Talk:Black box (phreaking)

Seems to me that the black box was mostly composed of a 100MicroFarad 50V capacitor in parallel with a 10KOhm 1/2Watt resistor. Put a switch in parallel with the whole thing, and put it on the hot side of line.

Schematic / Plans
I actually purchased the plans for this device in the 80's.

I built the device and it actually worked. Once. Didn't work after that never figured out why.

That was a LONG time ago.

I don't suppose it would be a good idea to post those plans here...

67.86.140.4 (talk) 03:38, 2 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The circuit is simple and the method by which it "fooled" the exchange equipment into tripping the ringing but not returning supervision to start charging is already pretty much described in the article. Besides, it will NOT work on any modern digital exchange, so it wouldn't be a whole lot of use these days anyway!  87.115.28.87 (talk) 19:00, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

First Paragraph Wrong?
The sentence:

A call originating from a telephone fitted with a black box would still be charged for by the telephone company unless the called telephone was also fitted with a black box

I think the first instance of black box is supposed to be blue box. I am going to change it in a few days. Dan the Man (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:09, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

Black box or blue box?
There is an article on en.wikipedia.org, describing the same topic with a different name: Blue box. Both mean the same topic. However, the terminus 'black box' or 'black boxing' has a widespread use in system theory, modelling, electrical engineering. I vote for completely remove the article Black_box_(phreaking) and to keep the important parts in the article Blue box. --Nawennschon (talk) 09:59, 17 November 2022 (UTC)