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crash nine days earlier. One of the agents pointed to his answering machine. 'What's that for?' he asked. 'Answering the phone,' Acid Phreak said. He wasn't arrested; instead he was asked to accompany the agents to their headquarters in the World Trade Center where he was questioned until the early hours of the morning.

Phiber Optik, who also lives in Queens, was raided next. According to hacker lore, he was awakened in the middle of the night and confronted with nine loaded guns. It seems unlikely, as most other raids were conducted by one or two agents, usually accompanied by a telephone security man, but it certainly makes for a more dramatic story.

Phiber Optik was a member of LoD – he had joined in 1989, the last recruit before the busts – and was a friend of Acid Phreak. Another New York hacker, The Scorpion, a friend of both Phiber Optik and Acid Phreak, was also raided on that day.

On 1 March 1990 the action moved to Texas.

The day started early, in Austin, with a dawn raid on the home of Loyd Blankenship. Loyd, known as The Mentor to colleagues in the Legion of Doom, was also sysop of an underground bulletin board, the Phoenix Project, and the author of a series of 'hacker tutorials' in PHRACK. He and his wife were roused from their bed by a team of six Secret Service agents, a local cop and a representative from Bellcore.

While his own computer and equipment were being seized, Loyd was driven to his office at Steve Jackson Games. The company specialized in publishing computer games, most of them involving role-playing of one sort or another. At the time it employed fifteen people and had a turnover of $500,000. Founded by Steve Jackson, the company also ran its own bulletin board, a completely legitimate BBS that functioned as an information service for its customers. The only remarkable thing about the bulletin board was its name – Illuminati, after the secret, world-dominant sect that had so exercised the Soviet hacker gang. Computer enthusiasts the world over clearly read the same books.

Steve Jackson himself arrived at the office just as the Secret Service was attempting to kick down the door, watched helplessly by Loyd. The agents were offered a key instead. They spared the door but did

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