Adrián Alfonso Lamo Atwood was an American threat analyst and hacker. Lamo first gained media attention for breaking into several high-profile computer networks, including those of The New York Times, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, culminating in his 2003 arrest.
Kevin David Mitnick was an American computer security consultant, author, and convicted hacker. He is best known for his high-profile 1995 arrest and five years in prison for various computer and communications-related crimes. Mitnick's pursuit, arrest, trial and sentence were all controversial, as were the associated media coverage, books and films. After his release from prison, he ran his own security firm, Mitnick Security Consulting, LLC, and was also involved with other computer security businesses.
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.
Robert Tappan Morris is an American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for creating the Morris worm in 1988, considered the first computer worm on the Internet.
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.
In the context of information security, social engineering is the psychological manipulation of people into performing actions or divulging confidential information. A type of confidence trick for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or system access, it differs from a traditional "con" in the sense that it is often one of the many steps in a more complex fraud scheme. It has also been defined as "any act that influences a person to take an action that may or may not be in their best interests."
Freedom Downtime is a 2001 documentary film sympathetic to the convicted computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, directed by Emmanuel Goldstein and produced by 2600 Films.
Rafael Moreu is an American screenwriter, best known for his work in horror and thrillers.
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.
A security hacker or security researcher is someone who explores methods for breaching defenses and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, information gathering, challenge, recreation, or evaluation of a system weaknesses to assist in formulating defenses against potential hackers.
Brian Krebs is an American journalist and investigative reporter. He is best known for his coverage of profit-seeking cybercriminals. Krebs is the author of a daily blog, KrebsOnSecurity.com, covering computer security and cybercrime. From 1995 to 2009, Krebs was a reporter for The Washington Post and covered tech policy, privacy and computer security as well as authoring the Security Fix blog.
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. The name is apparently a reference to the antagonists of Challenge of the Superfriends.
John Lee, a.k.a. John Threat is an American computer hacker and entrepreneur. He used the name "Corrupt" as a member of Masters of Deception (MOD), a New York based hacker group in the early 1990s.
Max Ray Vision is a former computer security consultant and hacker who served a 13-year prison sentence, the longest sentence ever given at the time for hacking charges in the United States. He was convicted of two counts of wire fraud, including stealing nearly 2 million credit card numbers and running up about $86 million in fraudulent charges.
Patrick Karel Kroupa, known colloquially as Lord Digital, is an American writer, hacker, and activist. Kroupa was a member of the Legion of Doom and Cult of the Dead Cow hacker groups and co-founded MindVox in 1991 with Bruce Fancher.
Dave Buchwald, is a filmmaker and former phone phreak, hacker, and leader of the Legion of Doom in the mid-1980s, then known as Bill From RNOC.
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.
