Hackers ' stories (serial three) because of curiosity

In the last issue, Ken and Dennis are high-profile in the hacker culture, not only because of the operating system and programming language they develop, but also by the values they embody in their actions: knowledge, exploration, and the pursuit of perfection. These are the essence of the hacker spirit-although the way hackers implement these spirits is not always legitimate. When a hacker is simply curious to figure out a state secret, his actions clearly violate the law, and hackers themselves tend to be less concerned about it than they think it is another intellectual challenge.

De la 1971 and 2005

King of the Flying guest
" I don't hack into the phone system," said the famous phone-fly "captain Click" in an interview with Mr. Vogue in 1971. I don't do that anymore. If I did that, there would only be one reason: I was working on that system. The telephone company is a system, and the computer is a system. All I did was study a system. Computer, system, this is what I'm interested in. The phone company is just a computer. "

The American Telegraph and telephone company such as the giant as a computer, was then 28-year-old John Drap, former Air Force radar soldiers, California Bay area of the famous radio enthusiasts. His other identity, is only two years in the line has become the top master of the "Captain Click", free calls to the experts, the king of the underground telephone flying guests.

Telephone flying is a branch of early hackers to explore the telephone system-based. The early heavy computer controlled telephone spawned the flying guests, who tried to cheat computers to steal long-distance calls-no great phone calls, but to explore the weaknesses of the phone system, and the big business, the goal of flying.

Want to "understand the system" of the Delap into this circle can not extricate themselves. He worked with other flying guests to design a "blue box", a device capable of producing different frequencies of sound. At the time, the telephone program system used different frequencies to activate different functions, and the flying guests used a blue box to fool the computer. The telephone company knows the presence of the flying guests, but it is not too much of a thing: the cost of the blue box is too high, except that no one will be able to use it, it will not cause too much damage, and if you change the phone program, it may be more troublesome.

And Delap changed the situation, so that the theft of long-distance calls into the skills can be easily learned, but also for themselves to win the "King of Flying" the name of the head. He found that the breakfast food "captain Click" of corn and oatmeal with plastic whistle, can emit 2600 Hz sound, and this is the telephone system to enter the long-distance operation mode necessary frequency.

So, within a short period of time, the California Bay Area has a huge increase in long-distance traffic-and most of them don't pay the phone company.

"Black Hat" replaced by "white hat"

Like many famous hackers, Delap also shows his love of technology at a very young age. Delap's father was an Air Force engineer, and his family was frequently relocated from one air base to another. Little Delap can always find something in the nearby airbase and assemble it into gadgets like radios. His family did not provide enough warmth and care, which made Delap's temper always bad. "I like debates," he admits in a later counseling session, "at least someone will listen to you in the debate." ”

After a period of college, Delap joined the Air Force, became radar, successively in Alaska and Maine State service. After his glorious retirement, he came to the Bay Area, where he was nurtured by the hippie culture and consulted a number of companies that had dealings with the Air Force. He had a beard and hair, and, when he was free, he wandered around in a shabby Volkswagen van, with his private radio.

After one of his listeners took him into the circle of flying guests, he quickly went on. Even once he cheated the White House, and President Richard Nixon made a phone call to talk about the shortage of toilet paper in San Francisco. The 1971 interview gave him a reputation for unnecessary attention: In 1972 he was sentenced to 5 years ' probation on charges of phone fraud.

At the same time, two of the names of Steve's young men found him, and under his guidance developed a lower-cost blue box and sold dozens of. Two years later, the two young men set up Apple and gave him a job. In Apple's years, Delap wrote a cross-compiler and later wrote a word processor--this was written in prison. Yes, he was arrested three times on charges of phone fraud.

In the late 70, he finally decided not to go on like this. He went from "Black Hat" hack to "white hat" hacker, the word processor software sold to IBM, in Hawaii bought a house and Mercedes-Benz, started his own company, sold, and then another.

Now, 68-year-old is still developing software, covering areas ranging from information security, 3D graphics processing, to VoIP and media processing. The hair and beard of Captain Click, who used to be the phone company's nightmare, are still messy, but no longer curious about the phone system.

Next announcement : Watts is a legendary figure. In a sense, he is more legendary than his co-operative Steve Jobs-we rarely see people with such talent and concentration in the real world.

Hackers ' stories (serial three) because of curiosity