Mark Abene , known by his pseudonym Phiber Optik , is one of the best-known hackers of the 1990s. He is a member of the New York City Information Security . He became part of the hacking groups of Legion Of Doom (LOD) and later founder of Masters Of Deception (MOD). Participated in the MOD vs LOD “war”.
Summary
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- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 1 Integration in hacker groups
- 2 Judicial charges
- 3 Professional life
- 2 Sources
Biographical synthesis
He was born in 1975 in New York City , USA . Mark Abene’s first contact with computers was around the age of 9 in a local department store where he spent a lot of time while his parents were shopping. His first computer was a TRS-80 MC-10th with 4K RAM , with a cassette tape recorder to load and save programs. The computer hooked her up to a television game for use.
After receiving gifts of a RAM upgrade (to 20K) and a modem from his parents, he used his computer to access CompuServer , and shortly thereafter discovered the world of dialup BBSes via which he encountered in the “computer simulator. CB “from CompuServer, the first nation-wide online Chat. In some of these BBSes, Abene discovered the dialups and the guest sees DIC minicomputers running the RSTS / E and CIMA-10 operating systems as part of the BOCES educational program on Long Island , New York.
Accessing those DIC minicomputers he realized there was a programming environment that was much more powerful than that of his own home computer, and where he would access the library books to learn the programming languages that were now available. Having learned programming and fundamental security concepts during those early years, Abene takes his skill further by understanding the complexities of the network.
Integration in hacker groups
In 1980 he was one of the founders of the Legion of Doom (LOD), a group of highly respected teenage hackers. His main focus was exploring telecommunications systems, mini computers and computer system operating systems, and high-power packet data networks.
The eventual decline of the LOD towards the end of the 1980s mainly due to the fragmentation and disintegration of the group, joins the group of Masters of Deception (MOD).
Judicial charges
The 24 of January of 1990 , Abene and other members of MOD were accused of collaborating in the fall of the telephone system of AT & T , A few weeks later, AT & T admitted that the fall was the result of an upgrade of the cracked software systems by changing your network long distance, so it was human error from the entity itself.
In 1991 in February , Abene accused of entering computers Public Television New York, of the Bank Of America and make “phreaking” in November 1993 was sentenced to 1 year cárcel.También were arrested four other members of the Masters of Deception (MOD). The judge sentenced him more than the other 4 defendants as a warning to anyone else who wanted to follow in his footsteps. His case was widely covered by the media. His nick in jail was CNN .
After serving for a year in the camp of the Federal Prison in Schuylkill , Pennsylvania , Abene was released in November 1994 . In January 1995 , he was honored with a massive party at a New York club. Joshua Quittner called him “the first underground hero of the Information Age, the Robin Hood of cyberspace . Abene had built a significant reputation in the hacker’s cultural underworld.
Professional life
Abene has spoken about the security issue in many publications including The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Wall Street Journal , and Time Magazine . He has appeared as a spokesperson for hackers and global security conferences and has frequently visited universities to speak to students about information security.
Abene made his acting debut as ” The Inside Man ” in the fictional film Urchin, completed in 2006 and released in February 2007 in the US . in which other notable hackers such as Dave Buchwald and Emmanuel Goldstein can also be seen .
