---[ Phrack Magazine Volume 8, Issue 52 January 26, 1998, article 09 of 20 -------------------------[ On the Morality of Phreaking --------[ Phrack Staff The issue of phone phreaking is an interesting topic for discussion concerning morality. For those not familiar with this topic, I will give a brief outline of the subject. Following the outline of phreaking, I will analyze the issue of whether phreaking as defined in the outline is a morally right act, from the perspective of John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant. Finally, I will address the fallacies of each of the arguments they might present concerning the topic and provide a determination of which stands as the superior argument for this subject. The meaning of phone phreaking has changed over the years; its initial growth can be traced in a large part to a magazine named TAP (Technical Assistance Program) started by Abbie Hoffman in 1971 as part of his Youth International Party (YIPL) (Meinel, 5). The intent at this point in time was to utilize technology in order to subvert government and big business institutions. As time progressed, phreaking became less politically motivated and instead was led more by technology enthusiasts interested in learning about the phone systems and how they worked. In 1984, 2600 magazine was formed by Eric Corley in order to further this spread of knowledge (Corley). The definition of phone phreaking I will use for the purposes of this paper is that which the prominent members of the hacking/phreaking "scene" would use. In discussing the motivations of a phone phreaker, I speak from both personal experience and from numerous conversations with individual phreakers over a period of years. Phreaking is the pursuit of knowledge concerning how phone systems operate. The skills that a phreaker learns in this pursuit of knowledge has the effect that they can often gain control of a phone switch in order to make add additional phone lines, modify billing information, and other such activities, but these are generally considered unrelated to that which an actual phreaker is interested in, and I will focus only on the activities of those true phreakers that are motivated by the desire for knowledge and not for other gains. Generally however, phreaking does involve utilizing the resources of a phone company switch without the permission of the company owning it, in order to both explore its capabilities and to communicate with other phreakers in order to share knowledge. John Mill, given his views of morality as found in Utilitarianism, would find that phone phreaking is a morally right act. In order to find that an act is morally right, it should have a net benefit in terms of the happiness it adds to the world versus the opposite of happiness it causes (Mill, 7). To show that phreaking is morally right, first it must be shown that it does have a positive effect on the general happiness in the world, and then proceed to show that any negative effects that phreaking may have are sufficiently minor so as to be outweighed by the positive effects. If the positive effects are greater than the negative effects, then clearly the act is morally right. First, the actual benefit that phreaking has for the individuals involved in it is not directly the pursuit of happiness, but rather the pursuit of knowledge. Since morality is determined by happiness, not knowledge, how knowledge relates to happiness needs to be resolved. The reason this pursuit still relates to morality is that individuals that are pursuing knowledge for no motivation other than itself are doing so because the gain of knowledge has become a part of those individuals' happiness. It is in the same way that Mill argues the pursuit of virtue can be reconciled with the pursuit of happiness that knowledge can also be reconciled (Mill, 35-37). Phreaking does have a benefit to the individuals that are involved in its practice. This benefit is in the form of a gain of knowledge concerning the phone systems. This knowledge is gained in generally one of two ways, both of which are common methods of learning and the reader will recognize. The first is through experimentation and exploration. By accessing the phone switch, phreakers are able to experiment with its capabilities and teach themselves how to operate it. In the second case, the phone switches that phreakers have learned to use are utilized as a method of communication with other phreakers. The free communication that comes about as a result of the phone system knowledge that has been gained allows phreakers to exchange new information and teach each other, either as peers or through a teacher-pupil relationship, even more about the phone system. In both cases, knowledge is gained, and as knowledge is a part of a phreaker's happiness, the general happiness of the world is increased. Any negative impact phreaking has is minimal, and indirect. The resources that are being used are possessed by phone companies, corporations. A corporation of itself is not a moral being, but a corporation has an effect on three different types of people: stock holders, employees, and consumers. A stock holder's interest in a corporation is purely on the profits that it produces. Stockholders could be negatively effected by phreakers if a phreaker causes a loss of revenue, or an increase in costs. A loss in revenue for a phone company can only occur if the phreaker uses some resource that if not in use would otherwise be used by a paying customer, or if the phreaker herself would have paid for the resource utilization if it had not been attainable for free. In the first case, phone systems use a technique called multiplexing to handle simultaneous phone calls between switches. If a phone system is below capacity, there are empty time slices or frequencies (depending on type of trunk) in the data that is transmitted between switches. Adding a new connection between switches involves only filling one of these idle slots, with no degradation of quality for existing phone calls, and no marginal cost associated with the additional call. It is only in the case where a phone system is filled to capacity that a phreaker using a slot would prevent an existing customer from using the phone system, resulting in a loss of revenue. In fact, phreakers being more cognizant of this fact that the general public will purposely explore the phone system when it is at its lowest capacity times (late at night and on weekends) just to avoid this situation. The second part of the stock holders interests is that a phreaker would potentially pay for the phone calls she is making for free. An attraction of phreaking is that it does not cost money to involve ones self in, and most phreakers first start in their youth when they do not have access to being able to pay for phone calls to other phreakers, or even more to the point there is no price they could pay to gain access to a switch. If the phone company were to make this available at a price to phreakers, almost universally they would not be able to afford the price, and would have to stop their gains in knowledge in that subject. This would not result in any additional revenue for the phone company, only a loss of knowledge that the phreaker could have otherwise gained. Employees are only impacted if they are either aware of something occurring, or have to perform some activity as a result of a phreaker's activities. However, a phreaker only interacts with the phone company's equipment in an under utilized state, and not with employees. Further, phreakers do not cause damage or interfere with the operation of the phone company's equipment, and so require no employee intervention. In this manner, no employees are affected by phreakers. Finally, consumers are also not negatively impacted by phreakers. A phreaker's interactions with switches does not cause any disruptions in service or prevent consumers from using the same switches simultaneously. Further, there is no interaction that takes place with consumers as a result of a phreaker's activities, and so they are never impacted in any manner. It is possible there can be a negative impact as a result of the perception of phreakers and based on people with different moral viewpoints than the utilitarian view. Some people are scared by a phreaker's knowledge, and some people are intent on protecting their resources even from those with moral pursuits. These people may become agitated as a result of a phreaker's activities, and although they have no utilitarian reason to be, their agitation should still be considered. However, weighing the moral righteousness of the knowledge being gained, an agitation seems to be greatly outweighed. Based on these criteria, it is clear from the utilitarian viewpoint phreaking is overall beneficial and is morally right. In contrast to the views of Mill, Immanuel Kant would not find phreaking to be a moral act. In order to find an act moral from a Kantian perspective, it must be in accord with duty (Kant, 9), universalized (Kant, 14), and then tested for a contradiction in thought (Kant, 32) or a contradiction in will (Kant, 32). If an action does not succeed in passing these tests, it can not be a moral act. The goal of phreaking, the pursuit of knowledge, is in accordance with duty. An individual has an inclination towards improving himself, gaining knowledge being one way of doing so, so this would be an imperfect duty to self (Kant, 31). There are several possible manners in which the act of phreaking could be universalized. One could say "all people should use the phone system without paying in order to pursue knowledge." This is not a contradiction in thought, a phone system that allowed anyone pursuing knowledge to use it free of charge could exist and persist. However, there would be two major results of having this sort of system. First, the loss in revenue from large numbers of people no longer paying would result in those communicating when not pursuing knowledge subsidizing those that were. Second, a free phone system would have an enormous increase in usage, causing it to reach its capacity quickly and preventing it from being available to those who needed to use it. Nobody wants to have to spend hours attempting to make a phone call in order to get through, and so a system of this type is a contradiction in will for most people, and would thus not be moral. A preferred universalization of phreaking would be "all people interested in gaining knowledge should be able to freely use unutilized corporate resources in order to do so." The goal of a corporation is to maximize profits. If a corporation has under utilized resources with a value, it is in the company's interest to produce additional revenue based on those resources. If a company does not have under utilized resources, it does not apply to this universalization. The final case is if a company has under utilized resources, but the resources have no value. If they have no value, of what use would the resource be to a person interested in gaining knowledge (i.e. if it was useful to someone, it would have value). So it is a contradiction of thought for a company to have an under utilized resource of value for an extended period of time; if those seeking knowledge are able to recognize an under utilized resource with value, then the company would quickly realize that resource does have value, and utilize its value for profit or else sell the resource off. Because there is no manner in which phreaking can be universalized so as to preserve its intent and not provide a contradiction of thought or will, it can not be a moral act in accordance with the views of Kant. In analyzing which of Mill or Kant has a more solid argument, it becomes clear that neither philosophy is ideal for all situations. Both the utilitarian and Kantian viewpoints have disadvantages that are addressed below, however as a whole the Mill utilitarian view of phreaking provides a more rational view that is applicable to those who are phreakers. First, the utilitarian viewpoints of Mill only considers the individual act in the context of the current state of the world in deciding if it is moral That is, a single act may in all cases contribute to the general happiness of the world, but it may also leave the world changed in some other respect that does not add to or take away from the general happiness. However, the change that has taken place may very will have an impact on how that same act or a completely unrelated act would impact the world so as to make what was once moral now immoral. Although the potential for alternative moral acts remain in that world, and so you have not reduced its potential for happiness, what it has done is impacted the available choices of others in how they can go about acting in a moral manner. This is not a concern of Mill, but of those interested in freedom, as an end to itself, actions promoting the general happiness may adversely affect the freedom of others to act in a moral manner. The view Kant gives of morality provides that if an act can not be universally applied, it can not be morally right. In the case of phreaking, is it possible that it is at some point for some people a morally right act to phreak, but not for all people at all times? The basis for this argument is that there are some people who are both honestly extremely interested in the phone systems and do not have the resources to explore their interest in any reasonable fashion for some period of time. The typical case is with a phreaker is a young adolescent that has become intrigued with phones. I would contend that for one that is truly interested in learning and has no alternative means, that it is morally right for that person to phreak. However, as that person grows older and gains access to resources, alternative means become available for him to continue to learn about the phone systems (money buys resources, a job at the phone company provides an immense opportunity to learn). At the point where alternative means are available, it is no longer moral for that person to phreak. Where exactly that point occurs is a blurred line, but it is certainly not a universal law as Kant would imply. In summary, the subject of phreaking is certainly a controversial subject and would be viewed by many as an out of hand immoral activity. But, at closer examination it is actually something that is done for very moral reasons and although the morality of a phreaker may not necessarily correspond to the morality of all others in society, it is certainly in the mind of the true phreaker a moral activity in which they are engaging, with intelligent rational premises backing up their moral views. Although Kant may not agree with the moral views that are held by the phreaker, the individual circumstances confronted by the individual are not considered and if morality can be decided on an individual basis, as Mill allows, then it may just be that the Kantian view may be too restricting to account for contemporary issues faced in today's technological society. ----[ EOF