An online fundraiser for legendary phone phreaker John Draper, better known as Cap'n Crunch, has passed its target $5,000 in just three days. Draper himself doesn't even know who started the fundraiser, but the money is intended to help with his medical bills. According to a recent blog post, he suffers from both degenerative spine disease and C. Diff, an inflammation of the colon.
In conjunction with others in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Draper figured out that a toy whistle given out in boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal emitted a tone at 2600 Hertz. By pure coincidence, that happened to be the tone AT&T used to reset its trunk lines. As a result, Draper became a legend in the nascent world of phone phreaking, a predecessor to early personal computer hacking.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @08:46AM
And all these panicky calls start coming in from the telephone company regarding a whistle you put in your boxes of cereal as a kid's toy.
How would you take it? Seriously? ROTFL?
I mean for the phone company this had to be serious, cause once the word gets out that just blow a cereal-box whistle in the phone then make free calls - for a business that has got to be one scary thought.
I can just imagine all the lawyers trying not to laugh while typing up cease-and-desist letters... while an anxious telephone company tries to close the loophole.
I probably could not keep from laughing. I know someone must have felt like Laurel and Hardy...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday September 29 2014, @11:27AM
He also was/is a big Forth language guy and he wrote easywriter word processor in Forth from what I remember.
I never got a straight answer on how much "bank street writer" was inspired by easy writer. You know how you hear idiotic claims in the media that learning the intimate details of Excel 2003 prepares todays youth for tomorrows jobs? That kind of idiocy was spoken about BSW in the early 80s, which was my first in school vocation computer training. If you think I am where I am now because how to set margins in BSW was pounded into us in class, well, thats just idiotic. You see this a lot with "vocational training" masquerading as training.
I'm not kidding about the Excel 2003 either. I had to actually sit thru a class for that to get my BSCS around '05. Complete waste of time. And no you're not testing out because it was a portfolio class oriented around pretty colors and stylish BS. (Given this sample accounting balance sheet, make every cell's background a different color!) It was pretty much kindergarten art class but with Excel 03 instead of construction paper.
Another thing that emitted 2600 Hz was a specific radio shack touch tone portable dialer with a slightly different crystal substituted in. And once home computers took off there were tons of apps. MF signalling is I think completely gone from the world at this time. There are people running asterisk boxes connecting science and technology museum pieces together over the internet where you could play games with tandems and MF signalling. That stuff is all before my professional time in telecom but I read about it growing up.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by cafebabe on Monday September 29 2014, @12:12PM
I don't want to be mean to John Draper's circumstances and, indeed, I should be more sympathetic after yesterday watching Sicko, Michael Moore's documentary about US the "healthcare" industry (a follow-on from watching Bowling For Columbine, as discussed here [returnofkings.com] and inferred here [soylentnews.org]). However, I have to ask if certain people have done anything of significance recently. Bruce Schneier and Tim Berners-Lee continue to be relevant. However:-
I could be wrong but these people don't seem to have done anything relevant for 30 years or more.
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(Score: 2) by n1 on Monday September 29 2014, @04:45PM
I don't think John Draper is relevant as such now, it shouldn't matter either. I doubt there are many people in their 70's contributing to their field like they did in their 20's and 30's - most have been retired for a decade, enjoying the fruits of their labors and working on personal projects.
People shouldn't have to be continually advancing their field for decades to deserve respect and be appreciated for the work they did in their prime. They should not be above reproach, but they are still people and have contributed more than most 'normal' people ever will, even if that key contribution was 30 years ago. We shouldn't get hung up on the high-profile players, who can move in the PR circles; the people on the sidelines deserve as much credit as the ones that transitioned into making keynote speeches.
We shouldn't have to be contributing to the greater industry for our entire lives to deserve some compassion and humanitarian efforts in a situation like this. That's very self-serving really, "Sure, you can have some money for your medical bills... So you can get back to fucking work!"
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday September 29 2014, @06:09PM
If anyone said that to me, I wouldn't object. However, I do find my work rewarding and I'd probably go (more) senile if I stopped. Anyhow, Dijkstra [wikipedia.org] published into his 70s [utexas.edu] and Knuth is still publishing at a similar age [wikipedia.org].
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 30 2014, @03:18AM
... that "what have they done for me lately?" attitude gets tired quick.
He forged a path.
He built a road.
He did hard time.
He deserves respect.
You deserve to have your face pushed into your latte - a little wake-up call, as it were.
Some day soon you, too, will be old, and irrelevant.
(Score: 1) by mathinker on Thursday October 02 2014, @07:29PM
And?
At least he's not claiming that being funded by society is his "right", like copyright maximalists...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Taibhsear on Monday September 29 2014, @01:14PM
In the interest of accuracy and in case someone is interested, C. diff [wikipedia.org] isn't inflammation of the colon, it is an infection of the colon. Pretty much only get it in hospitals. tldr: Treatable with antibiotics, albeit serious ones, and really sucks to get it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @03:51PM
Reference for the hospital-acquired part?
C. diff is a colonization not an infection.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Monday September 29 2014, @08:39PM
Wikipedia bibliography citation #5 [economist.com]
Side note: my significant other, who is a medical technician, has informed me that C. Diff is so infectious that the entire ambulance needs to be carefully sanitized after a patient has been transported that has it. A change of clothes is also required. Nasty, painful stuff. The odor is strong and unmistakable, too.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 1) by NewMexicoArt on Monday September 29 2014, @09:07PM
cured - in almost all cases by simple fecal transplant
http://www.mayoclinic.org/medical-professionals/clinical-updates/digestive-diseases/quick-inexpensive-90-percent-cure-rate [mayoclinic.org]
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Monday September 29 2014, @09:54PM
This may require a revision of the phrase "Eat shit and die!" (Actually, I'm surprised by the number of films which have variations of this phrase [youtube.com].)
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(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday September 30 2014, @03:15AM
Sure it isn't a programming language?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 29 2014, @04:15PM
OK, so you can point a running fan to a pile of cash in order to raise it (and make it fly away). But how does that help John Draper? ;-)