New Boxes For Captain Crunch 146
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.
Just A Reminder (Score:1)
Of course, some folks just can't help put want to put thier hand on the hot stove...
Thanks! (Score:1)
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
Does anyone remember... (Score:2)
Humourous aside.. (Score:5)
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!
Re:Appallingly poor security (Score:1)
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.
Re:2600 - the rceiving end of this hack (Score:2)
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.
Re:Reg link (Score:1)
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.
good guy - kinda sad (Score:1)
Re:cereal (Score:3)
yuk yuk yuk
--
Let's not forget that he's a pervert. (Score:1)
Sick man.
-miah
Re:Apple II Modem? (Score:1)
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,
Re: Some Questions (Score:2)
Captain Crunch is shady. (Score:2)
Re:Reg link (Score:1)
Gee whiz (Score:1)
Re:Don't forget the blind kids ,,, (Score:2)
figured out that it could be done with
cheap whistles?
cereal (Score:4)
Don't forget the blind kids ,,, (Score:5)
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 [webcrunchers.com]
--
Why pay for drugs when you can get Linux for free ?
MOD DOWN THIS TROLL! (Score:2)
Re:Cryptonomicon (Score:2)
Re:Markoff (Score:2)
No, Mod it Down! (Score:2)
Re:No, Mod it Down! (Score:2)
Re:No, Mod it Down! (Score:3)
Figures Markoff would write about a pervert.... (Score:1)
ObLoginDanceCircumventionPost (Score:2)
passwd: slashdot
Have fun...
--
Slashdot didn't accept your submission? hackerheaven.org [hackerheaven.org] will!
Re:Reg link (Score:1)
--
a silicon valley character (Score:2)
late 70s and 80s at Apple/mac users' groups.
Seemed to be a reasonable guy with a few
eccentricies.
Bad practace (Score:1)
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...
Draper's a clever guy (Score:1)
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.
Somewhat skeptical of ShopIP (Score:1)
Overmoderation (Score:1)
Re:Appallingly poor security (Score:1)
Like saying a system with a default root password is secure, until someone finds it.
Re:Appallingly poor security (Score:2)
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...
Re:Appallingly poor security (Score:2)
Thanks.
Black and white... (Score:2)
I thought that was EXACTLY the kind of question it was!
The Cap'n (Score:1)
In defense of Crunch (Score:1)
Mod it up (Score:2)
Re:No, Mod it Down! (Score:2)
Re:No, Mod it Down! (Score:2)
Re:Some Questions (Score:2)
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/
crunch-ups (Score:1)
Re: Some Questions (Score:1)
And it's still BETTER (design-wise) than an Athlon 700.
--------
Genius dies of the same blow that destroys liberty.
Re:Sic transit gloria mundi (Score:1)
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.
Re:Sic transit gloria mundi (Score:1)
Re:Humourous aside.. (Score:2)
I showed him something about a phone he didn't already know. B-)
Captain Crunch's Autobiography/Story (Score:1)
http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/story.html [webcrunchers.com]
Re:a silicon valley character (Score:1)
I had always thought he was an urban legend until I discovered he was hanging out in the rave scene
-marsh
Re:No reg. link (Score:1)
---
Re:A problem (Score:1)
Actually he didn't figure that out (Score:1)
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.
Markoff (Score:2)
Re:More information on the man (Score:2)
Re:cereal (Score:2)
John Markoff (Score:1)
Ladies and Gentleman I have bitten of this apple (Score:1)
Purely a lack of context (Score:1)
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.
Captain Crunch hard on the mouth (Score:2)
So Captain Crunch is designing BSD firewalls eh? 5 gets you 10 they're invulnerable to everything... except a whistle at 2600 hz...
Re:Ahhh...the old days... (Score:1)
are you sure you're not thinking about Sneakers [imdb.com] ?
Re:This is like hiring jewel thief as security gua (Score:1)
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
Re:Fuck up. Get banned. That's life. Deal, mkay? (Score:1)
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
Repaying society? I'll believe it... (Score:1)
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.
Permanent no-login links (Score:5)
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.
Re:cereal (Score:1)
Debugging - a lost art ? (Score:3)
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.
Re:Permanent no-login links (Score:1)
I think that the New York Times needs to realize that people are going to circumvent their registration methods no matter what they do. If they finally perfect it to where we are forced to fool around with registration, people will just stop using their service. There are other news organizations out there that readily give away this information.
Why am I going to fool around when I can more easily get it from somewhere else?
Re: Some Questions (Score:1)
Some Questions (Score:4)
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.
More information on the man (Score:3)
There's more information about him, EasyWriter, and his work at WebCrunchers [webcrunchers.com].
Apple II Modem? (Score:2)
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? :)
Re:A problem (Score:1)
That would be the height of stupidity.
I dont think the OpenBSD folks audit every single installations code every 6 months
Jeremy
Re:No reg. link (Score:1)
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.
Re:Some Questions (Score:1)
It varied, because they were home built. Generally, someone would buy a general purpose box from a retailer or mailorder (such as Newark Electronics). The ones I saw were all black, maybe 6" x 4" IIRC, or no box at all just a breadboard.
This was in L. A. contemporaneous with the Jobs/Wozniak stuff, although AFAIK I never saw one of those.
Re:The Cap'n (Score:2)
Re:A problem (Score:2)
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.
Re:It is my belief (Score:1)
Geek Culture killed my dog/
and I don't think it's fair...
It is my belief (Score:2)
(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...
Reg link (Score:1)
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
Code check (Score:2)
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
Re:Some Questions (Score:2)
Hrm... they were blue
Actually, there ended up being hundreds of [color]boxes, back in the day, I once found instructions for making just about all of them. Of course, most of the cool ones wouldn't work anymore (more advanced, hack-proof phone system).
A blue box doesn't really have a 'look' to it anymore then a radio or an answering machine does. It just needs to be able to plug into phone network (or make the tones in the air, in front of the receiver, which is much cooler in my mind).
this page [navyrelics.com] has some pictures, one of Capt'n crunch holding a small device up to a phone... hrm, according to this goggle search it's still possible to blue box in Chile
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
I don't think so... (Score:2)
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
Re:Reg link (Score:2)
Amber Yuan 2k A.D
Re: Some Questions (Score:4)
--When deadlines get too close for comfort my manager now insists I get on the train. They are *seriously* considering getting me a train seat for my office.
---
Re:Reg link (Score:1)
Richy C.
More information... (Score:2)
Richy C.
Re:Markoff (Score:2)
Richy C.
No reg. link (Score:5)
Richy C.
Re:2600 (Score:5)
Richy C.
Re:No reg. link (Score:1)
/etc/hosts:
# Get around NY Times registration
#
208.48.26.223 www.nytimes.com
Matt
Re:A problem (Score:1)
--------------------
2600 (Score:5)
rr
Whoa!! I used Easy Writer (Score:1)
Re:Easy Writer (Score:2)
This from one of many computer timeline sites (http://burks.bton.ac.uk/burks/pcinfo/hardware/com phist/comp1980.htm [bton.ac.uk]):
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.
Re:No reg. link (Score:2)
NYT Login:
User:   Slashdot2000
Pass:   Slashdot2000
"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Old Time vs New (Score:2)
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?
Re:Apple II Modem? (Score:2)
Probably wasn't a modem, just reading what you put here, sounds more like a tone generator.
Hehe, the most popular (home) computer in the early 80s did have a modem, the Commodore 64.
-
its an idea.. (Score:2)
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
Re:A problem (Score:2)
Re:Does anyone remember... (Score:2)