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Woz Expounds On His Hacking Shenanigans and Online Mischief
coondoggie writes "In his keynote address at a security conference today, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak admitted he has enjoyed many adventures in hacking often for the sake of pranks on friends and family, especially back in his college days and the early years of working on computers and the Internet. 'I like to play jokes,' said the Wozniak jovially as he addressed his audience of thousands of security professionals attending the ASIS Conference in Chicago. The famed inventor at Apple admitted he also had some fun with light-hearted forays into hacking computer and telecommunications networks several decades ago back in his college years and while learning about electronics and computers."
Kid's will be kids. Case dismissed!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
I think that Woz needed the early marketing genius of Jobs to shine and make a real difference in society with the Apple 2; and it is equally true that Jobs would not have been able to rise to fame back then without the technical genius of Wozniak. Their talents complemented each other very well, and at the right time. Imagine if Woz would have had an early job offer at say HP. He might have become a respected engineer over there, but unlikely with the same recognition today. We wouldn't have heard of Jobs so early on, yet the man had a such a good consumer insight that it is not inconceivable that he would have become notable in other ways.
1) He did some phreaking (phone hacking, back when audible frequencies were used to control the networks).
2) He made a TV jammer and then had friends go try out elaborate steps to "fix" the issue.
3) He snuck into computing facilities and tested out his punch card programs in the middle of the night when they weren't in use.
That's about it from the article. No particularly scintillating details even. Just stuff most of us have already heard.