57 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
57 lines
2.7 KiB
Plaintext
48
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File: AN APPLE FOR THE CAPTAIN
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Read 22 times
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-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-
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- An Apple For The Captain -
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= InfoWorld -- October 1, 1984 =
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- By Stephen Wozniak -
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= Word Processed for SF][ by BIOC Agent 003 =
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-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-
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The best prank I've seen with the Apple was played by Cap'n Crunch. John
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Draper, one of Apple's first employees, was responsible for designing a
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telephone board for us. Much more than a modem, the board could send
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touch-tone or pulse-dial data; it could also transmit any tones that were
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programmable down the line, listen for specific sounds, and a bunch of other
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things.
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At one point Draper was motivated to crack WATS extenders. A WATS extender
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is used when a company has incoming and outgoing free 800 lines. Company
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executives call in on the incoming 800 line and tap out a four-digit code,
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which gets them on their company's outgoing 800 line. They only system
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protection is the four-digit code.
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It would take a long time to dial 10,000 phone calls manually, searching for
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the extender code. But Draper had designed this new telephone board, and he
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knew a bunch of companies that had WATS extenders. He programmed the Apple to
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call the company on its 800 number, automatically get to the WATS extender,
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type out a four-digit code, and check to see if the attempt succeeded or
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failed. The Apple with the board would listen to all the tones on the phone
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line to determine when it was ringing, when it went to the WATS extender, and
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so on.
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It took about 10 seconds for the Apple to dial the call and try a new
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four-digit code. The Apple would restart and try again. And then try the next
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number. It was able to dial about 5,000 calls a night -- the average number of
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calls to crack a WATS extender. Draper cracked about 20 WATS exteders,
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averaging one a night.
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The city of Mountain View, California, where he lived at the time, keeps an
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index of how well the phone system is working. An average of 30% of all calls
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made from the city don't go through. The month Draper was cracking the WATS
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extenders, the index jumped to 80%! For that month Draper made more than 50%
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of the calls originating from Mountain View, California, whose population is
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60,000.... <>
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[Courtesy of Sherwood Forest ][ -- (914) 359-1517]
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-----End of File
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[1-54, Last=48, Quit=Q] Read File #
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