RSA 2010: Steve Wozniak reveals his hacking history

Apple-co-founder talks of cracking phones and beta-testing the Prius

Steve Wozniak gave the final RSA 2010 keynote

Steve Wozniak used the final keynote of RSA 2010 to give an insight into his career as a tinkerer and cracker of electronic systems.

Wozniak and his fellow Apple co-founder Steve Jobs are well known to have used 'blue boxes' while at college. The devices allowed anyone to make free calls by generating a tone that put payphones into free mode.

"It was all about finding flaws in the phone system," he said. "We had fun. We called the Hilton in Paris just because we could, and tried to get through to the Vatican in Italy. Having fun with a device is a bigger motivation than a pay check for some people."

This attitude towards devices, and the motivation, helped Wozniak in his early career with Apple, he said.

Apple had plans to attend the first Consumer Electronics Show that allowed personal computers, and Jobs and two other staff were going.

Wozniak had never left California and persuaded Jobs that, if he could get a floppy drive operational, he would go too. It took him two weeks of near-continuous work, but he finished it the day before the show.

This continues today with his obsession with his Toyota Prius. Wozniak has owned nine so far, and will continue to buy them despite the car's current problems.

Wozniak found a fault in the Prius months ago, in that the car would accelerate continuously if the cruise control was set at a particular speed. He tried to alert Toyota, but had no luck convincing them.

"We who work in computing know there are a lot of little errors that can occur," he said. "I've also had other problems, but in almost every case there's a simple fix. I stop the car, turn it off and on again and everything works. It's just like any other gadget."