1. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution - Steven Levy[1]

2. Inventing the Future - Albert Cory[2][3]

3. Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier - John Markoff and Katie Hafner[4][5]

4. Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker - Kevin Mitnick[6]

5. Not a book, but definitely consider watching "Halt & Catch Fire"[7] if you haven't seen it yet. It's an amazing show that deals with, loosely speaking, "the history of the computer industry".

6. Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell - Phil Lapsley[8]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackers:_Heroes_of_the_Compute...

[2]: https://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Future-Albert-Cory/dp/17362...

[3]: Note that AlbertCory is an HN'er! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28059246

[4]: https://www.amazon.com/Cyberpunk-Outlaws-Hackers-Computer-Fr...

[5]: Yes, I'm aware there are substantial question marks concerning the veracity of some of the information in this book, especially as it pertains to Mitnick. Nonetheless, I believe it's worth reading, but also suggest reading other books about Mitnick, including his autobiography, to get the other perspective

[6]: https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Wires-Adventures-Worlds-Wanted/...

[7]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halt_and_Catch_Fire_(TV_series...

[8]: https://www.amazon.com/Exploding-Phone-Phil-Lapsley/dp/08021...

Phone freak (with an f) was the original term, in the late 1960s. When Ron Rosenbaum wrote "Secrets of the Little Blue Box" he made it into "phone phreak". "Phreaker" came a bit later (1980s is about right). Shameless plug -- I wrote a history book about this whole subject, "Exploding the Phone": https://www.amazon.com/Exploding-Phone-Phil-Lapsley/dp/08021... My website, such as it is, offers additional goodies, including lots of scans of original docs like FBI files: http://explodingthephone.com/ If you want more on Captain Crunch, see http://explodingthephone.com/search.php?q=draper&sort=releva...

If you're into this sort of thing, you'll like Exploding the Phone[1] which details the history of phone phreaking and Counterculture to Cyberculture [2] which is a critical look at how the Whole Earth Catalog circle interacted with the tech scene.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Exploding-Phone-Phil-Lapsley/dp/08021...

[2] https://www.amazon.com/Counterculture-Cyberculture-Stewart-N...