Joybubbles

American phone phreak (1949-2007)

PersonDied aged 58humanQ708872

Also known as Josef Carl Engressia, Jr. · Josef Carl Engressia

Born: May 25, 1949
Died: August 8, 2007
1
Sources
1.“Joybubbles, 58, Peter Pan of Phone Hackers, Dies”nytimes.com/2007/08/20/us/20engressia.html?ref=technology
View statement on Wikidata ↗
Birthplace: Richmond
Place of death: Minneapolis
Citizenship: United States
Occupation: security hacker
, amateur radio operator
Education: University of South Florida

Overview

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · Read full article · Text CC BY-SA 4.0

Joybubbles, born Josef Carl Engressia Jr. in Richmond, Virginia, was an early phone phreak. Born blind, he became interested in telephones at age four. He had absolute pitch, and was able to whistle 2600 hertz — an operator tone also used by blue box phreaking devices — into a telephone. Joybubbles said that he had an IQ of "172 or something".

Overview

All data

20 statements · 10% with external sources · numbers in brackets are citations

Sex or gender: male
Medical condition: blindness
Cause of death: myocardial infarction
Manner of death: natural causes
Name in native language: Josef Carl Engressia, Jr.
Joybubbles
Generational suffix: L252247-F2
Pseudonym: Joybubbles

On other databases

3 identifiers linking Joybubbles across the web's reference databases

Data quality

statements

10%

externally sourced

Source last edited October 6, 2026. AIDB refreshes this page daily.

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AIDB. (2026). Joybubbles (Q708872). Retrieved from https://aidb.si/e/joybubbles-Q708872