In 1971, Esquire Magazine published an article by Ron Rosenbaum about "phone phreaks" — kids who'd figured out ways to hack Ma Bell's system and make free calls. The "hero" of the tale was a blind gent who went under the handle of Captain Crunch because, incredibly, he'd discovered that a whistle that came in packages of Captain Crunch cereal could enable you to call all over the world without paying a dime.
The article was enormously influential. In the computer age, many successful entrepreneurs would cite it as having inspired them to get into electronics. Some became hackers of a new generation of technology; others founded the companies that were and are ripped-off…and, of course, both have a lot more in common than the source of their inspiration. If you'd like to read the Esquire piece, someone typed the whole article out and put it on his website here. I suspect this is a violation of copyright but, in this case, that seems somehow appropriate.