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From: Douglas Mason <douglas@ddsw1.mcs.com>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Re: What is LOD and Phrack?
Message-ID: <5375@accuvax.nwu.edu>
Date: 19 Mar 90 12:46:46 GMT
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>[Moderator's Note: The 'hackers group' is called Legion of Doom, or
>LoD for short. Phrack is the official publication of the Legion.
>Phrack was distrbuted via the Internet, among other electronic
>networks, and it was the contents of Phrack, among other things, which
>got the LoD in trouble recently and caused at least a few computer
>sites to be closed by the government and/or (in the case of attctc) by
>its owner. They have not received any punishment yet because they have
>not been found guilty yet. For further information, I refer you to the
>Telecom-Archives (ftp lcs.mit.edu - cd telecom-archives) and the file
>there entitled 'jolnet'.   PT]

A few minor corrections to Pat's otherwise correct comments.  PHRACK
(short for "Phreak and Hack") was put out by Taran King and Knight
Lightning as a quite seperate entity from the LoD group.  LoD put out
something called "The LoD Technical Journal" which was their "official
publication".  In fact, I dare say that for some time there was a lot
of friction between the two "magazines", people often arguing over who
was better -- The LoD tech journal had more techy stuff, but Phrack
was put out on a quite regular basis (about 29 issues, each about 200k
long) while LoD only put out a few (3 I believe) and were erratic
about when they were released.

It is quite suprising that Phrack was the one hit with the bad stuff.
I was actually an editor for it some time back before I decided the
"business was not for me" and there was a lot of screening as to what
was "questionable" and what could be printed.  I suppose it was a bad
choice on Craig's part for not deleting that E911 stuff when he
received it.  I knew him fairly well (Knight Lightning) and knew he
kept quite far from the "bad stuff" and wouldn't touch it for fear of
God or other equally dangerous agencies.

I have mixed feelings about the whole bust affair.  I got along with
many of the group, and have met many of them.  The whole "Eliteness"
of the group's attitude really bothered me, and it seemed that by
placing themselves on such a stand, it was only a matter of time
before someone came to knock them off.  Now I only wish that they
aren't shafted to the extreme that the media seems to want to impose.
What they did was wrong, wrong, wrong; don't think I am trying to
justify that, but after meeting some of these people, talking to them,
realizing that they are indeed people, students, kids even, it's hard
to wish 31 years upon them.

I invite all threats/comments/suggestions.  If you are nice, I'll even
send you some of the back issues of Phrack for your reading
entertainment.  ;-)


Douglas T. Mason | douglas@ddsw1.UUCP or dtmason@m-net |