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Date: Sat, 29 May 93 14:07:13 EDT
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@mindvox.phantom.com>
Subject: File 1--The LOD Files - A CuD Critique
The Legion of Doom (LOD), a group of "hackers" that formed in the
mid-1980s, gained public attention in 1990 during the so-called
"hacker crackdown." It seemed that every major computer "crime" was
attributed to the group, and federal prosecutors seemed intent on
linking suspects to it. As we reported in CuD 5.36, most claims were
either totally without merit or grossly exaggerated. The LOD has again
gained attention because a pretender, reportedly a 20 year-old
Canadian, has claimed to be the new leader of the LOD and has actually
begun soliciting articles for the "resurrected" LOD/H Technical
Journal.
Lest there be any confusion, there remains only one LOD, most of its
original members are in periodic contact, they have long since become
adults, and there is no relationship between the original LOD and any
recent individuals or groups claiming the name.
But who really cares??
CuD, for one cares. The original LOD remains a cultural icon of the
1980s in computer culture, and--for better or worse--it was the most
influential and imitated group whose mystique continues into the
mid-90s. This alone is hardly sufficient reason to worry about a
label. The identity is important because the original members are
becoming involved in projects that reflects their activities of a
decade ago, and it becomes confusing when others scurry about trying
to associate with that identity. If questions of identity arise,
confusion over and doubts about the credibility of the projects arise.
One current LOD project has impressed us. The original LOD members are
compiling logs from a number of the premier "hacker underground BBSes"
of the 1980s. We have obtained excerpts from the project, and we are
impressed with the professionalism and comprehensiveness of the
material.
Working collectively under the name "LOD Communications," former
members have scoured their archive for BBS logs from the mid-to-late
1980s. The logs include BBSes such as OSUNY, Twilight Zone, Forgotten
Realm, Black Ice Private, Phoenix Project, Face to Face, Alliance, and
Plover-NET, among others. Many were the primary boards of the era, and
others typify secondary levels of the culture. Both singly and in the
aggregate, the collection provides an unprecedented view into a
culture that most of us only read about in "Cyberpunk" or "The Hacker
Crackdown."
We like the material for several reasons. First, as researchers, we
find even the limited material we have seen to date as a rich source
of data for anybody who wants to understand the culture of time. It is
as if somebody had walked thought San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury
district with a video-cam during the "Summer of Love" and then
released the tapes years later. It's an anthropologists dream, a
sociologists data trove, and a historian's archival orgasm. Even law
enforcement and security personnel would find it helpful for
demystifying many of the misconceptions of "hackers." For others, it's
simply fun reading.
Other than minor editing, such as obscuring sensitive phone numbers,
and minor reformatting from an array of BBS systems into standard ASCII
format, the logs from the BBSes that we have seen are unaltered.
Rather than seeing a group of dangerous conspirators intent on
wreaking havoc upon the nation, we see the workings of the minds of
bright, curious kids as they exchange ideas, information, insults, and
snippets of their personal lives. Many of the logs' posts are
flattering, others are less so. To their credit, the lodcom editors
have left it all intact to let the readers see and judge for
themselves what occurred on the underground boards.
We see the jealousies, anger, creativity, posturing, and--when
examined over time--the development of young teenage hackers into
increasingly articulate adults. We also see those who do not mature
over the years. It's all there, for better or for worse.
The logs also include lists of text files, message bases, and other
insights into the structure of a "hacker" BBS. Those looking for
evidence of hard-core conspiracies won't find it here. Instead,
they'll find themselves walking into an amorphous culture of teenagers
who are exploring their identity, testing their knowledge, and working
out their passage from mid-adolescence into adult hood on the cyber
frontier. Sometimes the explorations are silly, sometimes obviously
illegal, and sometimes admirably mature. The meticulous formatting
and selection of boards gives the reader a sense of actually logging
on and participating in the culture. The CuD editors were on some of
the boards from the 1980s and have, over the years, obtained logs from
others. The LOD collection provides an authentic look into what went
on, and reading them gave us a feeling of deja vous all over again.
The logs are sufficiently entertaining and useful when each board is
read individually. However, the power of the collection comes in
reading them as chapters in a novel, as segments at different points
in time that combine to give the individual posters and the boards a
personality. We find ourselves wanting to know more about some of
these people: How did they resolve their problems? Who was the alleged
informant on a given board? Can we spot them from the posts? How did
that poster resolve his problems? What happened to these people
later?
Each collection of files comes with a brief history of the board,
dubbed the "BBS Pro-Phile", examples of which we have excerpted below.
There are some additions and changes we'd like to see as the project
continues--the goal is to collect a complete set of the primary boards
of the period--but our suggestions in no way detract from the value of
the project. First, it would help if the histories are longer. We
would suggest that a standard set of questions be put to the former
sysops, perhaps by an outsider, and that these questions be more
critical and incisive rather than the current standard information.
Second, we'd like to know more about the participants. Who were they?
What happened to them? A bio-sketch of some of the more active
participants would be helpful. Finally, a reflective contemporary
commentary by participants would be interesting. How do the currently
view their own acts? What would they differently? What did they
learn from their experience? Addressing these and other issues would
be a formidable project and would greatly expand the project. Perhaps
there's another, equally ambitious project lurking within waiting to
be developed--a comprehensive oral history of the computer culture of
the 1980s.
In the accompanying files, we offer snippets from BBS histories, a
summary of the project, and an interview with some of the
participants. We caution readers that the interview and the historical
snippets may not be reproduced or distributed without the explicit
permission of LOD Communications.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 29 May 93 14:07:13 EDT
From: CuD Moderators <cudigest@mindvox.phantom.com>
Subject: File 2--Histories of BBSes (excerpts from the LOD files)
((MODERATORS' NOTE: the LODCOM BBS logs include histories of the boards
usually written by the sysops. Although not all are equally consistent or
uniformly comprehensive, they nonetheless provide a helpful summary
of the origins of the boards. Taken together, they are crucial to
understanding the "hacker" culture of the 1980s. The following
excerpts illustrate some of the material in the histories accompanying each
file.
NOTE: THE FOLLOWING MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED OR DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT THE
EXPLICIT PERMISSION OF LODCOM (lodcom@mindvox.phantom.com))
+++++++++++++
*** {Broadway Show / The Radio Station BBS Pro-Phile} ***
The Broadway Show BBS went online in 718 (New York City) in early
to mid 1985 and was later renamed the Radio Station in February 1986.
The sysop was Broadway Hacker of "Hack-A-Trip" fame. Hack-A-Trip is a
bit off the subject of the BBS Pro-Phile, however it is an interesting
story which has not been widely told.
The purpose of Hack-A-Trip was to entice hackers from all over the
U.S. to attend meetings sponsored by the legendary underground
newsletter TAP. The meetings were held each Friday in Manhattan NY.
Hack-A-Trip was successfully carried out close to a dozen times in the
1984/5 period (most were before the Broadway Show BBS went online).
Hack-A-Trip was nothing more than a scheme to obtain free airplane
tickets for daring hackers through credit card fraud which was
perpetrated by Broadway himself. Although Broadway was not considered
a good phreak nor hacker, he did have the BALLS to risk his freedom
for other hackers who craved the free exchange of information typical
of TAP meetings. Perhaps the 'free-est' exchange of information was
when famed NY phreak Bioc Agent 003 attended the meetings--primarily
when he loosened his tie, opened his briefcase and handed out neatly
printed copies of his many phreaking and hacking primers to anyone who
did not have multiple copies already. Attendee's of note (but not
necessarily Hack-A-Trip participants) at TAP meetings during 1984-5
were TAP editor Cheshire Catalyst (of course), the ever secretive
Number 6, Paul Muad'Dib, TUC, Lex Luthor, Bioc, King Blotto, and
various others.
Broadway worked as a Disk Jockey and therefore had an interest in
Radio, thus, the name of the second incarnation of the Board. His BBS
was primarily frequented by beginners however Broadway's many contacts
from his Hack-A-Trip days pulled in a half dozen or so highly
knowledgeable users who were kept busy setting facts straight, reading
the deluge of 'fan' email, and helping educate the majority.
The BBS was run on a Commodore computer with software that allowed
users to immediately respond to 'primary messages' that allowed for a
fairly coherent dialogue to go back and forth about whichever topic
was the subject of the primary message.
*** {Twilight Zone BBS Pro-Phile} ***
Twilight Zone History:
I put up the Twilight Zone in mid 1984, however little remains of
posts from that time. The first version of the zone was running on a
severely modded version of NETWORKS II, for the APPLE II+. The Zone
ran on this fairly flimsy (prone to unexplained crashes) until mid
1984, at which point I switched to Telecat, which was a huge
improvement. The main theme of the Zone was Discussion of Telephone
and computer systems. The system ran off and on until early 1986. At
this point in time due to me being busy with work/school the system
was relocated to the home of the Safe-Cracker, and re-named "The
Septic Tank". The story behind the naming comes from a sewage
treatment system I happened across in a modem carrier scan in (203)
that aptly identified itself as: "Northeastern Septic Services -
Remote Backflush System (RBS)". This system allowed the user to apply
several diagnostic and maintenance routines--one of which was to pump
raw sewage all over the Northeastern Connecticut! I had so much fun
with this system, I promptly stole their login screen and used it for
our welcome message on the BBS, also as kind of a joke we renamed the
BBS the "Septic Tank", in honor of this system. The BBS had a fairly
knowledgeable user base, but was plagued with living in a poorly
(SNET) maintained Step X Step switching system area, so some persons
had a hard time connecting to the BBS and if they did connect the line
noise could be unbearable at times. The Zone's only real claim to fame
was it being the birthplace of the "Bell Shock Force!" which was kind
of a "Reverse Group" if you will ;). The Septic Tank was taken down
permanently in late 1986, and was never seen again. Sigh.
Written
March 18, 1993
By
The Marauder (Sysop of Twilight Zone/Septic Tank)
Legion of Doom!
- **************************************************************
*** {Plover-NET BBS Pro-Phile} ***
Intro by Lodcom:
Plover-NET (typically mis-denoted as Plovernet) was one of the
most popular and therefore busiest Phreak Boards of all time. The
system operator was Quasi Moto (whom was a member of the short lived
yet famed Fargo-4A phreak group) and the remote sysop was Lex Luthor
(whom later ran the LOD BBS and started the Legion of Doom hacking
group). The story behind the start of the Fargo-4A phreak group is a
message within the Message Base File.
Details by Quasi Moto, system operator:
I met Lex in person while we lived in Florida during the Fall of
1983 after corresponding via email on local phreak boards. I was due
to move to Long Island, New York (516 Area Code) soon after and asked
him about starting up a phreak BBS. He agreed to help and flew up
during his Christmas break from school in late December 1983. We
worked feverishly for a couple of days to learn the GBBS ][ Bulletin
Board software which was to run on my Apple ][+ with a 300 baud Hayes
micoSLOWdom {micromodem} and make modifications as necessary. The
system accepted its first phone call from Lex in the first week of
January 1984 and it became chronically busy soon after.
The name Plover-NET came from a conversation I had with GBBS ][
Author Greg Schaefer. I was talking to him about the name of my future
BBS and the topic of computer games came up. One of them, the
'Extended Adventure' game which was based on the 'Original Adventure'
fantasy computer game was mentioned. This game was available on
Compuserve and during game play the magic word PLOVER had to be used.
For some reason that name had a nice ring to it and after bouncing a
couple of alterations and additions to the word plover, the name
Plover-NET was what I agreed upon.
The idea behind PNET was to keep the BBS as simple as possible. It
had a main phreak board only. Probably the most complicated thing
about the board was the login. To be different, Lex suggested we
simulate the TELENET packet switching network upon connecting to the
BBS. Although Telenet was popular with hackers, some users were
confused. As for sub-boards, there were none. There were no high
security secret sections of the BBS, just a main phreaking and hacking
discussion message base. It was interesting to recall how many users
would send me feedback {email to the system operator} asking for
access to the 'elite sections of the board'. The only part of the BBS
that required additional security was the Phreak Philes section.
Putting phreak philes online was an idea ripped off directly from the
legendary OSUNY Phreak BBS. Putting G-Philes on hacker systems became
universal afterwards but it was not a wide practice at the time. There
were three ways to get access to the philes section:
1) Impress me in some way or be recommended by Lex.
2) Write an ORIGINAL file to be put in the section.
3) Send in $5.00 (which helped defer the cost of running the BBS)
The Board initially ran on three apple disk drives. {143 K byte
capacity} After a few months of operation, New York hacker Paul
Muad'Dib appeared at a TAP meeting being held at "Eddies" in Greenwich
Village with a RANA Elite III disk drive in hand. The RANA Elite III
had a capacity of about 600 KB which put the total storage capacity of
the BBS to just over one Megabyte, fairly large for a phreak board in
those days. I gladly accepted the donation but did not ask how he
obtained the disk drive. The RANA was later passed on to Lex which he
used to house his extensive collection of phreak philes that were
available to Legion of Doom BBS users. The location of the overworked
RANA is currently unknown although Lex believes he sent it back to PMD
in NY around 1986.
It wasn't long before Plover-NET's phone number became so busy that
users would ask me why I always took the phone of the hook! Some users
were forced either have their modems dial for hours on end to get in,
or try to log on at 4AM. After a few short months, the userlist grew
to over 600. It became THE place to call, and typically the users
called using LDX, a long distance phone company that was among the
many that resulted from the divestiture of AT&T in 1984. The users
abused this poor company so much to call PNET that LDX actually
blocked all calls to the BBS phone number! This became rather standard
practice in later years for all LD companies but was a surprise in
mid-1984. The users of course had a myriad of other methods to call
PNET though. The BBS software had a built in command that allowed me
to 'Boot' users off the system. Should someone important whom had my
VOICE phone number call me, I would type this control-key command and
the unsuspecting user would receive an error message and be hung up
upon. I would then wait for the 'important' user to call in and then
send them a modem carrier so they could get online.
A number of the more knowledgeable PNET users were invited by Lex
onto his Board. Phreaks like Agrajag the Prolonged, Mark Tabas, Erik
Bloodaxe, Bioc Agent 003, Karl Marx, and others were 'stolen' from my
BBS ;) I guess after LOD went up they saved all their 'good stuff' for
his board. Hmphh
Another thing to mention is that Lex met 2600 Magazine editor,
Emmanuel Goldstein on the Pirates Cove, another 516 pirate/phreak BBS.
He invited EG onto Plover and it wasn't long before we became an
'official' 2600 bbs of sorts. When a user logged off the system, a
plug for 2600 was displayed with their subscription prices and
addresses. I still like to think that I/Plover-NET was instrumental in
helping the fledgling underground newsletter become the fancy magazine
it is today. How much influence we really did have is not known
though.
I took Plover-NET down near the end of the summer because my family
moved back to Florida. I put the BBS back up for a couple of months
but it seems a lot of old users either found other places to call
and/or did not know the new number. Due to the lack of interest I took
the board down once and for all which from what I recall was around
the beginning of 1985 or so.
Quasi Moto, Plover-NET Sysop
Written in March of 1993
------------------------------
Subject: File 3--LOD Project Summary and Contact Information
From: lodcom@MINDVOX.PHANTOM.COM (LOD Communications)
Date: Thu, 16 May 93 00:50:01 EDT
((MODERATORS NOTE: The following article provides more details on the
LOD Communications' project, answers preliminary questions, and
provides addresses for obtaining more information such as a set of
sample messages from the collection. Note that the actual list of
available message bases and the order form were deleted but may be
requested by emailing lodcom@mindvox.phantom.com)).
The LOD Communications Underground H/P BBS Message Base Project:
The Project:
------------
Throughout history, physical objects have been preserved for
posterity for the benefit of the next generation of humans.
Cyberspace, however, isn't very physical; data contained on floppy
diskettes has a finite lifetime as does the technology to retrieve
that data. The earliest underground hacker bulletin board systems
operated at a time when TRS-80s, Commodore 64s, and Apple ][s were
state-of-the-art. Today, it is difficult to find anyone who has one
of these machines in operating condition, not to mention the brain
cells left to recall how to operate them. :-(
LOD Communications has created a historical library of the "dark"
portion of Cyberspace. The project's goal is to acquire as much
information as possible from underground Hack/Phreak (H/P) bulletin
boards that were in operation during a decade long period, dating from
the beginnings (in 1980/81 with 8BBS and MOM: Modem Over Manhattan)
to the legendary OSUNY, Plover-NET, Legion of Doom!, Metal Shop, etc.
up through the Phoenix Project circa 1989/90. Currently, messages
from over 50 different BBSes have been retrieved, although very few
message bases are 100% complete. However, not having a complete "set"
does not diminish their value.
Who Benefits From This Information?:
------------------------------------
- PARTICIPANTS who were on the various H/P BBSes may want to see their
contribution to history or reminisce about the "golden era" of hacking;
- ENTHUSIASTS who came into the "scene" after most of these boards were
down may want to see what they missed;
- COMPANIES who may want to see if their (or their competitors') phone
systems, computers, or networks were compromised;
- SECURITY PROFESSIONALS/LAW ENFORCEMENT who may want to see what
techniques were used to subvert computer security systems;
- SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES (including their libraries) who may want to use
the information for research in sociology or computer science as well as
for educational purposes in courses such as Computer Law, Computer
Ethics, and Computer Security;
- AUTHORS/PRESS who may want to finally get the facts straight about
"hackers;" and,
- THE CURIOUS PUBLIC who may want to sneak a peek into the inner realm of
the Computer Underground, especially those Restricted Access BBSes and
their Private sub-boards where only a small handful of "the best"
resided.
Were the individuals involved in the Computer Underground out to
start World War III, selling secrets to the Soviets, working with
organized crime, conspiring to do evil, or just a bunch of bored
teenagers with nothing better to do? How much did they know, and how
did they find it out? Did they have the capability to shut down phone
service of Area Code portions? Could they ruin someone's credit?
Could they "move satellites in the heavens?" Could they monitor packet
switching network conversations or YOUR conversations? The answers
lie within the messages themselves.
Why is LODCOM Charging Money For The Message Bases?:
----------------------------------------------------
As happens with most projects, the effort and monetary investment
turned out to be substantially more than originally anticipated. With
all of the high-tech equipment available today, people sometimes
forget that in the early 1980s, 14.4K baud modems and 250 MB hard
drives were just a fantasy for the home computer user. Most messages
Lodcom has recovered were downloaded at 300 baud onto 143K disk
drives, with each file usually no larger than 15K in size. One could
not call a BBS and download the complete message base in 10 minutes
and save it into one file. Literally hundreds of man-hours have been
spent copying dusty Apple ][ disks, transferring them to IBM (or
typing in hard copy versions when electronic versions were
unavailable), organizing over one thousand individual files (thus far)
according to what BBS the messages were originally posted on, and
splicing the files together. Also, after consulting with the
appropriate civil liberties organizations and our own legal counsel, a
slight editing of the messages (restricted to long distance access
codes, phone numbers, and computer passwords) had to be made to ensure
that there is nothing illegal contained within the messages. Every
effort was made to keep the
messages in their pristine condition: 40 columns, ALL CAPS, spelling
errors, offensive language, inaccuracies of various kinds, and ALL.
Although a fairly comprehensive collection of the goings-on during
a decade of public and private computer underground activity has been
accomplished, there are more messages out there. It is our wish to
continue to document the History of the Computer Underground. In
order to do this, and in order to break even on what resources have
already been expended (it is a LOT more than most people realize), a
dollar value has been attached to each set of message bases. The
dollar values were kept as low as possible and range from $1.00 to
$8.00 for each H/P BBS Message Base Set. Without your understanding
and support, this effort may not be able to sustain itself long enough
to complete the project. A large portion of any profits will be
recycled for two other projects in the works, whose aim is to provide
additional historical background on the Computer Underground
Community. That is, no one involved is quitting their day job :-)
One additional note: For those who purchase the Metal Shop Private
Message Base, 100% of the price ($4.00) will be donated to help pay
for Craig Neidorf's (Knight Lightning) Legal Defense bills (due to his
successful campaign to protect First Amendment rights for electronic
publishing, i.e. the PHRACK/E911 case).
How The Prices Were Determined:
-------------------------------
Prices were determined based on the following considerations:
- The number of years ago that the BBS operated (affected availability);
- The total number of messages compiled (required more time to compile);
- Its popularity and message content (anticipated demand);
- Whether the BBS or portions thereof were deemed "elite" and, therefore,
restricted access to a small number of users (affected availability);
and,
- An additional factor to account for overhead costs such as diskettes,
diskette mailing containers, postage, time to fill orders, etc.
What Each "Message Base File" Contains:
---------------------------------------
- A two page general message explaining H/P BBS terminology and format.
- The BBS Pro-Phile: A historical background and description of the BBS
either written by the original system operator(s) or those who actually
called the BBS when it was in operation (it took months to track the
appropriate people down and get them to write these specifically for
this project; lesser known BBSes may not contain a Pro-Phile);
- Messages posted to the BBS (i.e. the Message Base);
- Downloaded Userlists if available; and
- Hacking tutorials a.k.a. "G-Philes" that were on-line if available.
It is anticipated that most people who are interested in the
message bases have never heard of a lot of the BBS names shown in the
listing. If you have seen one set of messages, you have NOT seen them
ALL. Each system had a unique personality, set of users, and each has
something different to offer. If you decide to order the minimum, we
recommend that you mix a high-priced base ($7.00 or above) with a
couple of medium-priced bases ($4.00 to $6.00) and a few lower-priced
bases ($1.00 to $3.00). This will provide you with a feel for what
was happening over a broad range of years and message quality. Of
course, nothing beats the full set (offered at a discount, see order
form).
Formats the Message Base Files are Available in:
------------------------------------------------
Due to the large size of the Message Base Files, they will be
compressed using the format of your choice. Please note that Lodcom
does NOT include the compression/uncompression program (PKZIP, PAK,
etc.). ASCII (uncompressed) files will be provided for $2.00 extra to
cover additional diskette and shipping costs. The files are available
for:
- IBM (5.25 or 3.5 inch)
- AMIGA (3.5 inch)
- APPLE MACINTOSH (3.5 inch)
- PAPER versions can be ordered but cost triple (due to increased shipping
costs, time to print order, and messages being in 40 column format and
therefore wasting lots of paper...save those trees!). Paper versions
take twice the time to deliver but are laser printed.
Orders are expected to arrive at the requesters' physical mail box in 2-4
weeks upon receipt of the order.
((MODERATORS' NOTE: A substantial "Frequently Asked Questions" list
has been omitted along with the list of available BBSes and the actual
order form. They can be obtained from lodcom@mindvox.phantom.com))
Hacking/Phreaking Tutorials a.k.a. "G-Philes":
----------------------------------------------
Along with the above H/P BBS Message Bases, LODCOM has collected
many of the old "philes" that were written and disseminated over the
years. A list of all of them would take up too much space here,
however, we can tell you that the majority are NOT files that were
originally written for electronic newsletters such as Phrack, PHUN,
ATI, etc. (with the perhaps obvious exception of the LOD/H Technical
Journal). Those files/newsletters are readily available from other
sources. This hodgepodge of files includes files from Bioc Agent 003,
Legion of Doom members, and many others that somehow fell out of
widespread circulation. A Table of Contents of the collection is
included but the tutorials are all grouped together in four large
files of approximately 250K each. This collection will have additions
with each update of this file.
Additional information, including order forms and pricing, can be
obtained from:
lodcom@mindvox.phantom.com
or by writing:
LOD Communications
603 W. 13th
Suite 1A-278
Austin, Texas, USA - 78701
Voice Mail: (512) 448-5098
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 May 93 17:55:38 -0500
From: erikb@TIC.COM(Chris Goggans)
Subject: File 4--An Interview with the LOD
((NOTE: THE FOLLOWING MAY BE DISTRIBUTED BUT NOT PUBLISHED IN PRINT
WITHOUT THE EXPLICIT PERMISSION OF LODCOM (lodcom@mindvox.phantom.com))
CuD: We've been hearing about a project that a few former LOD
"members" --is "member" the right term?--have been working on over the
last few months. What's up?
EB: Essentially, a bunch of us old-timers realized that a significant
portion of the history of the computer underground was being lost
forever. Due to the virtual nature of data if it is not archived,
it vanishes with no trace. We decided that it was time to dig through
all our disks and papers to try to recover as much of this lost
portion of "cyberspace," as it were, to allow people who haven't been
online for 13 years like we have to see what it was like back then.
CuD: Who all's involved in this? One question that some might have is:
"Are you guys *really "Legion of Doom," or just some wannabies cashing
in on the name?
EB: Basically those involved are almost all the members of the LOD from
its time of creation, and a few friends of the Legion.
Yes, we really are the LOD. It's amazing that such a question would
ever be raised to question our authenticity. But in light of recent
events such as the "Maverick" person in New Jersey who was busying out
911 services in through PBXes, and the fake Lex Luthor running a
bbs in 203 called Legion of Doom, and most recently the NEW LOD as
announced by a never before heard of Lord Havoc in Canada, I suppose
it is fair to ask us that.
MARAUDER: I'm proud to have been in LOD, it took me a couple of years just
to get admitted in 1986 and now these clowns are tainting the
'name'. I just think they are pitiful.
CuD: Why'd you decide to get involved in this project at *this* time?
EB: At this time? Well it's something a lot of us had talked about for a
long time. It's just at this particular point in time that it
happened to materialize. I guess we just all happened to get off
our respective butts and make it happen at *this* point in time.
LEX: Magnetic media does not have an infinite lifetime. We
came to the realization that if someone didn't start
preserving this portion of Cyberspace, the 'dark' portion if
you will, it may never be recovered. For example, how many
people do you know have the computers and disks they used in
1984? How many of these people, actually had the clarity of
mind to buffer and save onto those disks the data that was
on any bulletin board let alone the Hack/Phreak BBS's? Now
ask what subset of this subset have disks that have data
that is still retrievable? Our experience has been the
answer is: not that many. So far through all our contacts,
we have been able to find only ONE source for messages from
the very first known Hacker BBS's (Circa 1979/80). And this
person hadn't powered up his TRS-80 in over 6 years, didn't
remember all the commands to make it work, and wasn't sure
where all the files were. This is indicative of what many
of the projects' contributors have had to deal with.
CuD: The first question we might hear is, "Who cares?" Who's the
intended audience, and of what value do you think the the project is
for the, uh, "non-hackers" out there?
EB: Who Cares? I personally don't care who cares. This project is
being done as much for ourselves as for anyone else, so if noone
expresses any interest, it's their loss.
Who is the target audience? This presents a never before seen glimpse
into the birth of the Computer Underground for journalists, researchers,
security professionals, law enforcement, and would-be cyperpunkish
Mondo-2000 & Wired readers. A lot of people think they know what
goes on, and what did go on in our community, but unless they have
some direct interaction with it they are doomed to remain clueless.
Some of the message bases we have recovered have never been seen
outside of the hacker community.
CuD: OK, now, let's say that I'm an academic type, or somebody
interesting in researching computer culture. How might this stuff help
me?
EB: This will give you the chance to see for yourself what went on.
Nothing else will allow you that experience. People can talk and
talk about what it was like, and how hackers trade information, how
they think, how they interact, but this is the only way you can see
for yourself without trying to track down some semblance of a real
hacker bbs today.
LEX: I can picture some Computer Ethics class doing a debate with
these logs. Students yelling at each other as to whether hacker X
did the right thing or some such, whether Company X deserved to
get hacked, etc.
CuD: It sounds like a lot of work is going into this project. Tell us
something about how you went about putting the stuff together? What
are some of the problems you faced?
EB: Trying to track down our friends was a big problem. Not every
hacker from 1980 is still hanging out screaming out his existence
on the net like some people. (Ahem) The vast majority of our
friends have gone on to have REAL LIVES with REAL JOBS. One
doesn't think of the Legion of Doom as Master Degree candidates,
Pilots, Software Engineers at big software companies (Think REAL
BIG)...people think of LOD as those evil punk kids on the net.
Finding them in the real world and getting them interested in this
project was a task.
LEX: The desired data was/is scattered everywhere. We have
searched through more than a thousand diskettes on a number of
different computer systems so far. A significant amount of
messages could only be found on paper print-outs and therefore
had to be typed-in verbatim. We actually had to hire a couple of
people to help input messages. Hundreds of hours were spent
transferring via modem or direct serial port connection from
Apples, TRS-80s, Commodore-64s to IBM format. Over a thousand
small files have been recovered so far. These files were
organized according to which BBS the messages they contain were
posted on. Figuring out what was posted where was quite a
challenge. There are still many files we have no idea where they
belong....but we are working on it. Once all the files were put
in their appropriate sub-directories they had to be spliced
together in chronological order. Since we have files from
different sources, duplicate messages had to be fished out. This
part was rather time consuming as those working on a certain BBS
Message Base had to be rather familiar with hundreds of messages
and recognize duplications. In addition, it took months and lots
of phone calls (yes we do pay for our phone calls these days) to
track down many of the Sysops (SYStem OPertorS) that ran these
H/P Boards and asked them to write a "BBS Pro-Phile" specifically
for the project. The BBS Pro-Phile provides various background
information on the different Boards and interesting stories
related to them. I enjoyed reading these the most.
CuD: Privacy. How did you overcome the privacy problems? What are some
of the social, as opposed to technical, problems you faced?
EB: Well, the point of this project was to keep everything as real as the
law would allow. We've all got enough problems individually so we
don't need anyone coming down on us for distributing information
containing codes, regardless of the fact that those codes have not
worked since 1986.
To compensate for this, and to disguise phone numbers (you'd be
amazed how many carriers in this information still worked@!#)
Marauder wrote a little basic program called SOASS (Save Our ASSes)
that went through the text and replaced digits with "X" when needed.
This way the messages retain their true flavor, and we don't
get any hassles.
MARAUDER: One of the biggest "social" problems we faced, was what
do we do with the messages containing "confidential" information
such as Credit Cards (rare), extender codes, system passwords and
the like. Early in the project, we had decided that we would make
every effort possible to leave the text in its original form,
exactly as it had appeared to us as we peered at our respective
Apples and Commodores years before. In doing this, we hope that
today's readers will get a better "feel" for what the computer
underground was like back then. What we finally decided to do,
was to include these so called "touchy" messages intact, and
simply render the offending portion invalid. By utilizing our
eyes, and a text scanning program I wrote, we sifted through the
entire collection of text, and slightly altered the actual codes
themselves so as to render them useless, while leaving the
visual/reality effect intact. We regret even making these minor
alterations, however we believe it was unavoidable.
CuD: How about the technical problems? Was this easy to do?
EB: Problems? As embarrassing as it is, I forgot how to use my Atari 400.
It's kind of a shocker to go from a workstation back down to an 8 bit
machine with no operating system. Trying to transfer files from it to
my PC proved incredibly frustrating.
Does anyone even remember 300 baud? It's amazing to think that 300
baud was all we had and WE LIKED IT! And acoustic couplers back
then were so poor that you couldn't play the radio less it interfere
with the data and cause you to lose carrier. Watching the data
transfer at 300 baud up to the PC from the 400 renewed my respect
for the technology I've begun to take for granted.
Even once the machines actually began to cooperate, I'm amazed
that so many of our disks survived from the early 80's. Many of us
lost thousands of files during government sponsored housekeeping
episodes so the mere fact that we were able to find so much information
and that the data on the disks had not suffered the ravages of the
elements is astounding.
CuD: I'd imagine that, now that you guys are a decade older, you
cringe when you read some of the stuff you wrote when you were
teenie-boppers. What's the most embarrassing aspect of making this all
public?
EB: Haha. I fully expect a huge amount of grief from everyone who
knows me when they see what an annoying little punk I was. I had
some seriously deranged ways of typing...weird spelling, 40 column
uppercase even when I didn't have that limitation, and a classic
case of bad attitude.
LEX: How much I abused the dollar sign key: '