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Talk It Over With Captain Crunch
John T. Draper is most famous as "Captain Crunch," the legendary phone phreak who taught others how to make illicit use of Ma Bell's facilities to call almost anywhere, almost any time, for free. But (as a glance at his personal page will show you), that is just about the least of Draper's accomplishments. Not only that, he's still going strong. This is your chance to talk directly to a man without whom the modern-day personal computer -- and modern hacking and many other things we take for granted -- might not exist at all, and certainly would not exist in their current forms. One question per post please, and try to avoid asking questions that could be answered with a little online research. We'll send 10 or 12 of the highest-moderated questions to Draper tomorrow, and run his answers as soon as he has time to reply.
Has your view of computer security (in terms of effectiveness) changed as opposed to security 10 years ago?
Support Israeli punk bands. Man Alive.
Anyone who can call themselves a hacker (in the old sense of the world) will have lost sleep to a problem, that one that you absolutely must solve. In your formative years I expect phreaking or hacking problems grabbed you in this way, for each of us it's something different but it's the drive and focus we have in common. My question is, what grabs you like this now? Do you still get those moments when you just can't leave a problem alone?
Will/Have you ever make/made any changes you've made to OpenBSD for your Crunchbox available to the OpenBSD group?
vodka, straight up, thank you!
Ñ'
Are the phreaking times gone forever with the digital technology or it ain't interesting anymore since we have the internet?
In "Revenge of the Nerds," Woz tells the story of phreaking his way to Vatican City and trying to get the pope on the line, claiming to be Kissinger (IIRC)
Do you have a favorite story, either because of the people involved, the tech (high tech or low tech) used, or the problems solved along the way?
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Have you still got your original whistle? And if so, have you ever thought about putting it on eBay?
What is your outlook for the future of hacking high-tech consumer products? Given the increasingly hostile legal climate regarding these activities (DMCA et al) it appears that corporations have much stronger legal tools to go after hackers that in days gone by were seen as more of a not-well-understood nuisance factor. Are the good old days gone forever?
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Mr. Crunch,
Your campaign seems to have the momentum of a runaway freight train. Why are you so popular?
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
If you could go back and do it all over again, would you? Also, what do you consider to be the emerging playground (ie WiFi, etc) of phreaks today?
Could you elaborate on your opinion of new laws like the DMCA in the US and the variants thereof that are being introduced in Europe and the rest of the world.
What would have happened differently if laws like the DMCA were in force during your first phreaking sessions?
Mr. Draper,
It is an honor to "speak" with you.
Recently, in an information security class, I gave a presentation based mainly on your 1970's exploits and how you (and other's who have the fortunate distinction of not being made scapegoats by the government) helped lead to a more secure POTS system and stronger security in general, which is what most hackers want anyway.
My professor later berated my choice of topics as (his words not mine) "he is an obvious lawless felon and is not worthy of this class's time". How do you respond to this unfair characterization by others?
Also, it would seem that no lessons have been learned over the years since we still insist on punishing the messengers (hackers) rather than the cause (insecure systems). Is there any way you think we can change these perceptions?
Thank you.
Come on, Tinkler, Tink!!
This is similar I'm sure to questions you get asked all the time, but with, I think, a slightly different twist.
In what context do you put your activities of your youth now that you are older and, presumably, wiser. Have your views of hacking and the ethical implications changed over the years? Back then, if it were demonstrable to you that your activities were causing harm (presumably financial), would it have made any difference back then, does it make any differnce now?
Do you think your former actions in any way have affected the way big telecommunications providers look at themselves, their services and specially how their attitude and feeling of/behaving like they are always more right and migthier than the normal costumer ? And if so, what did you achive to change, even this was an uninteded side-effect of your former actions ?
What kind of dog barks "BOFH! BOFH!"? A rootweiler of course...
What prompted you to use OpenBSD as the platform for the Crunch Box? Not intending to start a BSD flame war, I am interested in why you personally chose OpenBSD versus any other BSD or Linux or anything else.
ASCII tastes bad dude.
Binary it is then.
I was curious what BBS's you frequented back in the day. I used to hang out on BBS's that ranged from Ripco in Chicago (very popular phreaker hangout) to USS Enterprise in Houston, TX, and of course, phreaking was the way that one tended to call BBS's. Nowdays computing is so much less "fun" than it used to be really. I remember using my trusty TI-99/4A to dial for codes with a program a friend and I wrote, wardialing, etc. All I can do is hang out on gamer sites and code sites like Naughtycodes
There have been rumours that you use your status within the 'hacker community' to lure young boys into having sex with you. Is that true, or would you like to refute those claims.
I also hear that you're a big proponant of illicit drug use, has this been a life time habit, or something more recent, such as when you started going to raves.
PS.. maybe its a troll, but if you've met him, you know the above it true.
What illicit technology offers the most fun and challenge today... where are the new frontiers for today's hackers to push the bleeding edge, and what interesting directions do you see them taking with it?
SoupIsGood Food
Dear Sir,
:) ).
Having grown up (there's a scary thought) hearing about the pioneering work you did, i always wondered:
If you could do it over again, would you do something differently? Anything you regret doing? Perhaps more importantly, anything you regret having not done?
(In the context of your telecom / computer life, i don't mean to pry into your.. ah.. personal affairs
Are you and Steve Jobs still friends? Is it true that your "blue box" design inspired the iMac?
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
In your day, phreakers et al were pretty much barely a blip on the radar screen. A few of you got charged with old laws, several were threatened or intimidated, and many many kids followed in your wake.
Now we're watching a world get built where PhD thesis material might be illegal, writing code can get you arrested and charged, and even giving an academic presentation is threatened.
How much responsibility, if any, do you think the early phreakers and hackers have for this rash of paranoid law?
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
In comparing the security back in the day, and modern, much more complicated systems, how much of a factor is overall complexity in the way things have changed over the years? Does more complexity (and therefore obscurity) make things harder, or does it make things easier, since even the people doing the security don't understand what's going on?
In other words, what's your take on obscurity/security?
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
Lately, there have been many instances of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act being used to prevent the publication of security issues found with various companies' products and services, or both.
/dig,/ so to speak, is security, what is your take on such invocations of the Act?
A recent story here on Slashdot covered university ID cards being flawed, and the DMCA being invoked to prevent discussion of the problem publicly.
Given that your
-/-
Mikey-San
http://www.mikey-san.net/
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
It seems that every week brings some new bill or rider or regulation whose intended goal is strip away yet another sliver of our shrinking collection of privacy rights and individual liberties.
Considering your unique set of experience and insight, what do you most fear in the impending struggle between the government's desire to have total information and the people's right to liberty? Or, in other words, against what do we need to be most vigilant?
So, does the Crunchbox have a cereal interface?
In the "olden days" (not so long ago), other than some of the physical kind, security was almost non existent at telcos. For many years, AT&T published all the technical details of their networks and switchgear in a tech journal that could be found at nearly any university library.
In the mid-80's, I lived in an apartment that was right upstairs from a GTE Telenet point of presense... and all their dialup modem lines terminated in an unlocked punchblock box *in my bathroom*!!
What is your assessment of the improvements in the quality of telco security, both physical and that which is more ephymeral, since those times?
O.K., that's really two questions. 1.5 Questions? Is it permissible to have a fractal number of questions? Anyway, thanks in advance.
stirring the pot since nineteen mumblty mumble...
questions about the "good old days". Tell us what the future holds in store IYHO (phreaking-wise, cracking-wise, or hacking-wise, that is).
I read somewhere (might have been Hackers by Steven Levy) that you have a highly idiosyncractic and paranoid coding style, checking and double-checking everything. Is this true? What can you tell us about it?