Loyd Blankenship (born 1965), better known by his pseudonym The Mentor, is a computer

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

and writer. He has been active since the 1970s, when he was a member of the

hacker group Hacker groups are informal communities that began to flourish in the early 1980s, with the advent of the home computer. Overview Prior to that time, the term ''hacker'' was simply a referral to any computer hobbyist. The hacker groups were out ...

s Extasyy Elite and

Legion of Doom The Legion of Doom is a group of supervillains who originated in ''Challenge of the Super Friends'', an animated series from Hanna-Barbera based on DC Comics' Justice League. The Legion of Doom has since been incorporated into the main DC Univers ...

Writings

Hacker Manifesto

He is the author of '' The Conscience of a Hacker'' (also known as ''The Hacker Manifesto''); the essay was written after he was arrested and was published in the

ezine An online magazine is a magazine published on the Internet, through bulletin board systems and other forms of public computer networks. One of the first magazines to convert from a print magazine format to being online only was the computer magaz ...

Phrack ''Phrack'' is an e-zine written by and for hackers, first published November 17, 1985. Described by Fyodor as "the best, and by far the longest running hacker zine," the magazine is open for contributions by anyone who desires to publish remarkabl ...

''. Since the essay's publication in 1986, it has been the subject of numerous panels and T-shirts.

Role-playing games

Blankenship was hired by

Steve Jackson Games Steve Jackson Games (SJGames) is a game company, founded in 1980 by Steve Jackson, that creates and publishes role-playing, board, and card games, and (until 2019) the gaming magazine ''Pyramid''. History Founded in 1980, six years after the cr ...

in 1989. He authored the

cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyber ...

role-playing Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing a ...

sourcebook ''

GURPS Cyberpunk ''GURPS Cyberpunk'' is a genre toolkit for cyberpunk-themed role-playing games set in a near-future dystopia, such as that envisioned by William Gibson in his influential novel ''Neuromancer''. It was published in 1990 after a significant delay c ...

'', the manuscript of which was seized in a 1990 raid of Steve Jackson Games headquarters by the

U.S. Secret Service The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security charged with conducting criminal investigations and protecting U.S. political leaders, their families, and ...

. The raid resulted in the subsequent legal case ''

Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service ''Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service'', 816 F. Supp. 432 (W.D. Tex. 1993), was a lawsuit arising from a 1990 raid by the United States Secret Service on the headquarters of Steve Jackson Games (SJG) in Austin, Texas. The ...

''.

References

External links

* ElfQrin.co
Interview with The Mentor (July 31, 2000)
*

published in ''Phrack'' Volume 1 Issue 7 1965 births GURPS writers Hacking (computer security) Legion of Doom (hacker group) Living people {{US-compu-bio-stub