| L0pht Heavy Industries | |
|---|---|
 LHI Logo |
|
| Origin | Boston, Massachusetts |
| Country | United States |
| Years active | 1992–2000 |
| Category | hacker think tank |
| Founder(s) | Count Zero White Knight Brian Oblivion Golgo 13 |
| Product(s) | L0phtCrack |
| Affiliated Group(s) | CULT OF THE DEAD COW |
| Website(s) | Main Site |
L0pht Heavy Industries (pronounced "loft") was a famous hacker collective located in the Boston, Massachusetts area between 1992 and 2000.
Contents |
Name
The "Ø" in its name represents a zero, recalling the slashed zeroes that were used on old teletypewriters and still in some character mode OSs, so its normal on-line name, including its domain name, is "l0pht" (with a zero), not "lopht" (with an O) or "lØpht" (with a Nordic slashed letter O), which at that time would not have been a valid domain name. Along with the significance of the "Ø", the name was not without meaning. Some of the founding members of the L0pht shared a common loft apartment space in Boston, from where they inter-connected and experimented with their own personal computers as well as equipment purchased from the Flea at MIT, and items garnished from dumpster diving local places of interest.
History
The L0pht was founded in 1992 in the Boston area as a location for its members to store their computer hardware and work on various projects. In time, the L0pht members quit their day jobs to form a business venture, named L0pht Heavy Industries. This hacker think tank released several security advisories and produced some widely-used software tools, like L0phtCrack (a password cracker for Windows NT). On May 19 1998, all seven members of the L0pht (Brian Oblivion, Kingpin, Mudge, Space Rogue, Stefan Von Neumann, John Tan, Weld Pond) famously testified before the Congress of the United States that they could shut down the entire Internet in 30 minutes. In January 2000, L0pht Heavy Industries merged with the startup @stake, completing the L0pht's slow transition from an underground organization into an above ground "whitehat" computer security company. Symantec announced its acquisition of @stake on September 16, 2004, and completed the transaction on October 9 of that year.
Products
As the L0pht occupied a physical space it had real expenses such as electricity, phone, Internet access, and rent. Early in the L0pht's history these costs were evenly divided amongst the L0pht members. This was soon subsidized by profits made from selling old hardware at the monthly MIT electronic flea market during the summer. Occasionally shell accounts were offered for low cost on the L0pht.com server to select individuals; while these individuals had access to the L0pht.com server they were not members of the L0pht. One of the first tangible products sold for profit by the L0pht was a POCSAG decoder kit. The kit was sold in both kit and assembled form. The Whacked Mac Archives was transferred to CD-ROM for sale which was soon followed by CD copies of the Black Crawling System Archives. The command line version of L0phtCrack (the password cracker for Windows NT) was given away but the GUI version was sold as a commercial product. This was followed by the creation of the Hacker News Network website to host advertisements. Even with all of these various income sources the L0pht barely broke even. Eventually the L0pht started doing custom security coding for companies like NFR.
Members
Founders
- Count Zero
- White Knight
- Brian Oblivion
- Golgo 13
Final Members (January 2000)
- Brian Oblivion
- Kingpin
- Mudge
- Dildog
- Weld Pond
- Space Rogue
- Silicosis
- John Tan
Note
Two of L0pht's members when it closed its doors (Mudge and Dildog), as well as two of its original founders (Count Zero and White Knight), are also members of CULT OF THE DEAD COW.
External links
- Current L0pht homepage
- "L0pht in Transition" in CSO Magazine April 2007
- "L0pht on Hackers" from PBS.com
- "HACKING AROUND" May 8, 1998 Transcript of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer - with photos of Stefan and Weld
- U.S. Senate Press Release: Hearings Announced on Computer Security Failures in Government]
- Alternate link to U.S. Senate Press Release]
- Summary of Senate testimony
