Elias Ladopoulos

Last updated

Elias Ladopoulos
Born
New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality American
Other namesAcid Phreak
Occupation(s) Programmer, entrepreneur, investor
Known forFounding member of Masters of Deception (MOD), Hacking, Phreaking, computer security

Elias Ladopoulos [1] is a technologist and investor from New York City. [2] Under the pseudonym Acid Phreak, [3] he was a founder of the Masters of Deception (MOD) hacker group [4] along with Phiber Optik (Mark Abene) and Scorpion (Paul Stira). Referred to as The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace [5] in a 1995 non-fiction book, MOD was at the forefront of exploiting telephone systems to hack into the private networks of major corporations. [6] 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 [ citation needed ]. As of 2015, he is CEO of Supermassive Corp, which is a hacker-based incubation studio for technology start-ups. [7]

Contents

Founding of MOD

When Ladopoulos and Stira were engaged in exploring an unusual telephone system computer, Ladopoulos suggested seeking advice from Phiber Optik (Mark Abene), a well-known phreak who was also a member of the prestigious Legion of Doom (LOD) group. A productive phone hacking partnership developed, with the group later branding themselves Masters of Deception (MOD). [8]

MOD's hacking exploits included taking control of every major phone system and global packet-switching network in the United States [ citation needed ]. Ladopoulos claims that he and another hacker were able to place a call to Queen Elizabeth II [ citation needed ]. Their pranks included taking over the printers of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), an incident that escalated when another hacker used the access they had established to wipe the PBS systems [ citation needed ]. The group is also known for retrieving phone and credit information for celebrities such as Julia Roberts and John Gotti. [9]

Conflict with former Legion of Doom members

Abene's involvement in both LOD and MOD showed a natural alignment between the two groups in MOD's early years. As LOD's original membership broke up, however, conflicts arose between Abene and Eric Bloodaxe (Chris Goggans), another LOD member. Goggans declaring that Abene had been expelled from LOD, resulted in a permanent split between the two groups. Ladopoulos is credited with writing "The History of MOD" for "other hackers to envy." [10] Further disagreements and pranks, including the hacking of Goggans's security consultancy ComSec, [4] have been characterized as the Great Hacker War. [8]

Prosecution

On January 15, 1990 (Martin Luther King Day), the AT&T telephone network crashed. [11] Later investigations revealed the cause to be a software bug; however, an FBI task force that had been investigating MOD was convinced the group was implicated. On January 24 the FBI raided the homes of five MOD members, including Ladopoulos, Abene, and Stira. [12] Despite being released without charge due to lack of evidence, the MOD members were later re-arrested on a conspiracy charge following wire-tapping of future MOD members. After Abene rejected a plea bargain, Ladopoulos refused to testify against his fellow hacker, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 6 months in a supervised camp facility, followed by 6 months' house arrest. According to U.S. attorney Otto Obermaier it was the "first investigative use of court-authorized wiretaps to obtain conversations and data transmissions of computer hackers" in the United States. [13]

Career

After completing his sentence, Ladopoulos was hired as a security engineer by the Reuters-owned electronic trading business, Instinet [ citation needed ]. Hiring other former hackers, Ladopoulos built a department responsible for securing Instinet's global trading operations and developing security systems that were later acquired by NASDAQ [ citation needed ]. Later, as a consultant for Instinet, Ladopoulos also worked as VP Operations for the government security contractor NetSec (later Verizon Government) [ citation needed ].

In 2008, he founded Kinetic Global Markets with Roger Ehrenberg [ citation needed ]. As CEO and CIO, he led a team pioneering new approaches to systematic trading based on the computational analysis of terms used in SEC filings. Ladopoulos consulted on Ehrenberg's launch of IA Venture Capital [ citation needed ].

In 2013, Ladopoulos founded Supermassive Corp., [7] which describes itself as the original hacker incubation studio, "bringing together teams of extremely unique talents to rapidly prototype ideas that have a big impact." [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hacker</span> Person skilled in information technology

In a positive connotation, a hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals by non-standard means. Though the term hacker has become associated in popular culture with a security hacker – someone with knowledge of bugs or exploits to break into computer systems and access data which would otherwise be inaccessible to them – hacking can also be utilized by legitimate figures in legal situations. For example, law enforcement agencies sometimes use hacking techniques to collect evidence on criminals and other malicious actors. This could include using anonymity tools to mask their identities online and pose as criminals. Likewise, covert world agencies can employ hacking techniques in the legal conduct of their work. Hacking and cyber-attacks are used extra-legally and illegally by law enforcement and security agencies, and employed by state actors as a weapon of legal and illegal warfare.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Draper</span> American computer programmer and former phone phreak

John Thomas Draper, also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch, or Crunchman, is an American computer programmer and former phone phreak. He is a widely known figure within the computer programming world and the hacker and security community, and generally lives a nomadic lifestyle.

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.

Freedom Downtime is a 2001 documentary film sympathetic to the convicted computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, directed by Emmanuel Goldstein and produced by 2600 Films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Abene</span> American InfoSec expert and former hacker (born 1972)

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">StankDawg</span>

David Blake, also known as StankDawg, is the founder of the hacking group Digital DawgPound (DDP) and a long-time member of the hacking community. He is known for being a regular presenter at multiple hacking conferences, but is best known as the creator of the "Binary Revolution" initiative, including being the founding host and producer of Binary Revolution Radio, a long-running weekly Internet radio show which ran 200 episodes from 2003 to 2007.

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.

The Digital DawgPound is a group of hackers, best known for a series of articles in hacker magazines such as 2600: The Hacker Quarterly and Make, the long-running webcast Binary Revolution Radio, and a very active set of forums with posts from high-profile hackers such as Strom Carlson, decoder, Phiber Optik and StankDawg. The stated mission of the DDP is to propagate a more positive image of hackers than the negative mass media stereotype. The group welcomes new members who want to learn about hacking, and attempts to teach them more positive aspects and steer them away from the negative aspects, by reinforcing the hacker ethic. Their goal is to show that hackers can, and regularly do, make positive contributions not only to technology, but to society as a whole.

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.

Josh Quittner is an American journalist.

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.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dave Buchwald</span>

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.

<i>Hackers</i> (film) 1995 film by Iain Softley

Hackers is a 1995 American crime thriller film directed by Iain Softley and starring Jonny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Jesse Bradford, Matthew Lillard, Laurence Mason, Renoly Santiago, Lorraine Bracco, and Fisher Stevens. The film follows a group of high school hackers and their involvement in an attempted theft. Made in the mid-1990s when the Internet was just starting to become popular among the general public, it reflects the ideals laid out in the Hacker Manifesto quoted in the film: "This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch... We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals... Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity."

References

  1. ↑ Guisnel, Jean (1997). Cyberwars: Espionage on the Internet. Basic Books. p. 118. ISBN   0-7382-0260-6.
  2. ↑ Denne, Scott (2015). "Raptor Bites Into VC Market With $32M Toward Fund I". Raptor Group. Archived from the original on March 4, 2015. Retrieved April 11, 2016.
  3. ↑ McMullen, John (July 29, 1993). "Reflections On Hacker Sentencing". Electronic Frontier Foundation . Archived from the original on February 10, 2008.
  4. 1 2 Tabor, Mary B. W.; Ramirez, Anthony (July 23, 1992). "Computer Savvy, With an Attitude: Young Working-Class Hackers Accused of High-Tech Crime". Technology|Cybertimes. The New York Times. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  5. ↑ Slatalla, Michelle; Quittner, Joshua (December 1, 1995). Masters of Deception: The Gang That Ruled Cyberspace. Harper Collins. ISBN   978-0-06-092694-6.
  6. ↑ Auza, Jun (July 8, 2011). "7 Most Notorious Computer Hacker Groups of All Time". TechSource.
  7. 1 2 3 Halime, Farrah (February 4, 2015). "Hacker-proof helpers". USA Today .
  8. 1 2 Slatalla, Michelle; Quittner, Joshua (December 1, 1994). "Gang War in Cyberspace". Wired. Retrieved December 28, 2015.
  9. ↑ Quittner, Joshua (November 5, 1993). "Hacker Sentenced for Computer Crimes". Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  10. ↑ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (January 26, 1995). "Books Of The Times; Kids or Conspirators: How Hackers Got Caught". The New York Times. Retrieved December 29, 2015.
  11. ↑ Desai, Manthan. Hacking for Beginners: a beginners guide to learn ethical hacking. hackingtech.co.tv. pp. 272, 274.
  12. ↑ Sterling, Bruce (1992). The Hacker Crackdown . New York: Bantam. p.  233. ISBN   9780553080582.
  13. ↑ Schwartau, Winn (July 27, 1992). "Hackers indicted for infiltrating corporate networks". InfoWorld . Vol. 14, no. 30. p. 56.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.