Slashdot Mirror
New Boxes For Captain Crunch
Logic Bomb, standing in for a crowd of submittors, writes: "The New York Times has an interesting profile (free reg req) of John T. Draper, a long-time phreaker and hacker. He's had quite a career, but is probably best known for figuring out that a freebie toy whistle from a cereal box generated the right tone to make free calls at pay phones. It's an entertaining read."
As sachsmachin puts it, "Crunch is apparently trying to redeem his blue-box-filled past by working as a white-hat hacker in the Web security industry -- his company, "ShopIP," does OpenBSD-based firewalls." Draper is also well-known for writing the first word processor for the IBM PC, (EasyWriter) among other things.
Back in the days before the Internet, the only network available to 'play' with was the phone network... Since AT&T had just spent so much time and money bragging about thier new 'in band signaling network' which used the same wires that the voice signals crossed to control the switches... man, talk about just _asking_ for it! Just remember that the next time some router vendor trys to sell you an MPLS switch!
Of course, some folks just can't help put want to put thier hand on the hot stove...
Thanks for bringing this problem to our attention!
I forwarded this to our server operations department. It should be fixed (disabled) soon.
Sincerely,
NYT Customer Service
when Captain Crunch used to be Donkey Kong Cereal? That was good shit.
In 1971, John Draper taught Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak how to make blue boxes. They sold them door-to-door on the Berkeley campus.
Decades later, Jobs brings Apple back from the brink of despair by.. selling computers with coloured boxes!
From there you needed a special tone dialer with access to the special tones. It was the same thing as standard DTMF except with different tones.
You can also dial by interupting the 2600Hz at 10Hz. The digit 3 is 3 interruptions just like the old direct current dial pulsing. That's the old timey way. It's far easier to build a couple oscillators and a switch to cause them to play particular tones together than to build a dial pulsing circuit that works correctly, unless you can cannibalize an old rotary phone. Since you only have about 10 sec to dial your number, you have to be right and fast. It's really tough to dial a 10-13 digit number that quickly. A zero takes a second to dial at 10 interruptions per second. Many of those and you might not finish your number. The MF tone pulser wins hands down on speed dialing and automation. Hence, it's the phreaker's choice.
As for the security being appalling, remember this system evolved over time. The first 2600 Hz oscillators used tubes, inductors and capacitors. They were often stabilized with light bulbs connected in the circuit as positive temperature coefficient thermistors. Some were probably still in service in the early 80's.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
This was also known as in-band signaling because the signaling tone was in the voice band (200 Hz to 3400 Hz). It is used to interface microwave based FDM (Frequency Domain Multiplexing) systems to PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) systems. The presence of the 2600 Hz tone signifies "on hook". Thus, dial pulsing was represented by 10 pulse per second interruptions of the tone and ringing was represented by 20 pulse per second interruptions of the tone. In essence, all the foreign exchange subscriber (FXS) and foreign exchange office (FXO) signaling functions were implemented with the tone. If the tone were sent *before* the called party picked up, that signified a WATS line call, a free call.
This caused a Friday afternoon crisis. We bought all the Captain Crunch we could find, since not all the whistles would emit a tone close enough to 2600Hz to activate the detector. We had to increase the selectivity of the LC filters by increasing their Q and increase the voice path cut delay.
Even after doing this, some people could inadvertently "talk-down" the connection. Women with mousy voices and old men who whistled through their teeth as they talked could knock down the connection. "Talk-down" happens when you send the 2600 Hz tone during the conversation, an inherent problem with this signaling scheme.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
1) no@no.no
2) setup a hotmail account if you actually need to have a password sent to you.
Sure...I get tons of spam at my seldom looked at hotmail account, but I could probably setup a brand new one and get the same amount of spam.
I met John Draper at an Audio Engineering Society convention in 1981. He was talking to the guys from Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) about Forth. Turns out he was a friend of Chris Hanley, who went on to buy A&R Studios in NYC, so we hung out for awhile and I visited him in Berkeley (maybe Oakland?). Strange guy, but he was basically responsible for my switch from hardware to software, and for that I thank him still and wish him well.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
yuk yuk yuk
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
On another note, draper loves to goto raves and give kids E so that hey can show them "how to release their enegry". If you don't belive me, goto just about any rave in CA and watch what he does.
Sick man.
-miah
-miah
How would the world of networking have been different if the world's most popular personal computer inn the early 1980s had shipped with a modem?
Nope, it was even more subversive than that.. A computer-controlled bluebox.. Imagine having a easy-to-use, software programmable interface to control the phone system?
Your Working Boy,
- Explaining the problem to someone else.
- On a long car trip (commuting to work used to provide ample design time).
- In the shower in the morning.
Whereas those times when I've pounded away at a problem in front of a computer for hours on end tend to give solutions that work, but I'd hardly call them elegant or robust...Get off my lawn.
Mr Crunch is a shady character, and one I wouldn't trust with my Internet security. He's a complete joke to almost everyone in the scene, and most people consider him a pedophile. He was kicked out of several private parties at the last Defcon, and was generally ridiculed the whole weekend. Why does he get such harsh treatment from the scene? It's likely caused by the fact that he's much older (and looks the part) than almost any one else (with the exception of the outright insane 'Happy Hacker' Carolyn Meinel), and he acts like a cross of a hermit from a Monty Python sketch and grampa from The Simpsons. I'm not sure what the point of this post is. But it's probably something to the effect of: he won't get supported by the scene on his zany security endeavors because he's got no cred. Or something. I dunno.
# wrote sig.txt, 23 lines, 31337 chars
Because they want an email address, and allot of people don't like giving any company a email unless they are sure it isn't going to be sold and then spamed to hell and back. I'm appriciate the fact that he put the link on. Otherwise I wouldn't have even botherd to read the article or read through the discussion.
If ignorance is bliss, the world is full of blissful people
Man, this makes me sick. You guys out on the west coast get to have all the fun!
True, but wasn't it Draper who
figured out that it could be done with
cheap whistles?
I was immediately concerned that the actual captain on the cereal box was going to change when reading the subject. Further reading revealed no such trauma.
It wasn't "Captain Crunch" who figured out that you could make free calls with the whistle that came with the 'Captain Crunch' cereal.
Although he did claim it in the beginning, he admitted the truth after beeing called a lot of bad names for taking the credit from a group of blind kids that discovered this.
Today, he openly admitts, it were the blind kids, who figured it out, but has completely forgotten about that he tryed to credit himself with the discovery.
You can read about it here
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Yeah, it figures that fuck Markoff would write favorably about that pervert. I've never met Crunch, but I know hacks that have...and who were invited back to his room for a little massage. Very young hacks. Ick.
korc
username: dotslash
passwd: slashdot
Have fun...
--
Slashdot didn't accept your submission? hackerheaven.org will!
NYTimes.com has had my e-mail address since 1994 (and, yes, I have had the same e-mail that long...), and I have never once recieved spam from them or anyone identified as a 'partner' or anything. The spam I do get is so low grade (university diplomas and home morgages and the like), that I'm 99% sure that NYTimes had nothing to do with it.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I crossed paths with him several times in the
late 70s and 80s at Apple/mac users' groups.
Seemed to be a reasonable guy with a few
eccentricies.
It's a bad practace and shouldn't be encuraged.
Is there any real danger than NY times will do anything evil with it? No
The notion that a website should ask that you sign in is something I'd like to discurage...
Slashdot you gotta sign in to post... not thats not even true.. you can post annon.. you sign in to give yourself an identity...
Ok I can see an account to add content.. but not to simply read it..
I don't like where this is headed and I'll fight it kicking and screamming if I have to...
When ever I folow a link and it asks for a password... I don't bother...
I'm non-fond of the partners back door... NY times should fix that... I'm not gona use it..
If they really want my visits they can let me read it like a normal website...
I don't actually exist.
I used to hang out with him when he lived in Berkeley, then Alameda. Learned a lot about the Mac in the later days; he had one of the first commercial uses for vblanking code (I'm not doing Mac stuff any more; I hope that's what it's called).
He's a very intense and smart guy. Crazy too, but in a good way. I'd consider buying one of his firewalls if I needed one.
Having met John on several occasions, and had lengthy security discussions with him, it seems that this technical savvy expired after writing EasyWriter. This guy did do a lot for the "scene" back in the day, but he's simply outclassed in today's security business. The company is riding on a name. Would you hire Eric Corely to secure your network? Of course not. He's got a name known to the media, but that's about it. Unless the company has some technical people, its merely riding on a name that's 30 years out of date... $.02
Anyone notice this thread is being over moderated? There are/were a ton of posts about alleged child molestation, etc. Having seen this man in action, I hate to say it, but these people do have a valid point. Is slashdot afraid of a Libel Lawsuit against them? There's probably hundreds of people that could testify with first knowledge on this. This man is not eccentric. He's got a problem which people overlook because at one point, he did something that people thought was cool.
That was sarcasm...
Like saying a system with a default root password is secure, until someone finds it.
Not really. It's like leaving the door unlocked, but using a different type of key.
The 2600Hz tone dropped you to a trunk, basically. From there you needed a special tone dialer with access to the special tones. It was the same thing as standard DTMF except with different tones.
So all you'd end up doing if you whistled 2600 would be to drop the call. Only if you had a custom-made tone dialer, or (in later years) a PC, could you do anything.
The whole in-band signalling was a hack, to save them from having to reimplement a bunch of stuff. It tacked onto the existing system with a minimum of effort and was completely secure. Until someone found out what the tones were...
Cool. I didn't know you could 'pulse dial' with it.
Thanks.
"Whether black hats can become white hats is not a black-and-white question"
:)
I thought that was EXACTLY the kind of question it was!
It is also widely accepted in hacker-lore that the person who is Captain Crunch could whistle a perfectly pitched 2600 Hz. without the use of any devices.
I've met Crunch on several occasions, and done energy work with him. It's applied reflexology, and there's nothing sexual about it. I do not believe any of these silly pedophilia accusations.
These are 'live' concerns. Here in NoVa there are quite a few execs, and newspaper reporters, who read slashdot. This concern is one that many people in the industry have. Good post and good responses. These security concerns are ones we need to address. Many suits think that open source is less secure. Or, at least, that there is less opportunity to sue a vendor if a security flaw exposes vital data. Of course, the effects of UCITA needs to be explained to the suits. But WITHOUT flames. For the effect of flames on suits, and reporters, ask Jerry Pournelle why he (and many others) gave up on reporting on Apple.
Best Slashdot Co
For debugging, though, I agree; there's nothing like hardcopy and a big conference table on which to spread it.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I remember hearing about him many years ago where he showed a bunch of kids how to do "Crunch-Ups". Sounded pretty perverted if you ask me.
> My A500 is STILL faster than a 486Dx66.
And it's still BETTER (design-wise) than an Athlon 700.
--------
Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
So what exactly are you implying here? All I see in that photograph is a man sitting in front of a computer talking to some teenagers. From that we are supposed to deduce that Draper is some kind of wacko? That's a serious accusation to make without any evidence to back it up.
I don't know Draper myself. Never heard of him before today. Maybe he is what you say. Maybe he is not. But from where I sit, your post looks to be nothing more than a smear campaign.
Oh. Well, maybe it's just as well that I don't know the guy.
This is a very humorous and interesting read. Check it out:
http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/story.html
Learn from your parents' mistakes: use birth control.
Sometimes I just wonder if we would be able to save 50million /. users 30s each typing out 'partners', and a few dozen writing posts like the above and moderators' time in giving them points, if the editors who approve the posts could spend 30s changing the link themselves? Hell, they always have time to tag on a witty comment after the post anyway!
---
Why would there be no background checks on a programmer just because he is writing Open-Source code? Open or Closed, I would assume it is in the best interests of an Internet security company to audit both their code and their programmers...in fact, the fact that the code is OS just means it can easily be audited externally...
"Nobody owns the fucking words man." - James Dean
He wasn't the guy that actually figured out the whistle thing. He asserts that some of his blind friends that were into phreaking with him showed him that if you glued 2 of the holes closed that the whistle emits a perfect 2600 hertz. The whistle trick was discovered after the invention of the blue box.
John Draper is a very intelligent individual. I remember when he was starting his company up, we used to chat about security protocols and the like. Also a point of interest is that he did a lot of toying with radio as well. Also Easy Writer was written in FORTH... it takes a real hacker to program in FORTH. C is a toy by comparison (in some respects). Anyway, Kudos to the cap'n for being featured on slashdot in a good way.
I am the penguin that codes in the night.
Isn't the article author, John Markoff, surrounded by controversy regarding Kevin Mitnick? I seem somehow recalling that Mr. Markoff engaged in a betrayal... it seems like so long ago. I can't remember the details, but there are those I know who turn up their noses at the mention of his name, muttering that this guy hosed Mitnick pretty ruthlessly.. Regards, Eric
I have an in-box pre-ordered PC (when I bought it the tape hadn't even been removed), complete with the manuals, disks, and little advertising plugs for upcoming software. One of them is a little black on light blue order form so you can order DisplayWrite when it becomes available. I think the date quoted was April or May, but I'm not really sure. Oh, an interesting note; On the invoice, MSDOS cost a grand total of $41.59, CP/M was nearly $300. Adjust that for inflation!!
.sig: Now legally binding!
John Markoff (the author of this Times article) paired up with Tsutomu Shimomura to write the book "Takedown" about the original capture of Kevin Mitnick. He also co-wrote "Cyberpunk : Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier" with Katie Hafner.
Your apples are all infected now.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
I could go around and say the world was made of cheese and no one would believe me.
Why?
Because of all the different things that exist in the world.
No matter how hard I would try I could not limit the discussion to the sentence the world is made of cheese.
Now with source code? HA! No see now we have a magic bullet.
I let people make changes to my code. I have a million blind men try to tell me what this elephant of a decision will do to my code.
What code on which machine in what room do I allow who in which part of my business to do what to in what way to what extent?
It's the difference between saying you're open to possibilities and saying you will walk naked in the street.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
So Captain Crunch is designing BSD firewalls eh? 5 gets you 10 they're invulnerable to everything... except a whistle at 2600 hz...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
are you sure you're not thinking about Sneakers ?
Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
Leela: No he didn't.
You Sir, are an idiot.
It is people like you who are forcing "crackers" to continue with their illegal activities. They have got to earn a living to pay their rent and put food on their table, and the back side of security is what they know best.
Now think for a while, where would you like to have a "cracker": in a computer security job, under constant scrutiny and surveillance, or out in the wild, working for, say, organized crime instead?
And BTW, Draper wasnt a cracker but a phreaker.
/Dervak
You dont seem to understand. Crunch was a phreaker, not a cracker. That means that he hacked the phone system, not computers. So why should he be barred from working with computers? It is a different field.
So you dont want to work with him? Fine, it is your right. But do not place onerous restraints on people who do not deserve them.
And BTW, WRT what you said, what happens to a bad politician? Answer: He gets to be president, even if more than 50% of the people voting opposed him.
/Dervak
... when his firewall becomes open source.
According to the article, I inferred this:
1) He can't hold a job
2) He can't handle money (so much for support)
3) He's very clever, but doesn't care. I'd always have a nagging suspicion of intentional backdoors.
You can bypass all the reg-required NY Times links if you notice that channel.nytimes.com has all the stories, but without the login prompts. Next, notice that channel.nytimes.com has a different IP address than www.nytimes.com and nytimes.com. Do a DNS lookup on channel.nytimes.com and add it to your hosts file, something like this:
208.48.26.223 www.nytimes.com
208.48.26.223 nytimes.com
There. No more reg links. channel.nytimes.com gives you a directory listing for the root directory, however, so you don't get a flashy intro page. But if you use their page at www.nytimes.com, you probably have an account there anyway.
Is code quality worse now that people are used to just sitting down and hacking it out?
Yes, much worse.
Debugging is done by the quickest and dirtiest method. It always has been, that's just human (and geek) nature. The difference is that In The Olden Days, it was so slow to do the compile, run, test cycle that you would make damn sure the program couldn't possibly go wrong first -- simply through laziness. It was easier to know about things like loop invariants, because it was so damned painful to compile anything. If a bug showed up, it was because you'd made a mistake (despite trying) - it wasn't just a case of "run it and see what falls out".
These days, pressing the button is quick and easy. If it compiles, throws something on the screen, and doesn't let the magic smoke out immediately, then it's "finished" (I'm telling you kid, it ain't). Very few people have any idea of whether their code is really bug-free or not, simply that it has shown no obvious bugs as yet. This is a very scary quality standard.
- When I goto bed, but just before I get to sleep
- When I give up and go for a smoke (Not going to be everyones cup of tea, natch)
- When I get really stuck, I goto the loal pub and read a newspaper or something. The solution usually comes to me on the walk back after a couple of pints
;)
Everyone has their own ways of walking away and re-examining a problem though.Syllable : It's an Operating System
From the article:
It was an ideal situation," he said. "It forced me to get off the computer and think and debug my program."
I had a computer science prof who just couldn't seem to emphasize this enough--"don't just sit down at the computer and start coding away. It'll be a nightmare. You need to be away from the machine and think out your code before you start in on it, and sometimes it helps to get a hardcopy and review the code on paper when you're debugging. "
In this age, though, all the up-and-coming programmers, the college kids and such, have had no experience with programming that required a LOT more effort and thought--such as punch cards, time-limited use of a mainframe, etc. They sit down at their $400 eMachines and bang out some Java. Is there anyone here who can comment on this? Is code quality worse now that people are used to just sitting down and hacking it out?
Also--in the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley"--even I know a good deal of that movie was exaggeration and pretty flashy things, but blue boxes WERE shown--what did a blue box look like?
Any URLs?
I'm honestly asking this stuff here. Thanks.
Angry IT woman in big clompy boots. And talking lint!.
Discovery Online has John Draper in their Hall of Fame. Gives some general information about him.
There's more information about him, EasyWriter, and his work at WebCrunchers.
Shortly after leaving prison, Mr. Draper was hired by Apple Computer, at a time when the company had only 15 employees. He developed a telephone-dialing card for the original Apple II computer. But Apple never marketed it for fear that it could be used as a powerful computer-controlled blue box.
Now that's a product that could have shaken the industry, at least in hindsight. How would the world of networking have been different if the world's most popular personal computer inn the early 1980s had shipped with a modem? Would we already have universal broadband by now? :)
http://freshmeat.net/projects/charities.cron/
So.., who the hell would submit their code with a backdoor????
:P
That would be the height of stupidity.
I dont think the OpenBSD folks audit every single installations code every 6 months
Jeremy
Why bother pandering to paranoids who think the NYT is out to steal their souls (or even worse, their bandwidth). If you're that bothered, get a Hotmail account, or Bigfoot, or any other freeby mailbox.
You never get something for nothing. In this case, you get free news (instead of having to pay however much each day) in exchange for your user demographics and an email address - that's the deal, take it or leave it. If you want to leave it, then don't bitch that you can't get free news.
Grab.
And don't tell me the code would be checked, because most code isn't checked at all,never mind sufficient to uncover something like this.
Doesn't openBSD do line-by-line security audits every six months? If they do, any backdoors would certainly be caught.
IIRC, BSD does an audit on any patches sent to them, they haven't had a remotely exploitable problem in over three years.
Just my two cents.
"This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries."
Attorney General Mike Hatch on Microsoft
You poor child. You must realise that a person's actions in the world are measured by their success, not how many or what they screw.
Geek Culture killed my dog/
and I don't think it's fair...
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
... that we as a culture (a Geek Culture, of course.) should demand Cap'n Crunch as an ikon, worthy of veneration - that is, unless there are ikonoklasts in the /. world. Man... the things you come up with half an hour out of bed .
(I mis-spelled "icon" on purpose, BTW, to distinguish between the thing you click on, and the thing you worship. "Ikon" is from the Greek of the similar spelling (iota-kappa-omikron-nu), and denotes a thing worthy of worship. See Greek and Byzantine history for more.)
Geek Culture killed my dog/
and I don't think it's fair...
io hymen hymnaee io
io hymen hymnaee
Why the fuck can't you people just register an account? I takes like 30 seconds! And if you allow the damn cookie you'll never have to type the password in again. Sheesh, are you people really that paranoid? I mean you have to logon to slashdot to post under your username and retrive settings....
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
Well, assumedly, the source could be diffed against the current source tree, or against whatever version he clamied to be using. Assuming that we trust the OpenBSD team we would only need to validate the changes to the code, not the whole thing, in fact, given that OpenBSD is already being used as a firewall would probably mean that no real new code would need to be added.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
Capt'n crunch could tell any tone by ear to a few Hz (as many people can, apperantly), but I havn't heard anything about him being able to whisle that freqency. If he could, why would he ever need the whisle? There was one blind kid who could whisle any tone, however.
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
"and dear god does this website suck now." -- CmdrTaco
You might find some more useful information in this list of Phreak URLs - the alt.phreaking FAQ will help shed some light on who was 'Cap'n Crunch' and other 'lore' phreakers. If you can't whistle at 2600Hz, nor get hold of a suitable whistle, have a look for the link to 'Reorder Tones'....
Richy C.
Here's the no login link to http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/01/29/technology/ 29CAP.html.
Richy C.
You're correct - the US telephone companies used a signal at 2600Hz to switch customer lines onto the telephone 'trunk'. More information can be found in Chapter 5 of 'The Phreakers Manual' as well as the details of the legendary blue box
Richy C.
I'd rather have a hacker working on setting up my computer than a white-collar MSCE. When you learn something on your own, you usually understand it better than when it's taught to you. And someone who knows how to exploit something will also know how to better protect against it.
--------------------
rr
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Very cool story! Even though "Easy Writer" is a minor sub-point to the article, I actually used it! Many, Many, Many years ago... I think it ranked up there with my copy of Desqview and Norton Editor. Cool.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
It was my (female) partner who researched the origin of the billboard slogan for me. I'm real enough for her. She doesn't exactly share my view on porn, but that bothers neither one of us.
So you've tried to insult me, now have a go at my girlfriend if it will make you feel better.
FatPhil
-- Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Joe Engressia... That's the chap.
That deaf dumb and blind kid, sure makes a mean phone call...
This from one of many computer timeline sites (http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/pcinfo/hardware/com phist/comp1980.htm):
IBM announces the IBM 5150 PC Personal Computer, in New York. The PC features a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 CPU, 64 KB RAM, 40 KB ROM, one 5.25-inch floppy drive (160 KB capacity), and PC-DOS 1.0 (Microsoft's MS-DOS), for about US$3000. Also included is Microsoft BASIC, VisiCalc, UCSD Pascal, CP/M-86, and Easywriter 1.0. A fully loaded version with color graphics costs US$6000.
This link gives general information and stories about cap'n crunch.
At any rate, I am happy to see that this talented individual is using his talents in a positive way, and I hope he succeeds in this endeavor.
What does everyone else think? Is the "hacker" image of the OSS community hurting it?
Anyone who calls [the cereal]
"Captain Crunch" obviously doesn't
eat it a lot.
It's "Cap'n Crunch". Arrrr.
http://www.capncrunch.com/
"Never bullshit a bullshitter" All That Jazz
Wow...I haven't thought about the idea of phreaking a phone system in years. It is very interesting to see where Cap'n Crunch is these days and see what he is doing... It is nice to see that he has/is overcoming his hard times and getting along pretty well.
Anyone know what ever happened to the blind guy who could whistle a perfect 2600 tone? I think he was simply called Joe the Whistler, but I may be mistaken...
I used to have an interest in all of the phreaking stuff in the early to mid '90s (even then most of it was out of date, but still interesting). It was interesting stuff and I may have pulled a trick or two with it in my day, but it taught me a LOT about the phone system and why things happen, not to mention about various electronics devices and how to put them together (anyone remember the file all.box? had plans on how to build/use the many different "box" types...all this info is useless today and most of was useless when I learned it, but it sure was fun to build that variable tone generator, even if I never used it).
Ahhh...tinkering with these devices was always fun and very educational.
the memories...
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
After reading three pages of incredibly detailed narrative descriping Randy's Cap'n Crunch ritual, was anybody else waiting for the subject to pop up again?
I mean, it was definitely a reference to Draper, and it sure seemed like foreshadowing, but it was never mentioned again.
--
--
You are a fucking moron.
And the latest iMac will cook a great hamburger.
iMac grill
You gotta have one big subwoofer to make good sine waves below 25 or so Hz. Chances are the box can generate from 1Hz to 20kHz, but the speaker cannot.
I'm not sure I'd pay $75 for a piece of plastic unless, of course, it were a Star Wars figure. :-)
/*drunk.. fix later*/
How do you say bsckdoor in pig-latin?
"During the day, he recalled, he would write the code. Then, at night, after returning to jail, he would study the paper list of programming commands, looking for errors. "It was an ideal situation," he said. "It forced me to get off the computer and think and debug my program."
Gotta admit its one hell of a way to increase productivity. I can just see some evil project manager chuckling with glee and reaching for the number of the nearest jail....
Jon
Anyways, it had Five dials. One for each digit. It was cool. And accurate.
"I have not slept a wink"
William Shakespeare, Cybelime
"I have not slept a wink"
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
Sounds like the guy's had a hard time. He's been to prison paid his debt to society, good luck to him. Obviously it's nothing more than a guess, but I'd say he's (probably) not going to stick backdoors into his clients firewalls.
We ARE the peat bog soldiers.
Forth -- John was really into to it for a while.
So anything emitting a 2600 Hz whistle could kick the long distance network into "free calling" mode. While I don't condone theft, isn't this like leaving your car window down 1/2 inch and jewelry on the dash?
'...Mr. Baggett said. "He played a huge role in the early days of the personal computer industry, and it's a crime he hasn't been able to reap the rewards."'
Need I say more?
"He was robbed on a Texas highway where he lost a notebook computer containing the only copy of his autobiography."
;)
I might be persuaded to hire someone with past criminal tendencies (he ought to be good at security -- if he remembers which side he's on), but forgetting to keep backups is really inviting disaster.
I don't really want to "trash" John, but I have to agree with some of the "ugly" things being said about him, I HAVE met him, so I do know what I'm talking about to some degree.
Over twenty years ago, I used to do a radio show in SIlicon Valley, and for about four months John was one of my regular callers on my graveyard show (2-6am). We would usually talk an hour or more during my show. We talked allot about radio, and music, since we had dj backgrounds, and similar eclectic musical tastes, and I played stuff that even he hadn't heard. We also talked some about computers, Ham Radio, and phone phreaking. After weeks of invites, he eventually convinced me to come up to his place in the Oakland Hills to visit.
I had mentioned that I was bringing along my girlfriend, but it didn't get any response, so I figured it was cool... Wrong!
We arrived at his apt, and were greeted at the door by a young long blond haired, shirtless "boy" who finally let us in, and went to get John after "questioning" me repeatedly why we were there, and what "she" (My GF) was doing here. The house was crowded with young "beautiful" boys, in various states of undress, just shy of naked, some at computers, some exercising, some just walking around, and they ALL had this same "vacant" stare about them like they were drugged,, it was REALLY, REALLY WEIRD.
Shortly, a shirtless John arrived and greeted me, and NOT my GF, she didn't exist, it quickly became apparent. My GF was a classically beautiful auburn haired woman, who drew attention in public just through her good looks. It was a social situation I had never been in before (or since!) and I was unsure how to deal with it, so I dumbly kept on conversing with him, much to my GF's chagrin.
Within minutes, he was trying to get me to "come on down to the gym" to do "energy work" and "stretching excerises" with him. Now, I mean really pushing me, it was a very intimidating experience. This was NOT the same guy I had been talking with on Thursday mornings on my show, at least it sure didn't seem like it was.
I said "What about my GF?", and he said, "Oh, "she" can stay here". I was "tweaked out", my GF was tweaked out and pissed, and I ended the visit at that point. We couldn't wait to get out of there, he and his whole scene there was VERY CREEPY!!
At a party sometime later, I was talking to several dj's from other Bay Area stations , and discovered he apparently called other late night dj's and invited them up to his place too. That's when I first heard about "Crunch ups", and a bunch of other "icky" stuff about John.. I am not "homo phobic", I had gay and bi aquaintences, so to each their own, but it was clear that John didn't care for women, and was very pushy, and "unsettling" in person.
I do want to say that John is a very bright and intelligent person, and I truly enjoyed our long phone conversations, but he definetly is one strange dude that I don't want to associate with ever again.
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Didn't you READ what others are saying about him?
He's a SEXUAL PREDATOR!
Damn fool...
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
"Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards
Real Porn Doesn't Use Men. -- Phil."
Real Women Know That *Real* Men Don't Sign Themselves This Way. -- Zozo
Zo
Does this mean that we should cut off your fingers because you type a bunch of shit. No! Just because you are ignorant do we cease to allow you to spue your bull. Your idiotic ranting should not be considered seriously by intelligent people. Mr coward you must think your perfect. YA right