Phone phreaking was where the fun was. Free phone calls, messing with other people’s boxes and stuff. When it was purely electric phone lines were easy to manipulate.

That and before PayPal credit card processing took weeks.

You could fake a credit card so easy and just get services until they tried to bill it.

The same techniques for social engineering are still the most effective ones.

Computers and systems get smarter.

People actually get dumber.