WHY CAPTAIN CRUNCH HARDLY EVER TAPS PHONES ANYMORE

Using internal phone-company codes, phone phreaks have learned a simple method for tapping phones. Phonecompany operators have in front of them a board that holds verification jacks. It allows them to plug into conversations in case of emergency, to listen in to a line to determine if the line is busy or the circuits are busy. Phone phreaks have learned to beep out the codes which lead them to a verification operator, tell the verification operator they are switchmen from some other area code testing out verification trunks. Once the operator hooks them into the verification trunk, they disappear into the board for all practical purposes, slip unnoticed into any one of the 10,000 to 100,000 numbers in that central office without the verification operator knowing what they’re doing, and of course without the two parties to the connection knowing there is a phantom listener present on their line.

Toward the end of my hour-long first conversation with him, I asked the Captain if he ever tapped phones.

“Oh no. I don’t do that. I don’t think it’s right,” he told me firmly. “I have the power to do it but I don’t….Well one time, just one time, I have to admit that I did. There was this girl Linda, and I wanted to find out…you know. I tried to call her up for a date. I had a date with her the last weekend and I thought she liked me. I called her up, man, and her line was busy, and I kept calling and it was still busy. Well, I had just learned about this system of jumping into lines and I said to myself, ‘Hmmm. Why not just see if it works. It’ll surprise her if all of a sudden I should pop up on her line. It’ll impress her, if anything.’ So I went ahead and did it. I M-F-ed into the line. My M-F-er is powerful enough when patched directly into the mouthpiece to trigger a verification trunk without using an operator the way the other phone phreaks have to.

“I slipped into the line and there she was talking to another boyfriend. Making sweet talk to him. I didn’t make a sound because I was so disgusted. So I waited there for her to hang up, listening to her making sweet talk to another guy. You know. So as soon as she hung up I instantly M-F-ed her up and all I said was, ‘Linda, we’re through.’ And I hung up. And it blew her head off. She couldn’t figure out what the hell had happened.

“But that was the only time. I did it thinking I would surprise her, impress her. Those were all my intentions were, and well, it really kind of hurt me pretty badly, and…and ever since then I don’t go into verification trunks.”

Moments later my first conversation with the Captain comes to a close.

“Listen,” he says, his spirits somewhat cheered, “listen. What you are going to hear when I hang up is the sound of tandems unstacking. Layer after layer of tandems unstacking until there’s nothing left of the stack, until it melts away into nothing. Cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep,” he concludes, his voice descending to a whisper with each cheep.

He hangs up. The phone suddenly goes into four spasms: kachink cheep. Kachink cheep kachink cheep kachink cheep, and the complex connection has wiped itself out like the Cheshire cat’s smile.

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