Submission + - The boy who heard too much (myke.com)
mykepredko writes: Rolling Stone has the story of Matthew Weigman — a fat, lonely blind kid that could play telephone networks like John Brunner's "Shockwave Rider". Weigman discovered at an early age that his acute hearing gave him superpowers on the telephone. He could impersonate any voice, memorize phone numbers by the sound of the buttons and decipher the inner workings of a phone system by the frequencies and clicks on a call, which he refers to as "songs." The knowledge enabled him to hack into cellphones, order phone lines disconnected and even tap home phones. In the end, these gifts became his downfall with Weigman now serving an 11 year term for two felony counts of conspiracy to commit fraud and intimidate a federal witness. I never would have imagined it was possible to do on the phone what Weigman was able to do — very scary.