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Raping Ma Bell
CAPTAIN CRUNCH
Profile by : Zbigniew Kindela
This copied from Hustler Magazine Feb '79
It's one o'clock in the morning, and I'm standing in the TWA
arrival-departure hub of Los Angeles International Airport. I'm
waiting to meet John Draper (known as Captain Crunch to his
select group of peers), and I'm wearing a red HUSTLER T-shirt so
he can spot me easily. I don't know what to expect. Off and on
for several years I have followed Crunch's career as the nation's
foremost rapist of Ma Bell - the telephone company - and I have
this superhero image of him, an image cultivated by the media
coverage he has received.
The 35-year-old Crunch is the creator of the "blue box," a
device that allows its user to gain access to nearly all the
telephone company's transmission equipment - simple lines,
microwaves and even the communications satellites - as long as
the user knows the proper codes. Crunch claims that given enough
time, three such good blue boxes could tie up America's entire
phone network in such a way that no calls can be placed. No one
knows for sure if this is possible, but even so, cities - such as
Santa Barbara, California - have been tied up for as much as an
hour.
But then Captain Crunch usually knows what he is talking
about. He knows more about the intricacies, idiosyncracies and
secrets of the world's telephone system -information that he has
picked up without direct help from Ma Bell- than practically
anyone else alive. Crunch is also one of the first Americans to
have gone to prison because of what he knows. And he owes it, in
part, to Cap'n Crunch, the breakfast cereal from Quaker Oats.
During the late '60s each box of Cap'n Crunch cereal
contained a plastic toy whistle as an inducement to purchase the
product. The note, or tone, produced by the whistle when it was
properly blown into a phone receiver could get a toll-free call.
When Denny, a blind "phone phreak" (the name adopted by those who
secretly and illegally play with the telephone company's
equipment) discovered the whistle's capability, he turned on his
other blind friends. Then, in 1970, Denny gave John Draper the
secret of the Cap'n Crunch whistle, christened him Captain Crunch
and, in effect, gave birth to the first sighted phone phreak. In
short order, Crunch was transformed into a wizard of telephony.
Until he was 12 years old, Captain Crunch lived amid the
chicken farms of Petaluma, California. Long before he turned
into a full-time phone phreak employing blue boxes and computers
in search of "information" (or telephone-company codes allowing
him access to specialized communication networks), Crunch showed
a decided interest in science and math. While in England, where
he spent several years with his Air Force family, he conducted
his first experiments : At one point he converted a bicycle
generator into one capable of producing 10,000 volts.
By the time he was ready to enter high school, the family
had returned to the States. He enrolled in a high school in
Vacaville, California, where - during the first month - he got
into nearly 100 fights. He was harassed by the school thugs
until he began lifting weights and developing his small frame.
His senior year was spent at yet another high school - in San
Jose this time - and it was here that his brilliance began to
show. Crunch built a small radio transmitter, which he operated
until a Federal Communications Commission agent shut it down.
Undaunted, Crunch continued his pirate-radio venture several
years later while in the Air Force. Stationed as a radar
technician in Alaska, Crunch built a 200-watt transmitter with a
range of 450 miles. This time, however, he wasn't busted. "I
got a call from the FCC monitoring station, saying they enjoyed
my show and asking me not to use profanities," he says. "Up
there nobody cares."
In 1970 he left the Air Force and got a job with a company
that built radar systems. That same year he also picked up the
Captain Crunch moniker and was on his way to becoming PHone
Phreak Number One.
The cereal-box whistles were mere toys with limited
capability, since they could produce only one tone, while the
phone company's network relied on many tones and combinations
thereof. One of the blind phone phreaks realized he could
produce several tones on his small home organ by pushing the
appropriate keys. All he had to do was play a particular
sequence into the mouthpiece of the telephone, and he could call
anywhere in the world without charge as long as he used the
proper sequence. Phreaks would sit at their phones dialing
random numbers in sequence, listening to the various tones. When
an unusual tone was reached, it was logged, and later, through a
process of elimination, several codes were finally cracked.
Shortly, various phreaks were making tape recordings to play
into phones or were giving the recordings to other phreaks, until
it was routine procedure to call a pay phone at Waterloo Station
in London, or to call South Africa for the correct time there.
But the process had a long way to go. Based on information
obtained from a phreak, Captain Crunch began designing a device
that could duplicate all of the necessary tones. In due time he
had built the first blue box. Its face contained tone buttons
similar to those of a touchtone telephone. When this first blue
box became a reality, the era of whistles, tapes and organs was
over.
At one point organized crime found out about the blue boxes
and asked one phreak to build a thousand devices for $300,000.
The Vegas Syndicate was going to use the boxes for placing bets
undetected (and free of charge). It is this type of phone phreak
that Crunch considers "the lowest scum in the phone-phreak
community," largely because they don't follow the ethical
standards set up by the "Top Ten Phreaks," as the best minds in
the community are called. These top ten seek only to acquire
information, or more access codes, which they then share with one
another. It was through such information that Crunch was able to
call around the world clockwise and counterclockwise several
times on one occasion, while on another he used two adjacent
phones to call himself through Japan, India, Greece, South
Africa, Brazil and New York City from San Francisco. It took his
voice 20 seconds to complete the trip.
Then, in 1972, Crunch was turned into the FBI by two phone
phreaks - "snitches" as he calls them. Charged with fraud by
wire, he was fined $1,000 and put on five years' probation.
After having spent thousands of patient hours trying different
combinations of phone numbers in order to find access codes,
Crunch's telephone bill under the violation amounted to $30.
* * *
And this is the hero of the underground telephone network I
am to meet. His plane finally arrives, and amid a chorus of
sheep bleatings from passengers and greeters alike, I spot what
appears to be a human - though I am struck by the image of an
anteater - gawking about. He is wearing a wrinkled Ban-Lon
shirt, festering with fuzz balls. His wide-pin-striped pants -
also wrinkled - ride at least three inches above the tops of his
scuffed ankle boots, while his socks (lacking any vestige of
elastic) are rolled down, revealing vampire-white skin and sparse
patches of black hair. I know it's Captain Crunch.
I suddenly realize that I don't want to meet him. Should I
grab the first female to walk by as if I'm there waiting for her?
But it's too late. He spots my HUSTLER T-shirt, and his hand -
with index finger extended - shoots upward. He lopes over, as
the other hand holds a portable radio to his ear.
"I picked up a great pirate station up there. Clear as a
bell for hundreds of miles," says the creature who has just
shattered all of my expectations.
"You John Draper?" I ask, hoping against the inevitable.
"Yeah. The station played some good music. The jockey must
have a powerful transmitter. Sure'd like to see it...."
"This way, John," I interrupt. Taking his pallid arm, I
lead him to the baggage-claim area. I had envisioned a Justice
League of America hero, and I am confronted with a babbling
lunatic.
I quickly grab his bag, walk to my car and begin driving to
his lodging for the night. It disturbs me that I can't wait to
drop him off, that I don't want to talk to him, that I don't
want to be seen with him, even driving late at night.
Abruptly, he takes off on a new jag. "Before I leave, I'll
show you some great relaxing exercises."
I play coy. He hasn't actually asked a question, I reason.
Keep quiet, I tell myself, maybe he'll shift subjects again.
As he winds up for the second inane attempt, I cut him off.
"Look, John, I'm not a physical-fitness weirdo. I drink a lot of
beer, and I do my exercising either under or over a woman. No
personal offense, OK?"
His sudden silence, ironically enough, makes me feel guilty -
or at least ambivalent toward him. I turn on the radio, saying,
"You don't mind, do you?" He doesn't say a word.
Even though the trip to his hotel only takes 30 minutes, it
seems as if several hours of this nonverbal penance have elapsed
before we finally arrive. In the hotel lobby a premonition -
though indecipherable - overtakes me. I reason that it's the
night clerk, whose eyes are popping froglike out of his head.
Between Crunch and Froggy I am spooked. And adding to that,
the clerk can't find a reservation for the electronic wizard.
As Crunch and I drive off, I as him, "This happen to you
often?"
"All the time" is his only response.
I entertain a paranoid fantasy that every hotel and motel in
Los Angeles is onto Crunch's bag of telephonic tricks and, as a
consequence, he'll have to spend the night at my place.
"I'll drive all night if I have to," I say through clenched
teeth. "I've got $20. That should be enough."
I finally find a place on Santa Monica that seems open for
business and looks as though a room will cost under $19. I pound
on the door for several minutes until a blear-eyed Arab opens it.
I ask for a single. The manager looks at me bewildered, sticky
sleep glued to the corners of his eyes. "The money? You got
it?" he asks suspiciously.
"How much?"
"$18.76," he replies in perfect English, as I'd expected.
"Does it have a phone?" Crunch chimes in.
"No, sir. Pay phone there," says the Arab, pointing to a
booth.
"He'll take it," I yell out, and turning to Crunch I hiss,
"Just shut up! Who do you have to call at this hour?! I'll pick
you up at 11 tomorrow."
* * *
Captain Crunch is an addict. Instead of being strung out on
dope, however, he is hooked on the crackle and beep of telephone
lines. Small wonder that his 1972 conviction didn't straighten
him out. Rather, he kept phreaking, although he says that he has
avoided using the blue box. In 1975 Crunch found the code giving
him access to the phone company's auto-verify circuit, which
allows a phone to be tapped. Somehow the code was released to
the phone phreaks - Crunch claims it was done by an unethical,
low-level phreak - and shortly it became a game among the many
phreaks to listen in on the San Francisco FBI office, the Federal
Communications Commission, various police calls and even the CIA.
During this same period Crunch managed to obtain a copy of
the operating manual for the National Crime Information Center
computer. The manual had "everything I need to know to get into
NCIC," Crunch says, although he vows he has never tapped into it.
Regardless, the FBI was interested, since the computer contains
all of the information every gather about anyone - criminals and
noncriminals - by the FBI, and Crunch had a computer terminal
hooked into a master computer. The terminal in his possession,
he says, was for legitimate use - he was working for an
independent firm as a "computer programmer/systems analyst."
As with his first bust, Crunch claims to have been set up by
a phone-phreak-turned-informer-and-provocateur for the FBI, which
allegedly gave the informer a blue box with which to entrap
Crunch. Captain Crunch claims that the entrapment worked, and in
1976 he was indicted a second time. Since he was still on
probation, he made a deal with the FBI to supply them with all
the information he had. The FBI rented a hotel suite and
interviewed him for four to six hours a day for five days.
Crunch is proud that he went the distance without snitching on a
single phreak.
Due to his cooperation, the judge sentenced Crunch to four
months instead of the five years he could have gotten.
Crunch did his time at the Federal Correctional Institution
in Lompoc, California, a minimum-security facility where Nixon's
former chief of staff, H. R. Haldenman, currently resides. While
incarcerated, Crunch was periodically tormented by the inmates,
who would blow smoke in his face while threatening to give him a
"blanket party" if he didn't teach them how to make free
telephone calls. Being allergic to cigarette smoke, Crunch
naturally obliged them.
* * *
"I can't take it," says Crunch's voice over the telephone
the following morning at 9:30. "There's no phone in here. I'm
checking out. If I don't, I'll go crazy."
His last sentence makes me feel as pleased, I imagine, as a
sadist with his pleading slave.
In 25 minutes Crunch arrives at the office, and no sooner
does he arrive than I drag him off to another motel - the
Tropicana, rumored to be the scene of Janis Joplin's last big
night. I register him again - gets his own phone, although I
don't clue him in that he's got to go through the motel
switchboard - and tell him that I'll pick him up after lunch.
When I return, Crunch is not in his room. I find him lying
spread-eagled beside the pool. His shirt is off, and the bright
sun only makes his skin look ghostlier. Even the three or four
homosexuals around the pool seem to be making a concerted effort
to avoid looking in his direction.
* * *
After Crunch settles in at our offices, the first thing he
asks for is a telephone, a request that creates some warranted
nervousness among those present. He is promptly dissuaded (the
time is running late), the tape recorder is flipped on, and he
begins his revelations, which may not bode particularly well for
America :
*The telephone company has 722 security agents with certain
wiretapping privileges, and perhaps as many as 90,000 employees
involved in monitoring calls. No court orders are necessary for
"mechanical or service quality-control checks" or "the
protection of rights or property" - a vague clause used as an
excuse for blanket monitoring on the grounds that the phone
company alleges you are ripping them off.
*Roughly 70 percent [Editor's Note: An AT&T spokesman claims
only 12 percent] of the phone company's security force has at one
time worked for a law-enforcement agency, including the FBI,
leading one to speculate about the possible ties these agents
still maintain with their previous employers.
*Between 1964 and 1970, 1.8 million phone calls were
recorded (out of the 30 million calls electronically monitored
during the first minute of the call) to determine if any of them
were of blue box origin.
*For years now the National Security Agency has been
monitoring microwave communications in the country. Computers
have been programmed to listen for key words, such as cocaine,
dope, conspiracy. When a coded word is registered during a
monitored conversation, the computer will start taping the call.
*When all of the new telephone systems are implemented, the
police will get instant identification of your phone number when
you call them - or when you call the White House or a prominent
figure.
*But the most frightening invention to come along, claims
Crunch is REMOB (or remote observation). Anyone with the proper
code will be able to monitor calls from anywhere in the country,
while also holding the power to censor the call. Furthermore, no
existing form of telephone communication - trunk line, microwave
or satellite - can escape the remote-observation system.
"REMOB will create 1984," Crunch says. "The phone company
will provide the government with the proper access codes." Most
Americans will say that since they're not criminals, they have
nothing to hide, which is true. However, they stand to lose their
right to privacy and their right to talk to friends and relatives
- often about private matters no other person has a right to
hear. THe question is, do Americans want their private sex lives
or business dealings known by various federal agencies?
Fearing such a potential for abuse with REMOB, Crunch
recently called a press conference in New York in order to warn
the public. In short order the phone company received its equal
time and denied the existence of such a tapping/censoring device.
"But with everything I know about the phone network, and all of
the verifications I've done on this REMOB, I feel that it does
exist," states Crunch.
* * *
While completing this profile, I received a telephone call,
and subsequent letter, from Crunch. This telephone addict - who
no doubt has logged countless thousands of hours hunting for
information in Ma Bell's spider-web network - had been busted
again. Under a questionable Pennsylvania law, Crunch was found
in violation of a prohibition against "manufacturing,
distribution or possession of a device capable of theft of
telecommunications services."
Crunch owned a simple home computer, called the Apple II,
which he had programmed to systematically dial every possible
telephone number and "listen" for any unusual tones a give number
might produce. Having a computer do this is not illegal, claims
Crunch. But the Pennsylvania law stipulates that it is. The
irony here is that a cassette recorder (because its tape can
contain "tones" needed to obtain free calls) and a home organ
(because it can produce the tones) are also capable of "theft of
phone-company services" and are therefore technically illegal to
own under this Quaker State law.
At any rate, Crunch found that a simple home computer could
turn up 15 computer accesses at Moffett Naval Air Base, access to
the Federal Telephone System (a federally used network), access
to Comsat (Communications satellite), more than 100 computer
accesses in Washington, D.C., alone, and the White House and CIA
hot lines. These were discovered in three short weeks by running
the computer for only eight hours each evening.
During one of his trial runs Crunch found an unusual number,
which he didn't recognize. He dialed the number 50 times in an
attempt to find out what it was, eventually giving up to pursue
more productive work, he points out. Subsequently, he came to
believe it was a remote-observation (REMOB) access. During his
preliminary hearing the phone company mentioned that he was
trying to gain access to a secret number.
Late in the summer of 1978 - before his trial - Crunch
testified about REMOB before the Government Operations
Subcommittee on Freedom of Information and Privacy, chaired by
Representative Paul N. McCloskey, Jr. (Republican-California).
Even though Crunch feels he had trouble convincing the staff he
had found a REMOB number, Representative McCloskey wrote the
following about him: "...In our search for a balance between
privacy and freedom of information in the computer field, I am
frank to say that John's advice is probably more valuable than
any other witness we have had the privilege to hear."
Crunch is modest about his achievements, however. "I didn't
use super talent or super genius. All I did was program a simple
home computer," he says. "If I had thought of turning it on the
Soviet Embassy, I'm sure that it would have found out a lot of
interesting stuff. The possibilities with home computers are
unlimited."
But the harm from such possibilities worries Crunch. In
prison - if he doesn't win an appeal - it will be only a matter
of time before he is forced to give up his "new" information to
his fellow prisoners, as was the case during his previous
incarceration.
"So, in the next few months Apple Computer will be getting
about 500 orders from underground types, and shortly all secret
phone numbers will be available," he predicts. Computers will be
quietly penetrated, money will get transferred from one bank
account to another, and intelligence secrets will become public
domain. In an attempt to lock up one Captain Crunch, he says,
"they will eventually release many people with my information,
who are more criminally inclined than I could ever be."
And this is the enigma of Captain Crunch. Should he be
locked up only to have all of this data extracted by criminals?
Should he be hired by the phone company or federal government to
make these "questionable" systems, such as REMOB, impenetrable?
Is Crunch being locked up because his acts were criminal - he's
never made money from his information - or because the
information he uncovered makes him dangerous politically?
It's difficult to understand a man who spends nearly all of
his time dealing with electronics to the exclusion of virtually
everything else simply because he finds it a challenge, a labor
of love. True, he has his moments when one wants to strangle
him. But he also displays a basic emotional frailty that we each
possess.
As John Draper told me: "Sometimes I have problems relating.
Maybe it's because I have associated with these intellectual
phreaks for so long that I haven't had much chance to deal with
real-life people."
* * *
Yo. This article was typed up by myself directly from a Hustler
magazine. I found it as I was going through some stacks of porno
magz in my friend's basement (his dad had a collection). Hope
you liked it.
BigBobRob