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Formation | 1984 [1] Recreation: 2015 |
---|---|
Founder | Ninja |
Dissolved | 1990 [1] |
Purpose | Hacking |
Location | |
Leader | FlowFlex |
Products | LOD Technical Journals |
Affiliations | Masters of Deception MindVox Cult of the Dead Cow |
The Legion of Doom (LOD) was an American hacker group founded by a hacker known as Lex Luthor after a rift with his previous group, the Knights of Shadow. LOD was active from the 1980s to the early 2000s, but was most active from 1984 to 1991. Today, Legion of Doom ranks as one of the more influential hacking groups in the history of technology, appearing to be a reference to the antagonists of Challenge of the Superfriends .
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 phreaking.
Another hacking group existed simultaneously, called MOD, short for the Masters of Deception. While the ideologies of LOD and MOD differed, there was a cross-over between the members of the groups, so the actions of the members can be difficult to attribute. Unlike the hacking group MOD, there are different opinions regarding what the Legion of Doom is. LOD published the Legion of Doom Technical Journals and contributed to the overall pool of hacking knowledge. They claimed that they did not cause direct harm to the phone systems and computer networks they accessed. Still, at the time, any tampering with the phone systems was considered damaging, and many LOD members were raided and prosecuted by law enforcement for causing alleged damage to systems (Grant, Darden and Riggs, etc.).
During the summer of 1984, a year after the movie WarGames was released, an idea was formulated that would ultimately change the face of the computer underground forever. That particular summer, a huge surge of interest in computer telecommunications placed a large number of new enthusiasts on the national computer scene. This crowd of people all seeking to learn as much as possible began to put a strain on the bulletin board (FIDO) scene, as the novices stormed the phone lines in search of knowledge. From out of this chaos came a need for knowledgeable instructors to teach information to the new users.
In 1984, one of the most popular bulletin boards of the day was a system in New York state called Plover-NET, which was run by a person who called himself Quasimodo. This BBS was so heavily trafficked that a major long-distance company began blocking all calls to its number (516-935-2481). The co-sysop of Plover-NET was a person known as Lex Luthor. At the time there were a few hacking groups in existence, such as Fargo 4A and Knights of Shadow, but the Legion of Doom was considered the most technically adept. Lex joined KOS in early 1984, but after a few suggestions about new members were rejected, Lex decided to put up an invitation-only BBS and form a new group. Lex contacted those people who he had seen on BBSes such as Plover-NET and the people that he knew personally who possessed the necessary knowledge that the group he envisioned should have, starting around May 1984. After a number of Alliance Teleconferences, Lex Luthor, Karl Marx, Mark Tabas, Agrajag the Prolonged, King Blotto, Blue Archer, EBA, The Dragyn, and Unknown Soldier became the original Legion of Doom members. [1]
As of 2012, it is unknown what happened to individual members of the Legion of Doom. A small handful of the higher-profile LOD members who are accounted for includes: "Lex Luthor", "Erik Bloodaxe", "Mark Tabas", "Karl Marx", "Agrajag the Prolonged", "Automatic Jack", "Bill From RNOC", "Lord Digital", "The Mentor", "Doctor Who", "Dead Lord", "Phiber Optik", who was a member of both LOD and Masters of Deception (MOD), and "Terminus". [2]
Alumni of the Fraternal Order of the Legion of Doom (Lambda Omega Delta) [1] | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Handle | Entered | Exited | Location | Reasons for leaving |
Lex Luthor | Early 84 | Florida | ||
Karl Marx | Early 84 | Late 85 | Colorado | Bust w/Tabas..College |
Mark Tabas | Early 84 | Late 85 | Colorado | Too numerous to list |
Agrajag the Prolonged | Early-84 | Late 85 | California | Loss of Interest |
King Blotto | Early 84 | Late 85 | Ohio | College |
Blue Archer | Early 84 | Late 87 | Texas | College |
EBA | Early 84 | Texas | ||
The Dragyn | Early 84 | Late 86 | Minnesota | Loss of Interest |
Unknown Soldier | Early 84 | Early 85 | Florida | Bust-Toll Fraud |
Sharp Razor | Late 84 | Early 86 | New Jersey | Bust-Compuserve Abuse |
Sir Francis Drake | Late 84 | Early 86 | California | Loss of Interest |
Paul Muad'dib (Jeremiah Beckingham) | Late 84 | Early 89 | Toronto, ONT | Loss of Interest |
Phucked Agent 04 | Late 84 | Late 87 | California | College |
X-Man | Late 84 | Mid 85 | New York | Bust-Blue Boxing |
Randy Smith | Late 84 | Mid 85 | Missouri | Bust-Credit Fraud |
Steve Dahl | Early 85 | Early 86 | Illinois | Bust-Credit Fraud |
The Warlock | Early 85 | Early 86 | Florida | Loss of Interest |
Terminal Man | Early 85 | Late 85 | Massachusetts | Expelled from Group |
Dr. Who | Early 85 | Late 89 | Massachusetts | Several Reasons |
The Videosmith | Early 86 | Late 87 | Pennsylvania | Paranoia |
Kerrang Khan | Early 86 | Mid 89 | "London UK" | Loss of Interest |
Gary Seven | Early 86 | Mid 88 | Florida | Loss of Interest |
The Marauder | Early 86 | Mid 89 | Connecticut | Loss of Interest |
Silver Spy | Late 86 | Late 87 | Massachusetts | College |
Bill from RNOC | Early 87 | Late 87 | New York | Bust-Hacking |
The Leftist | Mid 87 | Late 89 | Georgia | Bust-Hacking |
Phantom Phreaker | Mid 87 | Illinois | ||
Doom Prophet | Mid 87 | Illinois | ||
Jester Sluggo | Mid 87 | North Dakota | ||
Carrier Culprit | Mid 87 | Mid 88 | Pennsylvania | Loss of Interest |
SysOp | Mid 87 | Early 90 | Washington | Bust-Hacking |
Master of Impact | Mid 87 | Mid 88 | California | Loss of Interest |
Thomas Covenant | Early 88 | Early 90 | New York | Bust-Hacking |
The Mentor | Mid 88 | Early 90 | Texas | Retired after US Secret Service raid |
Necron 99 | Mid 88 | Late 89 | Georgia | Bust-Hacking |
Control C | Mid 88 | Early 90 | Michigan | |
Prime Suspect | Mid 88 | New York | ||
The Prophet | Mid 88 | Late 89 | Georgia | Bust-Hacking |
Phiber Optik | Early 89 | Early 90 | New York | Bust-Hacking |
CompuPhreak | Early 84 | Early 87 | Florida | Started a Business |
Djinn | Early 90 | Early 01 | Georgia | Retired |
LOD was against wanton destruction of hacked computers. Gary Cohen "Terminal Man" was dismissed from the group for this reason.[ citation needed ] Other disagreements led to infighting between Erik Bloodaxe and Mark Tabas. A war with MOD was undertaken, and Erik Bloodaxe led as LOD's general. While Bloodaxe was active in this regard, other LOD members were less so.
In 1992, several members of LOD came together and founded LODCOM, Inc.,[ citation needed ] which collected old hacker bulletin board messages for an archive, which was to be sold. Most, if not all, of this material later ended up on textfiles.com. Marauder formed LOD.COM as a consulting company, and several ex-LOD members had accounts on the system. In the late 1990s, a root DNS server had an illicit new TLD of .LOD for over a year. The business name "LOD Communications" arose sometime in the late 80s when Frank Carson (aka Basketball Jones - one of the few "Unknown to the public" LOD Members) registered the name & applied for a CT Tax ID to enable Marauder to get on the Bellcore technical document mailing list.
Phreaking is a slang term coined to describe the activity of a culture of people who study, experiment with, or explore telecommunication systems, such as equipment and systems connected to public telephone networks. The term phreak is a sensational spelling of the word freak with the ph- from phone, and may also refer to the use of various audio frequencies to manipulate a phone system. Phreak, phreaker, or phone phreak are names used for and by individuals who participate in phreaking.
The Legion of Doom is a group of supervillains who originated in Challenge of the Superfriends, an animated series from Hanna-Barbera based on DC Comics' Justice League. The Legion of Doom has since been incorporated into the main DC Universe, appearing in comics, as well as further animated and live-action adaptations, and also video games.
Masters of Deception (MOD) was a New York–based group of hackers, most widely known in media for their exploits of telephone company infrastructure and later prosecution.
The Great Hacker War was a purported conflict between the Masters of Deception (MOD), an unsanctioned splinter faction of the older hacker group Legion of Doom (LOD), and several smaller associated groups. Both primary groups involved made attempts to hack into the opposing group's networks, across the Internet, X.25, and telephone networks. In a panel debate of The Next HOPE conference, Phiber Optik re-iterated that the rumored "gang war in cyberspace" between Legion of Doom and Masters of Deception never happened, and that it was "a complete fabrication" by the U.S attorney's office and some sensationalist media. Furthermore, two other high-ranking members of the LOD confirmed that the "Great Hacker War" never occurred, reinforcing the idea that this was just a competition of one-upmanship and not a war.
Mark Abene is an American information security expert and entrepreneur, originally from New York City. Better known by his pseudonym Phiber Optik, he was once a member of the hacker groups Legion of Doom and Masters of Deception.
Chris Goggans is an American hacker, a founding member of the Legion of Doom group, and a former editor of Phrack magazine. He is known as an expert in security as well as for his statements on hacker ethics and responsibility.
Bruce Fancher is a former computer hacker and member of the Legion of Doom hacker group. He co-founded MindVox in 1991 with Patrick K. Kroupa.
Lena Luthor is the name of two fictional comic book characters in DC Comics. The first one, introduced in 1961, is the sister of Superman's nemesis Lex Luthor, while the second one, introduced in 2000, is Lex Luthor's daughter who is named after her aunt.
OSUNY was a dial-up bulletin board that was run by two different sysops in the 1980s, "Sysop" while in Scarsdale, New York, and Frank Roberts in White Plains, New York. Named for the Ohio Scientific computer it originally ran on, it attracted a large group of hackers, phone phreaks, engineers, computer programmers, and other technophiles. It remained a haven almost exclusively for the hacker/phreaker community until gaining notoriety through mention in a Newsweek article, Hacking Through NASA: A threat- or only an embarrassment, and mention in the book The Hacker Crackdown as a favored hangout of the notorious hacker group The Legion of Doom, after which it was shuttered, and another board was brought up as a "replacement" known as The Crystal Palace, which was short-lived. OSUNY was restarted soon after, using an Altos 5-15D running MP/M and the continuously evolving Citadel/UX software. Also in the mid-1980s it became the first BBS to be associated with 2600 Magazine. It ran via dial-up until its closing around 1988.
John Lee, a.k.a. John Threat, used the name "Corrupt" as a member of Masters of Deception (MOD), a New York based hacker group in the early '90s.
Challenge of the Superfriends is an American animated television series about a team of superheroes which ran from September 9 to December 23, 1978, on ABC. The complete series was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and is based on the Justice League and associated comic book characters published by DC Comics and created by Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky. It was the third series of Super Friends cartoons, following the original Super Friends in 1973 and The All-New Super Friends Hour in 1977.
Underground: Tales of Hacking, Madness and Obsession on the Electronic Frontier is a 1997 book by Suelette Dreyfus, researched by Julian Assange. It describes the exploits of a group of Australian, American, and British black hat hackers during the late 1980s and early 1990s, among them Assange himself.
Superboy's Legion is a two-issue comic book mini-series, published by DC Comics cover dated February and March 2001, under the Elseworlds imprint. Written by Mark Farmer, with art by Farmer and Alan Davis. The comic series is a tale about the baby Kal-El, the last survivor of the doomed planet Krypton, arrives on Earth in the 30th century and is found by billionaire R.J. Brande. As Kal grows up, he decides to find other super-powered teens like himself and form a Legion of Super-Heroes. The story uses elements from the Silver Age Comics, most notably the original Legion of Super-Heroes series.
Robot Chicken DC Comics Special 2: Villains in Paradise is an episode of the television comedy series Robot Chicken and it was aired as a half-hour special during Cartoon Network's Adult Swim on April 6, 2014. It serves as the sequel to the Robot Chicken DC Comics Special that focuses more on the Legion of Doom and is followed by Robot Chicken DC Comics Special III: Magical Friendship.
Plover-NET, often misspelled Plovernet, was a popular bulletin board system in the early 1980s. Hosted in New York state and originally owned and operated by a teenage hacker who called himself Quasi-Moto, whom was a member of the short lived yet famed Fargo 4A phreak group. The popular bulletin board system attracted a large group of hackers, telephone phreaks, engineers, computer programmers, and other technophiles, at one point reaching over 600 users until LDX, a long distance phone company, began blocking all calls to its number (516-935-2481).
Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League – Attack of the Legion of Doom is a 2015 American animated superhero comedy film based on the Lego and DC Comics brands, which was released on August 25, 2015, on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital HD. This is the fourth Lego DC Comics film following Lego Batman: The Movie – DC Super Heroes Unite, Lego DC Comics: Batman Be-Leaguered and Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League vs. Bizarro League.
Elias Ladopoulos is a technologist and investor from New York City. Under the pseudonym Acid Phreak, he was a founder of the Masters of Deception (MOD) hacker group along with Phiber Optik and Scorpion. Referred to as The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace in a 1995 non-fiction book, MOD was at the forefront of exploiting telephone systems to hack into the private networks of major corporations. In his later career, Ladopoulos developed new techniques for electronic trading and computerized projections of stocks and shares performance, as well as working as a security consultant for the defense department. As of 2015, he is CEO of Supermassive Corp, which is a hacker-based incubation studio for technology start-ups.
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