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 for toll fraud and prison time.
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.: 319 He worked only intermittently from the 1990s on.: 329 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.
