Legion of Doom (hacker group)

{{short description|Hacker group}}

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{{Infobox organization

| name = Legion of Doom
aka LOD & LOD/H

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| formation = 1984{{cite journal|title=The History of The Legion of Doom|volume=3|issue=31, 5 of 10|url=http://phrack.org/issues/31/5.html|publisher=Phrack, Inc.}} Recreation: 2015

| dissolved = 1990

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| purpose = Hacking

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| location = United States

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| founder = Lex Luthor

| leader_title = Founder

| leader_name = Lex Luthor

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| leader_title3 = Founders

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| leader_title4 = Products

| leader_name4 = LOD Technical Journals

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| affiliations = Masters of Deception
MindVox
Cult of the Dead Cow

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The Legion of Doom (LOD) was an American hacker group founded by a hacker known as Lex Luthor after a rift with his previous group, the Knights of Shadow. LOD was active from the 1980s to the early 2000s, but was most active from 1984 to 1991. Today, Legion of Doom ranks as one of the more influential hacking groups in the history of technology. The name is apparently a reference to the antagonists of Challenge of the Superfriends.

At different points in the group's history, LOD was split into LOD and LOD/LOH (Legion of Doom/Legion of Hackers) for the members that were more skilled at hacking than pure phreaking.

Another hacking group existed simultaneously, called MOD, short for the Masters of Deception. While the ideologies of LOD and MOD differed, there was a cross-over between the members of the groups, so the actions of the members can be difficult to attribute. Unlike the hacking group MOD, there are different opinions regarding what the Legion of Doom is. LOD published the Legion of Doom Technical Journals and contributed to the overall pool of hacking knowledge. They claimed that they did not cause direct harm to the phone systems and computer networks they accessed. Still, at the time, any tampering with the phone systems was considered damaging, and many LOD members were raided and prosecuted by law enforcement for causing alleged damage to systems (Grant, Darden and Riggs, etc.).