Recap

Steve Wozniak: Life & Times

Filling in for Art Bell, Kevin Mitnick (email) spoke with Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak, who shared stories about his life and work. "Woz," whom Mitnick referred to as "father of the personal computer," said he had an interest in computers from an early age, and made attempts to build them with as few parts as possible. He first met Steve Jobs (Apple's other co-founder) when Jobs came over to see the computer he was working on in his garage.

Beyond computers/electronics, the two shared an interest in pranks and became best friends. Wozniak described how during college he and Jobs learned the "secrets of the blue box," a device that created tones used by the phone company and could be rigged to make free international calls. During this time they met the notorious hacker "Captain Crunch" who taught them the codes. Before going to work for Apple, Woz was employed by Hewlett Packard, designing chips for their scientific calculator. While at Apple he created the best-selling Apple I and Apple II computers. His autobiography is due out this fall.

During the first hour Mitnick was joined by Alex Kasper and Devon for a discussion about phishing-- fraudulent Internet techniques that attempt to acquire sensitive information from computer users.

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Retro UFO

This weekend the Retro UFO convention took place in Landers, CA at the site of the Integraton, a unique domed building created by contactee George Van Tassel in the 1950's. For video, photos, and coverage of the event, see this article by Bettie Rinehart of the LA Times. George Knapp of KLAS-TV also recently filed a video report from the Integraton.