He would call all the telephone numbers in a given exchange, ten thousand at a time.

#7

The telephone was a technology that fascinated Locke. He wanted to build a blue box so he could control the telephone network, but he didn’t know anything about electronics. He eventually hooked up with the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, which was home to one of the most technically sophisticated model railroad setups in the country.

#8

In June 1967, three months after seeing the ad in the Crimson, Locke was confronted by three men who were from the telephone company and the FBI. They wanted to know who had given him the technical information to build a blue box. He explained that he had seen an article in the Boston Herald.

#9

The FBI arrested Locke after he sold a single box to a customer. He