John Draper
John Thomas Draper (born March 11, 1943), also known as
Captain Crunch,
Crunch, or
Crunchman after a toy
boatswain's call whistle once given away in boxes of
Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal that for some years could be used to make free long distance phone calls, is an American computer programmer and former
phone phreak. He is a widely known figure within the
hacker and computer security community. He is primarily known as a colorful and unconventional figure in
Silicon Valley history and lore. He befriended and influenced
Steve Wozniak and
Steve Jobs in the years before they founded
Apple Computer. His determined probing and exploration of the telephone network earned him a reputation for his technical acumen. However, his activities sometimes crossed ethical lines, leading to criminal charges and prison time for
toll fraud.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he worked intermittently as a software engineer for Apple and
Autodesk and briefly ran his own software company, producing the
EasyWriter word processor. He worked only intermittently from the 1990s on. In 2017, organizers of four computer security conferences banned him from attending after credible allegations of inappropriate behavior emerged in media reports. Draper denied some of the allegations and didn't respond to others.
Provided by Wikipedia