
Secrets of the Little Blue Box
How phone phreakers, many of them blind, opened up Ma Bell to unlimited free international calling using a technical manual and a toy organ.
Great articles, every Saturday.
How phone phreakers, many of them blind, opened up Ma Bell to unlimited free international calling using a technical manual and a toy organ.
Ron Rosenbaum Esquire Oct 1971 55min Permalink
Hustling and sexual identity in Lagos.
Eloghosa Osunde Paris Review Oct 2020 20min Permalink
A former inmate on justice, violence, and jail time.
Reginald Dwayne Betts New York Times Magazine Oct 2020 20min Permalink
In 2003, a man robbed a bank with a bomb around his neck. It exploded shortly thereafter, taking his life and leaving authorities to try to figure out who had put it there.
Rich Schapiro Wired Dec 2010 20min Permalink
How a middle-class jock from a Texas border town became La Barbie, one of the most ruthless and feared cartel leaders in Mexico.
Mary Cuddehe, Vanessa Grigoriadis Rolling Stone Sep 2011 25min Permalink
A prolific con artist, decades of grift, and a trail of shattered relationships.
Katherine Laidlaw Toronto Life Sep 2020 25min Permalink
Thomas Quick confessed to more than 30 murders. But the man also known as Sture Bergwall may not have committed any of them.
Elizabeth Day The Observer Oct 2012 20min Permalink
The motley gang of L.A. teens that cat-burgled celebrities, sometimes repeatedly, in search of designer clothes, jewelry, and something to do. The story that became The Bling Ring.
Nancy Jo Sales Vanity Fair Mar 2010 20min Permalink
A futuristic world of scavenging and anatomical harvesting.
Yoon Ha Lee Lightspeed Magazine Apr 2020 30min Permalink
Katrina’s floodwaters had knocked out the power. Evacuation of the sickest patients seemed impossible. So the doctors at Memorial did what they thought was right, even if they knew it was a crime.
Sheri Fink New York Times Magazine Aug 2009 55min Permalink
The arson case that may have led Texas to execute an innocent man.
David Grann New Yorker Sep 2009 1h5min Permalink
A jailhouse interview with Steve Washak, who made millions selling “natural male enhancement” pills.
Amy Wallace GQ Sep 2009 20min Permalink
When a ring of thieves steals a poet’s beloved dog, one of the world’s most famous women must break her long domestic oppression and discover herself in the process.
Olivia Rutigliano Truly*Adventurous Jan 2020 30min Permalink
How the media and law enforcement fingered the wrong man for the 1996 Olympic Park bombing.
Marie Brenner Vanity Fair Feb 1997 1h15min Permalink
The many lives of imposter Frédéric Bourdin.
David Grann New Yorker Aug 2008 45min Permalink
A charming assistant funeral home director named Bernie Tiede murders a wealthy widow, keeps her in a freezer for months, finally gets caught, and still has the town's sympathy as his case goes to trial. The story that became Richard Linklater's Bernie.
Skip Hollandsworth Texas Monthly Jan 1998 20min Permalink
When a brain injury leads to a personality change and then prison time, a neuroscientist wonders if his brother could have been saved.
Tim Requarth Longreads Oct 2019 Permalink
Customer feedback on the New York City coke dealing industry.
Elizabeth Spiers Gawker Jan 2003 10min Permalink
In 1997, a logger-turned-activist named Grant Hadwin cut down a very special tree. Then he bought a kayak and disappeared.
John Vaillant New Yorker Nov 2002 25min Permalink
A report from Sprague’s Sports, a firearms emporium in Yuma, Arizona.
Jeanne Marie Laskas GQ Sep 2012 25min Permalink
Peggy Jo Tallas spent most of her adult life doing two things: taking care of her ailing mother and robbing bank after bank dressed as a pudgy, bearded cowboy.
Skip Hollandsworth Texas Monthly Nov 2005 35min Permalink
In May 2018, schoolgirl Ana Kriégel was lured from her home, brought to an abandoned house, and murdered. A year later two 14-year-old boys were found guilty of her killing, becoming the youngest people in the history of Ireland to be convicted of murder.
Conor Gallagher The Irish Times Jun 2019 1h10min Permalink
She moved to Cape Cod to escape the glitzy Manhattan world she born into. The only witness to her murder was her 2-year-old daughter. Everyone she knew, it seemed, was a suspect.
Vanessa Grigoriadis New York Feb 2002 25min Permalink
A profile of Edna Buchanan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning crime reporter for the Miami Herald during its heyday.
Calvin Trillin New Yorker Feb 1986 30min Permalink
How pop-up tax preparers make billions off the poor.
Gary Rivlin Mother Jones Mar 2011 15min Permalink