Captain Crunch and his Toy Whistle
One fateful day in 1971, a young hacker named John Draper opened a box of Captain Crunch cereal. It is hard to imagine how this led to a major event in the history of anything, but the detail is that the box came with a toy whistle. Draper didn’t take long to realize he could use this toy whistle to simulate the exact tones required to make free calls. This stunt earned him the nick name Cap’n Crunch, and it also led him to create something called the blue box. The blue box was a device designed to mimic the tones used by phone companies to make free calls anywhere. Draper may sound like a good for nothing phone phreak, but he was also out to explore the complex system behind phones of his time.
On another fateful day, two college roomm… Continue Reading (3 minute read)