Cap'n Crunch's Story of Phone Phreaking

By John Payne

Captain Crunch is a name almost any self-respecting hacker will know. It's an alias, for one of America's most famous hackers, John Draper. I've decided to write this article based on his life during the 70's because it's a fascinating read, and it also highlights how vulnerable America's phone system was.

You can find John Draper's website here: http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/

His story can be read in full here: http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/Play/history/home.html

John Draper's story of phone Phreaking, incarceration by the FBI and practical jokes on the White House start in the early 1970's, when he was attending college and working on his hobbies of Computing and electronics. He got a call one day from some blind kid, who was interested in Draper's ability to create FM radios\transmitters etc and wanted to meet with him.

Once Draper had met with this kid and his friends, his life changed. The information they provided allowed Draper to extend his hacking skills into exploring the phone system, thanks to one major flaw...

At the time, Ma Bell ran the phone network in the USA, however, to cut costs, they made one fatal mistake when designing the system, the phone codes and tones used to control the internal hardware used the same lines as those used to carry voice. Meaning anyone who could replicate the codes\tones used could control the phone system.

It just so happened that if you brought a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal, you'd get a free whistle, glue the 3rd whole shut and it would produce a sound of 2600Hz's, the exact tone that would kick the phone system into believing other admin stuff was happening and drop into a hiss. You could then use the whistle or MF'er ( a multi-frequency box) to generate other tones, and make the system do what you like.

Draper, being a respectable hacker used this ability to explore the phone system, and try to understand it. He didn't use it to make free calls. Eventually, others were able to access the system, and they even had their own 'conference' line they found. This went on for some time, and they were even able to help Ma Bell employee's track down stuck tandems etc.

What's interesting is that John Draper crossed paths with other 'big cheeses' in the birth of modern technology such as Steve Wozniak, and Steve Jobs - the founders of Apple. It seems that Wozniak, who built the first Apple computer, funded his college education by asking Draper to build him a 'Bluebox' - a small device that produced the tones needed to access Ma Bell's system.

After Wozniak knew how to make these boxes, he began selling them for $150 despite Drapers objections, now we know how the Apple was funded!

Over time, it didn't take long for the authorities to find out what was going on, the media and the FBI were both looking to get hold of these kids, and Draper, who had by now stopped using the phone system to explore.

In May of 1972, Draper was picked up by the FBI, he was sentenced to prison for a short while, where he shared his skills with other inmates, as Draper so colourfully puts it, 'Prisons are universities of crime'. After his sentence, he was done with phone Phreaking. It wasn't until the FBI paid a man called Adam to investigate if Draper was still into his illegal activities, unsuccessfully of course.

What's unusual about this story is the speed in which Draper was able to go from knowing nothing about the phone system, to mastering its internal codes etc. Obviously a clever man, he never really got the recognition he deserved. Only prison. After pointing out a massive vulnerability within the phone system, it was years until anything changed. In fact, this is probably the first case of hacking being sensationalized and turned into Fear, uncertainty and doubt by the media.

In 1971, a reporter name Ron Rosenaum was trying to find out more information about Draper and the kids activities. He managed to get hold of some of the facts, and including Draper, who didn't give much information away at all. Therefore, the article he published in the Esquire magazine was not 100% accurate.

You can view the entire article here: http://www.webcrunchers.com/crunch/esq-art.html.

From this point on, Ma Bell changed and split into many different companies, mostly due to bureaucratic reasons, but I believe the activities of Draper and other fellow hackers exposed a flaw the company could not recover from, and eventually led to its downfall.

Nowadays the phone system's of the world are digital, and Drapers methods no longer work, however he still has a distinguished career in the IT security and VoIP industry.