NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] 1983 Video: "Captain Crunch" and "Computer Hacking" (TV Interview)
1983 Video: "Captain Crunch" and "Computer Hacking" (TV Interview)
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000769.html
Greetings. A couple of days ago, in "Technology History -- Courtesy
of the Betamax Videotape Extraction Lab" ( http://bit.ly/bnARSi
[Lauren's Blog] ), I explained some of the nitty-gritty aspects of my
new project to extract viewable video (especially related to
technology and science topics) from my collection of ancient
videotapes, long since declared to be unviewable on any available
equipment due to serious deterioration of the tapes over time.
Using the techniques described in that posting (with the most deeply
recalcitrant specimens helped along with an additional secret weapon
[ http://bit.ly/9EhmtM - Lauren's Blog ] that I'll explain in detail
sometime), plus some rather computationally intensive post-processing,
some of the results are looking far better than I originally thought
would be possible.
There will be a variety of interesting/amusing items appearing as I
have time to process them fully, but let's look now at a genuine
period piece, chock full memories for those of us who lived through
that time, and hopefully an educational slice of life for younger
folks.
We begin with this "Computer Skulduggery, Break-ins, and Piracy"
interview from almost 30 years ago -- of once notorious phone phreak
Captain Crunch (John Draper), conducted by reporter Sam Donaldson.
I've dated the piece to 1983 -- coincidentally the year often (but
still with some controversy) cited as the "official birthday year" of
the Internet (at least in terms of the transition to TCP/IP from the
precursor ARPANET NCP and other protocols). This was also the year
that the rather insipid film <i>WarGames</i> was released, resulting
in everyone who saw my IMSAI 8080 micro kit at the time to exclaim,
"Hey, Lauren, you have the War Games computer!"
The 1983 interview video segment was apparently particularly inspired
by the then recent FBI busts of the Milwaukee "414s" -- accused of a
large number of computer penetrations including most famously Memorial
Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Los Alamos National Lab.
The interview also includes an anonymous 15-year-old "software pirate"
who explains how the DOS "copy" command functions -- utterly confusing
his interviewer. (C'mon kid, you don't have to hide now. You're
grown up and the statute of limitations should have run out ages ago.)
It's interesting to note that the once venerable, honorable, and
completely legitimate term "hacker" had not yet completely fallen from
popular grace by this point in time. During the entire segment, the
term "hacker" is actually only used once -- and that's in a Chyron
banner identifying Draper as a "telephone hacker."
The old video is replete with quaint technology references and can't
help but elicit quite a few smiles viewed from this distance. The
video quality even after all my processing is very far from perfect,
and as you'll see in the future there will be other items that will
fall way short even of that level. But I'm striving to get them all
into the best condition that I can.
I hope that you enjoy this initial offering from my archive.
"Happy hacking!"
1983 Video: "Captain Crunch" and "Computer Hacking" (TV Interview):
http://bit.ly/CC-1983 (YouTube / ~8.5 minutes)
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein (lauren@vortex.com)
http://www.vortex.com/lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
Co-Founder, PFIR (People For Internet Responsibility): http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad (Network Neutrality Squad): http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP (Global Coalition for Transparent Internet Performance):
http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum: http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein
Google Buzz: http://bit.ly/lauren-buzz