Joybubbles (Joe Engressia)
termhackingISP & telecom
The blind phone phreak with perfect pitch who discovered at the age of seven that whistling a particular tone into a receiver made the network obey - and who could produce 2600 Hz with his mouth, no equipment at all.
Engressia mapped the telephone system by ear over decades, was expelled and prosecuted for it, and was named in the 1971 Esquire article that made phreaking public. He legally renamed himself Joybubbles in 1991 and declared himself perpetually five years old. The scene remembers him as its gentlest figure and its purest case: he wanted to understand the network, never to profit from it, and he is the reason the culture's founding story is about curiosity rather than theft.
Also known as: joe engressia, the whistler, high rise joe