The practice of 'phone phreaking' began in the the 1950's. A phone phreak is one who loves the phone system and would often use the system in illegal ways, hence, 'phone phreaking.'

Phishing is a portmanteau of "phreaking and fishing". "Phreaking", another kind of scam, is in turn a portmanteau of "phone" and "freaking".

Phreaking is a crime because phreakers are obtaining the services of a pay phone without paying for them. They are essentially stealing service from phone companies.

"Phishing" as a term meaning to attempt to fraudulently obtain information over the Internet was first noted in 1996. The PH doesn't stand for anything, but the word may derive from a combination of "fishing"; from the idea of supplying a "baited" email and "phreaking". "Phreaking" was a combination of "phone" and "freak" and was the attempt to use tones to control the early long distance calls from the subscribers phone.