Phone Phreak Captain Crunch Rare Interview from '78

http://joetrip.com April 2, 1978: An over 30-year-old rare interview with Captain Crunch, the notorious phone phreak/early hacker-activist John Draper.

He demonstrates his "high-resolution color graphics computer" that cost $1,500 at the time, an early video game (Lunar Lander), and discusses his travails with the phone industry that landed him in jail.

He also demonstrates an early auto-dialer Apple computer program -- loaded via audiocassette. He used this program to discover AT&T's remob ("remote observation") program that was used to tap civilian phone lines.

Trivia: shot in the conference room of Henson Associates -- Muppet HQ -- in NYC. This is part two of a three-part interview. The first and third tapes were lost, suspected stolen just one day after the producer interviewed a representative from AT&T, then the telephone monopoly, when a "telephone repair man" made an unscheduled visit to the Muppet conference room where the tapes were stored.

Producer & Interviewer: Joe Tripician
Camera: Merrill Aldighieri

Excerpted footage used in the PBS show "Borders"
Order the DVD of "Borders" here: http://artclips.free.fr/dvd.htm

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Captain Crunch
• John Draper
• Phone Phreaks
• Phreaking
• Software developer
• Hacker Legends
• Hacktivism
• Hacktivist
• interview
• exclusive
• rare

[Teledyol]

Great to see Crunch hasn't changed much in almost the 30 years that I've known him. This footage should be in the Computer History Museum for sure as part of the permanent collection.

[joetrip]

@Teledyol Thanks for the suggestion. I offered this video to the Computer History Museum, and it is now part of their permanent collection.

[Ragooman]

We salute you Cap'n Crunch <whistle~2600hz)

[BarneySecurity]

Amazing!

The grandfather of Anonymous itself in flesh and bones .

[oleesquivel87]

This is awesome:......hard to believe this pc was cutting edge back then

[ThisisAliFareedshow]

I respect This guy even though the Old Phone Era ended No More Phone Phreaking

[geoharmonic]

In that court case, Crunch did a plea bargain and got the charges dropped by telling the FBI everything he knew about their phone system. He told then things about their system that they never even knew. They were shaking in their boots after this disclosure. This triggered in a complete restructuring of Bell Telephone company and caused them to seriously upgrade how phone systems work today. An important stepping stone on the path to the modern internet.

[geoharmonic]

That is an amazing interview especially the last five minutes!!!! A man I know well but never knew back then. What a treat to see this. The last five minutes is the amazing bit about one man fighting the system and catching the government spying on people's phone calls