The author William Gibson is an icon in the computer underworld, and his imaginative sci-fi thrillers have acquired cult status. In his best-known book, Neuromancer (1984), Gibson created a world he called Cyberspace, populated by computer cowboys who roamed the space's electronic systems. Neuromancer forecast the world of hackers--the networks and communication links that they inhabit--and gave them an alternate, more glamorous identity. The networks became known as Cyberspace, and the hacker became a Cyberpunk.
The conceit became common in the late 1980S. The Cyberpunk image complemented the secrecy and role-playing of handles, and it gave a whole new identity to fifteen-year-old computer wizards sitting in front of their computer screens. They weren't just teenagers, or even hackers--they were Cyberpunks, the meanest, toughest technology junkies in the world.
The Legion of Doom was the best-known Cyberpunk gang in America; certainly it generated the most press. Like Chaos in Germany, the gang was conscious of the publicity value of a sinister, slightly menacing name. One of its members was once asked why they picked it: "What else could we have called our-selves?" he answered. "The Legion of Flower Pickers?"
The LoD's origins go back to the summer of 1984, when a hacker named Lex Luthor set up one of the first specialist hacker bulletin boards, based in Florida. It was an elite, invitation-only board, with detailed files on hacking and related crafts, such as social engineering and dumpster diving.
The first Legion of Doom had nine members, with handles such as Karl Marx, Agrajag the Prolonged, and King Blotto. The gang has been re-formed three times since. It went into decline when five of the original Legionnaires were busted, but bounced back in 1986 and again in 1988. The latest re-formation took place in late 1990. It was never a large group, and although the original LoD board had more than 150 users, admission to the bulletin board was not the same as gang membership. The LoD was the elite of the elite, a sort of inner circle. The real LoD generally hovered between nine and eleven members; it has never had more than twelve at any one time. Between 1984 and January 1992 there were only forty confirmed LoD members in total.
The LoD was eulogized by the hacker bulletin PHRACK after one of its periodic demises:
LoD members may have entered into systems numbering in the tens of thousands, they may have peeped into credit histories, they may have snooped into files and buffered [stolen] interesting text, they may still have control over entire computer networks, but what damage have they done?
The answer is none--well, almost none. There are the inevitable exceptions: unpaid use of CPU [Central Processing Unit] time and network access charges.
What personal gains have any members gained? Again, the answer is none--apart from three instances of credit fraud that were instigated by three separate greedy individuals without group knowledge.
The bulletin concluded, "The Legion of Doom will long be remembered as an innovative and pioneering force."
But the LoD was not the only group on the electronic block: it had rivals, other high-tech gangs that contested LoD's reputation as the best hackers in Cyberspace. One of these other gangs was MoD--which, depending on whom you ask and what time of day it is, stands for either Masters of Destruction or Masters of Deception or sometimes Mom's on Drugs. The MoD membership was centered in New York; the gang included hackers such as Corrupt, Julio, Renegade Hacker, and, from Philadelphia, the Wing.
But LoD's most serious rival was DPAC, a gang with members in both Maryland and New Jersey. The group had taken its name from a Canadian data communications system (a contraction of "Data Packet") and was led, off and on, by a hacker called Sharp. Membership in DPAC varied, but included Remob (after the device that allows phones to be tapped remotely), Meat Puppet, the Executioner, Supernigger, and GZ. Despite the handle, Supernigger wasn't black; and GZ, very unusually, was female.
The LoD disparaged the abilities of DPAC members. One of the Black ICE sysops, the Mentor, messaged, SUPERNIGGER AND GZ ARE BOTH BLATANT IDIOTS WHO LIKE TO SHOOT THEIR MOUTHS OFF. GZ DOES STUFF LIKE HACK MCI FOR DAYS FROM HER HOUSE.
