Captain Crunch
publication date: Monday, September 1, 2025 (part of September 2025)
category: Crime
clue: This formative friend of pre-Apple Steves had a freaking great reputation for navigating complex telecom systems so deftly that it was like he ate phone networks for breakfast.
explanation: John Draper became infamous as "Captain Crunch" in the hacking and phreaking community for using a plastic toy whistle from boxes of Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal to replicate tone pitches so perfectly that he could navigate phone systems and make toll-free calls to anywhere in the world. He was a friend of Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs before they founded Apple. more…
intended difficulty: hard
solved by: Russ Wilhelm, Steve West, Samir Mehta, and Richard Slominsky
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