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I met John Draper at SCALE 5x, eventually a huge group of us went out to dinner at some asian restaurant with him. He was talking about some new anti-spam ventu
by calloc 16y ago
I met John Draper at SCALE 5x, eventually a huge group of us went out to dinner at some asian restaurant with him. He was talking about some new anti-spam venture he was starting up and how he would love for us (I was a student at the time) to help him start up his company and sort spam.
All we would have to do (without monetary compensation) would be see if an email was spam and file it as such, and then he would sell the data we were generating to other companies that could then provide actual anti-spam solutions based on human interpretation of messages rather than just computer checked.
Overall I didn't like him. It smelled like he hadn't showered in at least a couple of days, and he was making rude sexual comments regarding the wait staff, overall my gut feeling was to get away from him as he was nothing good.
Here was someone who was a hero to so many people making an absolute fool out of himself and presenting himself as someone who has no social skills what so ever.
When I saw him at DefCon 17 it didn't seem like he had changed much, a friend of mine said she went up to him to just talk to him, seeing as how he is a legend, and all he did was make rude comments regarding taking her upstairs to his room and whatnot and she just turned around and walked away disgusted.
It is pretty cool he is still out there working on various projects, but overall he could use an overhaul on his social skills and learn that when you gain some sort of status in a community you have to act appropriately. Ultimately while John Draper used to be one of the guys I looked up to as having done some really awesome things I was saddened in how he acted in public.
- bh42 16y agoI've never met him person, but from the videos I've seen it is pretty obvious the man is pretty far on the aspie spectrum. Perhaps with massive intervention early on he could have learned to be almost normal. But at his age, I think we should all keep in mind that as much as he is a geek stereotype we're all trying to overcome, and as much as people like him can be dicks and sexists, and hurt others, it is not easy being him. This does not excuse his behavior. I think his work is worth of admiration and his social skills of, not scorn, but pity.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- swwu 16y agoQuite a few famous hackers seem to have this problem, eg Richard Stallman. I suppose there's a reason the "UNIX guy" stereotype exists.
- NateLawson 16y agoHe's not a savory character, and it goes farther than just bad social skills. Your friend made the right choice.
- die_sekte 16y agoWozniak paints a similiar picture of him in iWoz. Smelly, eccentric, skilled (pp. 108).
- dkarl 16y agoSuddenly the idea of him having the power to prank call anyone in the world seems a little less cool.
- swaits 16y agoI sat near him at HoHoCon (I'm thinking it was '92). Apparently someone smelled like cigarette smoke and he really didn't like that. He stopped the conference in the middle of a talk, proclaimed fairly loudly that if we wanted him present, we would eliminate the odor at once; if not, he would leave. Then he sat back down and we all just kinda shrugged.
- ax0n 16y agoI'm guessing he is one of the few that really doesn't mind the TSA's new backscatter opt-out policy.