L0pht

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L0pht Heavy Industries
LHI Logo
LHI Logo
Origin Boston, Massachusetts
Country United States
Years active 1992–2000
Category hacker think tank
Founder(s) Count Zero
White Knight
Brian Oblivion
Golgo 13
Product(s) L0phtCrack
Affiliated Group(s) CULT OF THE DEAD COW

L0pht Heavy Industries (pronounced "loft") was a famous hacker collective located in the Boston, Massachusetts area between 1992 and 2000.

Contents

[edit] Name

The "Ø" in its name represents a zero, recalling the slashed zeroes that were used on old teletypewriters and still in some character mode OSs, so its normal on-line name, including its domain name, is "l0pht" (with a zero), not "lopht" (with an O) or "lØpht" (with a Nordic slashed letter O), which at that time would not have been a valid domain name.

Along with the significance of the "Ø", the name was not without meaning. Some of the founding members of the L0pht shared a common loft apartment space in Boston, from where they inter-connected and experimented with their own personal computers as well as equipment purchased from the Flea at MIT, and items garnished from dumpster diving local places of interest.

[edit] History

The L0pht was founded in 1992 in the Boston area as a location for its members to store their computer hardware and work on various projects. In time, the L0pht members quit their day jobs to form a business venture, named L0pht Heavy Industries. This hacker think tank released several security advisories and produced some widely-used software tools, like L0phtCrack (a password cracker for Windows NT). The L0pht is also known for creating the Hacker News Network, The Whacked Mac Archives CD, the Black Crawling Systems Archives CD, a POCSAG decoder kit and other items.

On May 19 1998, all seven members of the L0pht (Brian Oblivion, Kingpin, Mudge, Space Rogue, Stefan Von Neumann, John Tan, Weld Pond) famously testified before the Congress of the United States that they could shut down the entire Internet in 30 minutes.

In January 2000, L0pht Heavy Industries merged with the startup @stake, completing the L0pht's slow transition from an underground organization into an above ground "whitehat" computer security company.

Symantec announced its acquisition of @stake on September 16, 2004, and completed the transaction on October 9 of that year.

[edit] Members

[edit] Founders

  • Count Zero
  • White Knight
  • Brian Oblivion
  • Golgo 13

[edit] Final Members (January 2000)

[edit] Other Members

At various times l0pht has had other members who have come and gone. Also, in the late 1990's the organization for a time accepted dues from select hackers who wished support the cause.

[edit] Note

Two of L0pht's members when it closed its doors (Mudge and Dildog), as well as two of its original founders (Count Zero and White Knight), are also members of CULT OF THE DEAD COW.

[edit] External links

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