Said I, "I'd remove it to go on vacation!" The bandwidth's been squeezed and the lines megaplexedĪnd the unit's so small, it could fit in your ear He had access to codes and computer net links,Īnd he told us, "They've made a big breakthrough There were only the three of us on the exchange It was sometimes so crowded, you just couldn't think. There was Iggy from Fargo, and "Sparks" from Detroit,Īnd we'd jabber** for hours, swap jokes, or talk shop, 'Twas the permanent floating blueboxers' convention
CAPTAIN CRUNCH WHISTLE PHONE CALLS CODE
You could dial up a code any time, day or night Those who knew how could use the exchange Through a quirk in the system that Bell never planned, With a side effect that was most strange: Via satellite, cable, and microwave relayĭon't know what he looked like or where he called home,Īll I knew was his voice and his renegade soulĪnd I met him along with the rest of that crewĪ juncture of trunk lines from provinces north I remember the time that he pulled off a featįrom a pay phone in Grand Central Station, You might say that he'd found his true “calling”, Give the whistle a blast, dial the number he wanted, When he Found that the switching code locksĬould be broke with a tone from a whistle that came He learned the trade well, and soon made his name, They'd harassed him with bills for long distance calls,Īnd 'twas only after they shut off his service They'd close down a loophole, or put up a block,Īnd scrambled their data and tied up their trunk linesĪnd did all kinds of stuff* that just pissed 'em!īut 'twas more than a game for the Captain.Īn old clerical error by Ma Bell had left him "Blue-boxers", they called us, and "phone phreaks",Īpplying the knowledge we picked up in collegeĪnd make beepers and tooters to fool their computers Stop a coach and cry, "Stand and deliver!" It wasn't his style to go buckle his swash, He never went armed with a pistol or sword. Well, he robbed from the rich, the richest there was,Īnd were not for him, we'd be bent 'neath a burden To be reckoned with such greats as these. Now perhaps you might laugh at this curious name.Īnd well you may ask how it is that he came Is the man that they call.CAPTAIN CRUNCH. You sing of Doc Hoiliday and old Jesse Jamesīut alone, at the top of the list of those names The Lone Ranger and Tonto and Zorro and al In some respects, it shows remarkable prescience of things to come. But unlike my predecessors, I make no claims of veracity of the story) I wrote this shortly after the breakup of AT&T, and over a decade before the common usage of cell phones, email, chat rooms, listserves, social media, and even the Internet. I plead guilty to being a hack writer of the 21st century. (Sort of like the legends that were concocted about Jesse James and Wyatt Earp by hack writers of the 19th century. But the events of the story and the motivations of the character are figments of my warped imagination. The anecdote of how he got his "handle" is sort of true. "Captain Crunch," AKA John Draper, was a real phone hacker in the 70s. I've always included recitations like this in my performances. Recorded live in concert at Bound for Glory, Ithaca, NY on October 5, 2014.
0 kommentar(er)
