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TAP predated [[2600]] by decades and at the time of the TAP meetings, [[2600 magazine]] did not yet exist. Kroupa met many people there who would become part of his life in the years to come. Three of the main characters would be his future partner and life-long friend, Bruce Fancher; [[Yippie]]/[[Medical Marijuana]] activist [[Dana Beal]] (The Theoretician), who was part of the [[John Draper]] ([[Captain Crunch]])/Abbie Hoffman, technologically-inclined branch of the counter-culture and perhaps most important: [[Herbert Hunke]], who along with John Draper was a frequent house-guest, spending months (in Hunke's case, years) living in Dana Beal's basement at the infamous #9 Bleecker Street.
TAP predated [[2600]] by decades and at the time of the TAP meetings, [[2600 magazine]] did not yet exist. Kroupa met many people there who would become part of his life in the years to come. Three of the main characters would be his future partner and life-long friend, Bruce Fancher; [[Yippie]]/[[Medical Marijuana]] activist [[Dana Beal]] (The Theoretician), who was part of the [[John Draper]] ([[Captain Crunch]])/Abbie Hoffman, technologically-inclined branch of the counter-culture and perhaps most important: [[Herbert Hunke]], who along with John Draper was a frequent house-guest, spending months (in Hunke's case, years) living in Dana Beal's basement at the infamous #9 Bleecker Street.


Herbert Hunke's best-known claim to fame, is being the man who turned [[William Burroughs]] on to heroin. While Burroughs was an exception to nearly everything most people may consider human, Hunke's actions were not. Although Hunke was known as a beat poet and writer, he was also living in squalor, homeless part of the time and surviving through petty crimes and selling heroin and turning anybody he came into contact with, onto the drug.
Herbert Hunke's best-known claim to fame, is being the man who turned [[William Burroughs]] on to heroin. While Burroughs was an exception to nearly everything most people may consider human, Hunke's actions were not. Although Hunke was known as a beat poet and writer, he was also living in squalor, homeless part of the time, surviving through petty crimes and dealing heroin and turning anybody he came into contact with, onto the drug.


Hunke was also the person who first introduced Kroupa to heroin at age 14; the drug that nearly killed him, helped destroy the company behind MindVox while creating the legend and myth that MindVox became, and laid the foundations for what Kroupa himself was to become in the 21st. century.
Hunke was also the person who first introduced Kroupa to heroin at age 14; the drug that nearly killed him, helped destroy the company behind MindVox while creating the legend and myth that MindVox became, and laid the foundations for what Kroupa himself was to become in the 21st. century.

Revision as of 03:23, 14 November 2005

File:Patrick Kroupa01 2005.jpg
Patrick K. Kroupa, 2005.

Patrick Karel Kroupa (also known as Lord Digital, born January 20, 1969 in Los Angeles, California) is an American writer, hacker, and cyberculture icon. Kroupa was a member of the legendary Legion of Doom hacker group and co-founded MindVox in 1991, with Bruce Fancher. He was a heroin addict from age 14 to 30, and got clean through the use of the hallucinogenic drug, ibogaine.

Early Years

Patrick Kroupa was part of the first generation to grow up with home computers and network access. In numerous interviews he has repeatedly cited two events which were pivotal in shaping the course of his later years.

The first was being exposed to one of the first two Cray supercomputers that were ever built, which was located at NCAR (the National Center for Atmospheric Research) where his father was a physicist, who took him through the labs and taught him to program in Fortran and feed the Cray using punched cards. This happened during the same year that Woody Allen was filming Sleeper, using NCAR in many of the futuristic background scenes that appeared in the movie. Kroupa got an Apple II computer for his own use around the time he was 7 or 8 years old.

The second event was walking into the ending of the final generation of Abbie Hoffman's YIPL (Youth International Party Lines) / TAP (Technological Assistance Program) counter-culture/Yippie meetings that were taking place in New York City's Lower East Side, during the early 80's. Kroupa again lists this event, repeatedly in interviews, as opening many new doors for him and changing his perceptions about technology.

File:PatrickKroupa80s.jpg
Patrick K. Kroupa, late 1980's.

TAP predated 2600 by decades and at the time of the TAP meetings, 2600 magazine did not yet exist. Kroupa met many people there who would become part of his life in the years to come. Three of the main characters would be his future partner and life-long friend, Bruce Fancher; Yippie/Medical Marijuana activist Dana Beal (The Theoretician), who was part of the John Draper (Captain Crunch)/Abbie Hoffman, technologically-inclined branch of the counter-culture and perhaps most important: Herbert Hunke, who along with John Draper was a frequent house-guest, spending months (in Hunke's case, years) living in Dana Beal's basement at the infamous #9 Bleecker Street.

Herbert Hunke's best-known claim to fame, is being the man who turned William Burroughs on to heroin. While Burroughs was an exception to nearly everything most people may consider human, Hunke's actions were not. Although Hunke was known as a beat poet and writer, he was also living in squalor, homeless part of the time, surviving through petty crimes and dealing heroin and turning anybody he came into contact with, onto the drug.

Hunke was also the person who first introduced Kroupa to heroin at age 14; the drug that nearly killed him, helped destroy the company behind MindVox while creating the legend and myth that MindVox became, and laid the foundations for what Kroupa himself was to become in the 21st. century.

With the exception of the counter-cultural and hard-drug elements, the preceding history made Kroupa part of a small group, made up of a few hundred kids who were either wealthy enough to afford home computers in the late 70's, or had technologically-savvy families who understood the potentials of what the machines could do. The internet as it is today did not exist, only a small percentage of the population had home computers and out of those who did, even fewer had online access through the use of modems.

Kroupa was a member of the first Pirate/Cracking crew to ever exist for the Apple ][ computer: The Apple Mafia; as well as various phreaking/hacking groups, the most high-profile being: the Knights of Shadow and his last group association: the Legion of Doom.

Voices in My Head / MindVox

MindVox is Formed

         /\_-\
        <((_))>
         \- \/
 /\_-\(:::::::::)/\_-\
<((_))  MindVox  ((_))>
 \- \/(:::::::::)\- \/
         /\_-\
        <((_))>
         \- \/

In the early 90's there was a huge upheaval in online existence. Cyberspace was in the process of no longer being a cutting-edge private playground for the rich, smart and computer-literate. The dream of universal access was in the process of becoming reality.

The computer underground had suffered through a series of protracted raids by the Secret Service and FBI, called Operation Sundevil and Operation Redux. Many Legion of Doom members were raided, charged and in some cases successfully prosecuted. This happened against the backdrop of the first and largest gang war that ever took place in cyberspace, the Great Hacker War between LOD and their rival gang MOD (Masters of Deception).

At the same time the non-computer, counter-cultural underground, was experiencing a similar crisis and imploding all over itself. Abbie Hoffman returned, only to kill himself. The Yippies broke off into different factions that were at war with each other, mirroring the online activities of LOD and MOD. For all their peace, love and understanding, the Hippies, Yippies and Zippies, couldn't even get along with each other.

While the computer underground and the counter-culture was busy with infighting, the US Government was even more busy with trying to bring law and order online. They went about it by arresting anybody and everybody and stomping all over civil rights and due process. This led to the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) by Mitch Kapor, John Perry Barlow and John Gilmore.

This is the environment in which MindVox was born. In the words of Bruce Fancher:

Our greatest fear wasn't whether or not we'd be successful as a company, that was secondary. What concerned us was that one day the Secret Service would kick in the door and just confiscate everything.

Considering Kroupa and Fancher's backgrounds and the fact that MindVox employed a motley collection of convicted felons like security expert Len Rose and the infamous Phiber Optik (Mark Abene) who was awaiting a Manhattan grand jury indictment, these were very real issues at the time.

Bibliography

Essays

  • Voices In My Head MindVox: The Overture (1992), Patrick K. Kroupa. [1], [2], [3]

Magazines

  • The Akashic Records of Cyberspace (1993), Patrick K. Kroupa. Mondo 2000.
  • Memoirs of a Cybernaut (1993), Patrick K. Kroupa. Wired.
  • Agr1pPa - A Book of The Mentally Disturbed (1993), Patrick K. Kroupa. Mondo 2000. [4], [5]
  • The Secret Service is Neither (1994), Patrick K. Kroupa. Mondo 2000.
  • Heroin Times: Ibogaine Series (2000-2003), Patrick K. Kroupa. Heroin Times.

Medical Journals

  • Ibogaine in the 21st Century: Boosters, Tune-ups and Maintenance (2005), Patrick K. Kroupa & Hattie Wells. MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, Volume XV, Number 1).

References

Books

  • Tod Foley, (1994) Tricks of the Internet Gurus, SAM'S Publishing

Magazines & Newspapers

Medical Journals

Film

Television

Radio

Music

MindVox

Ibogaine

Yippies

Misc

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