The pioneers of hacking: legendary groups that shaped hacker culture

Let’s dial up and reconnect to a time of bustling underground hacker scenes. After all, the culture that came before us is responsible for introducing and nurturing the world of hackerdom, which shaped the modern hacker’s identity.

Although before the birth of the computer hacker, phone phreakers (telephone hackers) existed.

Now, let’s remember the beauty of the baud – that glorious symphony of chirps and bouncy tones that once bridged us to this digital frontier. We’ll dive back to where it all began – not laying the same foundation of the programmers at MIT again, but what came forth as a result.

Lastly, the connections between computer hackers and phone phreakers significantly overlap since they both used the same technologies. However, the scope of this article isn’t about phreakers. Perhaps that can be gleaned at a later date.

Building momentum in the 1980s golden era

The following will not be a chronology of the evolution of the internet or the hacking communities that spawned as a result. Rather, this is a brief introduction to add a little context as it relates to causality due to new emerging technologies and the hacking communities that formed.

Personal computers weren’t commercial products until the 1970s. They had limited functionality and were thought of mostly as a novelty. Factor in how insanely expensive they were. I mean, a Kenbak-1 (1971) cost around $750, which would have been around $5,700 by today’s standards, while the Apple II was $6,400 or about $13,000 today. The price tags didn’t necessarily engender affordability, not when the average annual income was $6,186 per year.

Then, on January 1st, 1983, the Internet was born, and the advent of TCP/IP was the result since ARPANET began transitioning to it from NCP (Network Control Protocol) due to the fact that ARPANET was expanding and connecting to other networks and becoming a macrocosm of interconnected networks. A better way to detect and retransmit errors is needed.

The internet was evolving as more and more people dialed into it. Whenever people engage in a particular area of interest, they tend to seek a community to share ideas and information. Hackers discovered how easily computer technology could be manipulated. It became a hobby before it became a lifestyle.

In this infancy era when both commercial and government entities had virtually no security posture or foresight into user security or data protection, there was no incident response. No firewalls. No antivirus software, and consequently no cybercrime laws to define concepts like hacking and unauthorized access, since it was largely unregulated and activities not easily understood.

Enter their world…

The 414s

The first known hacking group to gain major US media headlines emerged in 1983. It was called the 414s and was named after the area code for Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The 414s were a group consisting of six teenagers who were crazy about technology and had a passion for experimenting with early computer systems. They started a BBS (Bulletin Board System) community, which attracted the interest of like-minded people.

Their motivation was simply to explore networks, undetected to sate their curiosity in learning how systems worked. However, on June 3rd, 1983, the group caused damage to computer systems at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, amounting to $1,500 after accidentally deleting billing records.

It is significant to amplify that this incident marked the first significant public exposure of a hacking group. It played a crucial role in shaping early perceptions of hacking and cybersecurity risks. Since the breach was an entirely new phenomenon that the public had little to no understanding of, the media went wild with the story. This solidified the term 'hacker' in the mainstream, especially as the hackers themselves went public, taking the media by storm.

Eventually, their members were caught but only received probation since hacking laws were still in their infancy. Importantly, this case directly influenced the creation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) of 1986, which was one of the first major US laws against unauthorized computer access.

“In this infancy era when both commercial and government entities had virtually no security posture or foresight into user security or data protection, there was no incident response. No firewalls. No antivirus software, and consequently no cybercrime laws to define concepts like hacking and unauthorized access, since it was largely unregulated and activities not easily understood.”

Chaos Computer Club

Predating the aforementioned group, I introduce to you the Chaos Computer Club (CCC), a German hacktivist group founded in 1981 in Hamburg. Their focus was on ethical hacking, privacy, and digital rights. In contrast to the 414s, who were merely teenagers curiously exploring the limits of unauthorized access, the CCC centered its identity and political ideology around hacktivism.

Their activities gained public attention, rising to infamy in 1984 when they exploited a vulnerability in an early online banking system run by the German Post office called Bildschirmtex system (BTX) and withdrew money from the bank on live television. The Bundespost bank officials had previously rejected the notion that there was a vulnerability in their systems. Therefore, the CCC proved it to the world by carrying out the attack as a demonstration to expose security flaws and highlight the consequences of neglecting cybersecurity.

Next, in 1996, they found a vulnerability in Microsoft’s Active-X to wire funds without using a PIN by utilizing Quicken, a home financing software. This generated media attention and even resulted in banks discontinuing the home banking software that depended on Active-X.

More could be said about this prolific group, yet I will simply say they still exist today.

Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc)

A lot could be said about cDc due to their notoriety. They are responsible for popularizing the term “hacktivism” when cDc member Omega used it in the mid-1990s to describe the relationship between hacking and political activism.

I had the pleasure of meeting a couple of members of cDc in 2023 at DEF CON. I used to interact regularly with members from their subgroup Ninja Strike Force. This was the group I always wanted to join, but couldn't fit the outfit, since membership is not an open-door policy.

The group began in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas, and is considered among the oldest and most influential hacking collectives. It is known primarily for its hacktivism, security research, and advocacy for digital freedom.

Every hacker who has been on the scene long enough remembers the famous Back Orifice trojan, developed by cDc for Windows 95 and NT in 1998, as well as its successor, Back Orifice 2000 (BO2k), which was released in 1999 at the DEF CON 7 hacker conference. In fact, Bo2k set the foundation for modern remote administration tools (RATs), inspiring later tools like Sub7, C.I.A. Mind Control, Poison Ivy, and many others.

It gets better because cDc continued to make waves. In 2019, cDc member Mudge (Peiter Zatko) was appointed by the US government to lead cybersecurity initiatives. Furthermore, several members of the group have testified before Congress, issuing warnings about cybersecurity risks.

The cDc is more than just another hacking group. They are a movement with a legacy that shaped cybersecurity, privacy rights, government policy, and digital activism.

“Since the breach was an entirely new phenomenon that the public had little to no understanding of, the media went wild with the story. This solidified the term 'hacker' in the mainstream, especially as the hackers themselves went public, taking the media by storm.”

Legion of Doom: hacker wars

Legion of Doom (LoD) was founded by a young hacker who went by the alias Lex Luthor in 1984. What began as a discussion group for phone phreakers on BBS systems, evolved into one of the most prolific and influential hacking groups on the scene at the time, which also contributed heavily to the evolving subculture.

The group had legendary phone-hacking capabilities and was among one of the first early hacker and phreaker BBS networks. LoD was well known for writing and publishing the rather infamous Legion of Doom Technical Journal, an e-zine that contained vast amounts of information centered on hacking and phone phreaking. LoD members, such as Erik Bloodaxe, even contributed to Phrack BBS.

They shared guides on the exploitation of telephone systems, such as social engineering, blue boxes, red boxes, and so on. Other activities included manipulating AT&T and Bell phone systems to access restricted services for making free phone calls.

They explored early PBX (Private Branch Exchange) systems, which gave them leverage over corporate phone systems. Interestingly, older PBX systems are still in use today and are accessible via Telnet. Modern PBX systems have transitioned over to a more secure protocol for remote access.

LoD had a massive rivalry with the hacking group Masters of Deception, which attracted the interest of government agencies and resulted in the raids of some key members. The government, under Operation Sundevil, made a series of arrests in a crackdown initiative designed to dismantle organized hacking groups.

Masters of Deception was founded by the famous Phiber Optik (Mark Abene) in the late 1980s by former LOD members after the group experienced internal disagreements, which caused a split.

Their cyber fights involved hacking each other’s BBS to seal their information and expose vulnerabilities in the BBS software. LoD penetrated into MoD’s private forums, harvested their conversations, and exposed strategies and discussions.

This was followed up by MoD hacking into LoD’s communication networks and leaking their internal chats. Both sides doxxed each other, and conducted denial-of-service attacks on each other’s BBS systems and also flooded each other out of hacked systems, making them completely inaccessible.

In summary, their attacks were but a mirror reflection of each other.

The divide led to one of the biggest hacker wars in history – LOD vs. MOD. This resulted in the arrest of Phiber Optik, Acid Phreak, and Scorpion and the subsequent end of MOD. Phiber served one year in prison, making him one of the first high-profile hackers to be imprisoned under the CFAA.

These were the pioneers who paved the way for future generations. Little did they know that their actions, regardless of their motivations, would secure them a place in the annals of hacker history, shaping a culture that remains alive to this day.