Captain Crunch
John Draper, the man who found that a toy whistle from a cereal box produced exactly 2600 Hz — the tone that opened the phone network.
John Draper (born 1943) earned his handle when a free whistle in boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal happened to sound a pure 2600 Hz — precisely the frequency that made AT&T's long-distance trunks surrender control. The discovery made him a central figure in the phreaking scene and a prolific builder of blue boxes.
Draper influenced the young Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs and later wrote EasyWriter, an early word processor for the Apple II and the first for the IBM PC. The whistle story has become hacker culture's creation myth, retold so often it almost sounds made up.