Talk:John Draper

message: Considering his profile image on the article says "Draper at Maker Faire Berlin, 2015" he was still alive as of then. There are also numerous articles from as recent as 2020 stating that he is still alive and crowdfunding for his healthcare needs.
Is there any verification of his death? I can't seem to find any proof that he passed away. EricJ2190  —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:49, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Death

message: I removed NPOV statements in the final paragraph. It originally read, "An interesting story about Captain Crunch involves what is possibly the most insane phone-call ever. Draper picked up a public phone, then proceeded to literally "phreak" his call around the world. At no charge, he routed a call through different phone "servers" in countries such as Japan, Russia and England. Once he had set the call to go through nths of countries, he dialed the number of the public phone right next to him. Sure enough, a few minutes later, the phone next to him rang. John spoke into the first phone, and, after quite a few seconds, he heard his own voice very faintly on the other phone. This is just one example of his career in phreaking exploits."
'Possibly the most insane... ever', struck me as highly subjective and too 'slangy'. I also struck 'Sure enough', from the sentence 'sure enough, a few minutes later...' Wisco 08:49, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV in final paragraph 

message: This sounds fishy, anyone else care to comment?
Wozniak has said that the reason that the board was never marketed was that he was the only one in the company who liked him and partially due to Draper's arrest and conviction for wire fraud in 1977.
--Blakeops 10:04, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The bit about Draper is about 30 minutes in to the recording: "but everyone else at apple didn't like Crunch, only me."  I'm going to go ahead and add that link as a reference, although I'm not totally familiar with Wikipedia's reference policy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.146.130.162 (talk) 21:19, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apple II Telephone Interface 

message: See http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB116863379291775523-_EQCu93LyjSommsN6J7qiCozuu8_20070122.html?mod=blogs —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 62.174.117.184 (talk) 23:12, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Currently almost homeless? 

message: In the bonus features of the Sneakers DVD, John mentions that the name of his friend who mentioned the whistle to him is "Sid." Do we have a citation that Joe is his friend's name? Cheers, Debivort 03:57, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  source of the captain crunch info 

message: is crunch there? adam in fl needs ur help 904 721 0445/adammurray@bellsouth.net. please call  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.153.253.196 (talk) 03:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  ADAM in Fl needs captian Crunch bad 

message: What does Kandice have to do with him... is this sentence in the article correct??
"Currently he writes computer security software, is senior developer of KanTalk![4] VoIP software for teen singer/software model Kandice Melonakos,[5] and host of an internet show, Crunch TV."
- Regards, Nino  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.113.90.35 (talk) 09:50, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kandice?? 

message: "Dennie told me he was blind and wanted to be a DJ, and was also interested in phones. I thought that someone interested in phones was a tad wacky, but Dennie gave me a special number to call and I would be connected to a party line where up to 8 people can be on the line at once. I asked for Dennie's phone number before hanging up and trying the "Conference" line. 
"I called it, and just listened to it for a while without saying anything, just to hear what's going on. I caught words like "Loop round", "Tandem" and a whole bunch of other lingo that could have been Greek as far as I know at that time. I wrote some of these words down, and a note to ask Dennie what they all mean. 
.....
"He said it was a "loop around" and proceeded to tell me how it works. It essentially is used to measure line loss and works like this.... One calls 264-0044 and gets a tone, interrupted every 20 seconds or so. This tone is measured in Decibels by special equipment. Then, one calls the "Other side" of the loop, often called the "Silent side". In this case, it was 264-0045. The tone goes away, and both people can talk to each other." suck_in  
"My first visit
So, after work, I locate Dennie's house, and ring the door bell. His father answers the door, I ask for Dennie, and he shows me to his room. I enter into a dark room. Dennie says "Oh!! I'm sorry, you're not a blink!" and turns on the light. 
Dennie, it turns out was just a teenage kid. Yet from his voice, it sounded like he was in his 30's.Also in this room were 3 other nerd like kids. One rather short dude named Jimmy, who has perfect pitch and plays an organ really well."My First Visit (with the Blind Kids) this whole section needs to be re-written.Godspeed John Glenn! Will 22:15, 7 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Not introduced to Phreaking by JoyBubbles but by another blind kid "Dennie"

message: Gee, I'm hurt.  A few, admittedly creative, words of mine were eliminated in this IP edit because they were "Sarcastic wording."  I said that Draper had neglected minor details like his health for decades.  That was not intended as a slam, but instead a truthful reflection of Draper's personality.  There are several, sourced instances discussing his dental neglect, sometimes even basic hygiene that have been similarly eliminated from this article.  I contend they should be there, not because people need to know Draper smells or has bad teeth or the like, but that it is a unique trait.  He is so focused on the technical things that has made him famous that he doesn't think about the mundane things that clog our mortal mind, like eating, until they become a serious problem.  Similarly, he was so focused on experimenting and solving technical questions with the phone system, that he neglected the principle of legal or illegal.  So I'm throwing this open to discussion.  How to convey this personality trait? Trackinfo (talk) 05:44, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I would say don't. We say that he's been living out of a vehicle by choice for a while, and some lifestyle compromises are implicit in that. There's no excuse for using that as a platform to say that he's odorous or unhygenic, because that's not particularly encyclopedic information. We don't cover the fact that Bill Clinton sometimes sweats a lot in his article, for instance, even though you can find sources out there that cover this. The reason is the same: any mention of it at all is undue weight, and also almost certainly non-neutral even if you take pains to phrase it otherwise. — Gavia immer (talk) 10:04, 28 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sarcastic wording 

message: I trimmed down the section "Current medical situation", which was largely being used as a forum to solicit funds for Draper.  I removed 1) the request for money; 2) the information about trapped nerve syndrome, which is best served by the existing wikilink; and 3) the unsourced statement that "Draper has been known to neglect his personal health for decades," which is not acceptable in a BLP article unless reliably sourced. Really, the only thing appropriate to retain here is the sourced statement of his current medical condition. TJRC (talk) 19:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Funds solicitation 

message: There seems to be some vandalism going on to the page at the moment. People are changing instances of Draper to Derper. Reddit is currently linking to the article which is the likely cause of the vandalism influx. Thank you for protecting the page for the time being. Access Time (talk) 18:54, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: Salon just republished Ron Rosenbaum's Esquire article, which introduces Captain Cruch as "G---- T----, his real name."  I'm wondering what sort of alias G.T. was for John Draper, or if this is perhaps a doubly anonymous reference in the article. BrianWilloughby (talk) 10:26, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Esquire article: Who is G---- T-----? 

message: I moved these from the article's EL section. We can use them for sources perhaps but they do not belong in the article otherwise.
* .
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* .  Interview with John Draper.
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* .  John Draper is interviewed by Leo Laporte and Tom Merrit.
* .  John Draper is interviewed by Leo Laporte and Tom Merrit.
* .  John Draper is interviewed by Joe Tripician.
* .  John Draper alias Captain Crunch or JD.CrunchMan
Jojalozzo 03:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bunch of external links 

message: I'm completely new to contributing to Wikipedia, and I encourage the more experienced to just delete this if inappropriate.
In the early 80's I met John at an early computer show.  He was very friendly. We we struck up a conversation and quickly found some common ground, we'd both been screwed by a computer company we'd worked for.    He claimed that most of the money he made from EasyWriter was from the Apple product.    He had ill feelings toward the IBM deal he made.    Later we met a couple of times.   He showed me his expertise with the Fourth language, which is what EasyWriter was built with.   He was extremely creative and competent at programming, though he seemed mostly self taught.   I had never heard of Capt'n Crunch.   A friend of mine who was a fan of the 2600 newsletter brought me up to speed.   When I mentioned Capt'n Crunch, he was very evasive.   He clearly wanted to leave that period in his life behind.   No doubt his prison experience was part of this. 
I last saw him at an apartment he was living in near the western entrance to the Caldecott tunnel, I think in Oakland CA.  I saw the article mentioned Mercedes there.   I recall from that visit that at that time he was very interested in his physical health.    He was very muscular and I recall at one point when he started talking crazy, that I had some fear for my life.    After showing me that he could do many pushups, he explained that in prison he had been beaten to the point where his back was broken.    He also told me about how efficient he became in programming there because of his limited access to the computer.   Some of his behavior was rather colorful.   I recall him losing something  and him ranting that his apartment was full of black holes that things fell into.   This behavior was quite manic.   He go from calmness to extreme agitation very quickly.   He had a number of friends visiting at the apartment while I was there.   They were more like techie groupies than friends.   At one point he became verbally abusive to one of them.   This dissuaded me from contacting him again as I didn't want to be the target of that kind of random anger.
I don't mind being a source for any of my personal experiences.
198.144.201.136 (talk) 08:13, 5 May 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some personal anecdotes 

message: I've removed the lengthy list of software development projects that JD has allegedly worked on for two reasons. First, most lack citations of any kind, and should, therefore, remain out until citations can be added. Second, many are obscure and not useful to a general reader, which is what Wikipedia is created for. Finally, this isn't JD's resume. If it's important to know every single software project he's worked on, he can list them all on his LinkedIn profile. ahess247 (talk) 20:17, 24 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  About the exhaustive list of software development projects 

message: I think there's a strong case to take some of JD's claims about himself and the relative importance and/or success of the work he has done with some serious salt. When a source cited in the article is based on an interview with JD himself making claims about himself, those claims need to be carefully scrutinized before being treated as reliable because he has an apparent tendency to overstate things about himself. I think only claims verified by secondary sources, should be included. That means if a reporter or writer interviewed JD and then interviewed someone else with knowledge of the claim being made, and confirms it, it's considered reliable. JD cannot be treated as a reliable source about his work and impact. ahess247 (talk) 18:43, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evaluating JD's claims about himself versus those verified by others 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on John Draper. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100509013632/http://crunchcreations.com/ to http://www.crunchcreations.com/
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Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:57, 9 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Some edits have been done on the sexual allegations section, and those edits are not appearing in the history. ahess247 (talk) 14:31, 14 December 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Edits taking place without history

message: The current section is inadequate and incomplete. The allegations first appeared in Buzzfeed, and that should be the first and primary basis for the reference to these claims. They were journalistically vetted and reported, and then publicly addressed by JD in a follow up interview. Additionally, the public, on-the-record allegations by Matt Blaze, which were made in a media interview should be included, and it should be pointed out that JD has specifically not responded to those allegations despite having been directly and specifically asked about them. I will rewrite this section shortly. ahess247 (talk) 16:19, 9 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: About the allegations against JD

message: The article doesn't mention his politics. Abbie Hoffman said this about him in 1980:
 But I'd want a better source—any recommendations? (not watching, please ) czar 01:05, 2 August 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Anarchist? 

message: "AT&T long lines" here is incorrectly listed as the same thing as a POTS line.  That is incorrect: "AT&T Long Lines" was an important part of AT&T's long distance service.  As one citation See
https://personal.garrettfuller.org/blog/2018/01/19/att-long-lines-a-forgotten-system/
(Not saying that article is perfect, but it gives the idea).
This is important because the Bluebox did not affect the line from the phone to the central-office, but instead it was the connection from the central office over a long-distance call that it affected.
Sorry, I don't know how to properly edit here; hoping someone else can correct this in the proper way. Dec5622 (talk) 04:00, 22 February 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  AT&T long lines