Spiro was the name given to the blue box, a piece of telephone hacking equipment used in the 1970s to make long distance telephone calls without being billed. In a sarcastic reference, it was named after Spiro Agnew, the vice-president of the United States at the time, who was greatly unpopular with the youth and counterculture who largely made up the telephone hacking community. Other pieces of hacking equipment were named the Agnew, and even the T, Agnew's middle initial.