John Draper
John Draper, aka 'Captain Crunch'
Many members of the phone phreaking community used aliases or pseudonyms to protect their identities from the telephone companies and the government. One of these individuals, John Draper, went by the moniker ‘Captain Crunch’. The name came from the discovery that a toy whistle, included as a prize inside boxes of Captain Crunch Cereal, could emit the exact sonic frequency of 2600khz that was necessary to take control of certain phone lines.
The same 1971 Esquire article that would get Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak involved in phone phreaking simultaneously proved to be the end of the road for Draper. The expose included numerous interviews with members of the phreaking community, and Esquire reporter Ron Rosenbaum was able to identify Draper as the eponymous Captain Crunch. Despite his pleas with Rosenbaum to not publish the article, it went to print as planned. Now unmasked, Draper would be arrested on charges of toll fraud in 1972, and serve five years probation. He would be arrested again in 1976 and 1978 for phone fraud, this time serving short prison sentences.
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