John Draper
John Thomas Draper | |
|---|---|
 Draper at Maker Faire Berlin, 2015 | |
| Born | John Thomas Draper March 11, 1943 |
| Other names |
|
| Occupations |
|
| Website | https://johndraper.us/ www.webcrunchers.com & www.crunchcreations.com/ |
John Thomas Draper (also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch, or Crunchman; born March 11, 1943) 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 legal 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 allegations of inappropriate behavior emerged in media reports. Draper denied the allegations.