Legion of Doom (hacking)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Legion of Doom
LOD Logo
Country	United States
Years active	1980s–1990s
Category	Hacking
Founder(s)	Lex Luthor
Product(s)	LOD Technical Journals
Affiliated Group(s)	Masters of Deception MindVox Cult of the Dead Cow hackweiser

For other uses, see Legion of Doom (disambiguation).

The Legion of Doom (LOD) was an extremely influential hacker group that was active from the 1980s to the 1990s.

LOD was founded by the hacker Lex Luthor, after a rift with his previous group the Knights of Shadow (much as the Masters of Deception would later be founded after Phiber Optik had a rift with Chris Goggans and LOD, eventually leading to the Great Hacker War and disbanding of both groups).

At different points in the group's history, LOD was split into LOD and LOD/LOH (Legion of Doom/Legion of Hackers) for the members that were more skilled at hacking than pure phone phreaking.

Unlike MOD there were different opinions regarding what the Legion of Doom was. While LOD published the Legion of Doom Technical Journals and regularly contributed to the overall pool of hacking knowledge and information, while causing no direct harm to the phone systems and computer networks they took over. On the other hand, many LOD members were raided, charged and in some cases successfully prosecuted for causing damage to systems and reprogramming phone company computers (Grant, Darden and Riggs, etc). While the "Bellsouth" case could be construed as exploration of the phone system, with claims that no real damage was done, there are other former LOD members such as Corey A. Lindsly (a.k.a. Mark Tabas) who were clearly interested in for-profit, computer crime, with no goal except personal gain ^[1], ^[2].

Although the overall expressed beliefs and behavior of LOD and MOD were different, it can be difficult to untangle the individual actions of any given member. In many cases there seems to be cross-over between the two groups or collaboration between LOD and MOD members, even during the middle of The Great Hacker War.

1 Members of LoD
2 References
- 2.1 Public Access Legal Records & Transcripts
3 See also

[edit] Members of LoD

As of 2006 what has happened to each individual member of the Legion of Doom is unknown. A small handful of the higher-profile LOD members who are accounted for includes: Chris Goggans "Erik Bloodaxe", David Buchwald "Bill From RNOC", Patrick K. Kroupa "Lord Digital", Loyd Blankenship "The Mentor", Bruce Fancher "Dead Lord" and Mark Abene "Phiber Optik", who was a member of both LOD and Masters of Deception (MOD).

Other members included: Steven G. Steinberg "Frank Drake", Corey A. Lindsly "Mark Tabas", Peter Jay Salzman "Thomas Covenant", Adam Grant "The Urvile", Franklin Darden "The Leftist", Robert Riggs "The Prophet", Todd Lawrence "The Marauder", Scott Chasin "Doc Holiday", Dan Smith "Control C", and Jake Kenyon Shulman "Malefactor".

Former LoD people whose real names are unknown include: Agrajag The Prolonged, King Blotto, Blue Archer, The Dragyn, Unknown Soldier, Sharp Razor, Doctor Who, Paul Muad'Dib, Phucked Agent 04, X-man, Randy Smith, Steve Dahl, The Warlock, Terminal Man, Silver Spy, The Videosmith, Kerrang Khan, Gary Seven, Carrier Culprit, Master of Impact, Phantom Phreaker, Doom Prophet, Phase Jitter, Prime Suspect, The m0nit0r, Skinny Puppy, Professor Falken, Solomon Grundy (which was later shortened to "Sundry") and LoD founder: Lex Luthor.

It was reported that Paul Maud'ib was murdered in New York City in the mid 1980s. This has not been verified and may be either Maud'ib faking his own death in order to quietly quit the hacker scene, or a vicious rumor spread by some hackers who enjoy such things.

The above member list includes two members who were in fact the same person. This person created the deception in order to throw the FBI off his track in the late 1980s. There was no attempt to deceive LOD about his identity.

[edit] References

[edit] Public Access Legal Records & Transcripts

US Government's Sentencing Memorandum, US v. Grant, Darden and Riggs, Criminal Action Number 1:90-CR-31, December, 1990. (US Government v. "Legion of Doom")
The entire online text of The Hacker Crackdown, Bruce Sterling's book on the topic.