Leonard Rose (born 1959 in

Elkton, Maryland Elkton is a town in and the county seat of Cecil County, Maryland, United States. The population was 15,776 at the 2020 census, up from 15,443 in 2010. It was formerly called Head of Elk because it sits at the head of navigation on the Elk R ...

), aka Terminus, is an American

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...

who in 1991 accepted a

plea bargain A plea bargain, also known as a plea agreement or plea deal, is a legal arrangement in criminal law where the defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a charge in exchange for concessions from the prosecutor. These concessions can include a ...

that convicted him of two counts of

wire fraud Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical (e.g., the U.S. Postal Service) or electronic (e.g., a phone, a telegram, a fax, or the Internet) mail system to defraud another, and are U.S. fede ...

stemming from publishing an article in ''

Phrack ''Phrack'' is an e-zine written by and for Hacker (computer security), hackers, first published November 17, 1985. It had a wide circulation which included both hackers and computer security professionals. Originally covering subjects related to ...

'' magazine. He wrote an article for ''Phrack'' explaining how

trojan horse In Greek mythology, the Trojan Horse () was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer, Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending ...

s worked and excerpted 21 lines of the

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

SVR3.2 "login.c" source code. This prompted both AT&T and the

United States Secret Service The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security tasked with conducting criminal investigations and providing protection to American political leaders, thei ...

to raid his home and seize a moving truck full of computers, books, electronics and paperwork from his home office in Middletown, MD. The two counts of wire fraud stemmed from him sending two pieces of email (the actual article containing excerpts of login.c to the publishers of ''Phrack'' on two occasions, as Craig Neidorf (aka Knight Lightning; then the co-publisher of ''Phrack'') had accidentally deleted the original mail. Other counts in the original indictment were from writing a brute force password decryption program using a dictionary attack, which the US Federal Government considered "burglary tools", and tried to approach much like a burglar carrying something to break into a physical residence during the commission of a crime. During this period, Rose was also accused of being the "mastermind" of the Legion of Doom. Many newspaper articles referred to him as being somehow involved with the LoD, which was never the case. John Gilmore,

Mitch Kapor Mitchell David Kapor ( ; born November 1, 1950) is an American entrepreneur best known for his work as an application developer in the early days of the personal computer software industry, later founding Lotus Software, Lotus, where he was instr ...

, John Perry Barlow and many others came to Rose's aid and helped pay for his defense.

Mike Godwin Michael Wayne Godwin (born October 26, 1956) is an American attorney and author. He was the first staff counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and he created the Internet adage Godwin's law and the notion of an Internet meme. From ...

was instrumental in coordinating his defense efforts until the capitulation and plea bargain. The

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

was founded on the cases of Terminus, Knight Lightning, Taran King,

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 ...

and everyone else scooped up in Operation Sundevil, which was covered in

Bruce Sterling Michael Bruce Sterling (born April 14, 1954) is an American science fiction author known for his novels and short fiction and editorship of the ''Mirrorshades'' anthology. In particular, he is linked to the cyberpunk subgenre. Sterling's first ...

's non-fiction book ''The Hacker Crackdown''.

References

External links

United States District Court Search Warrant"Legion of Doom" Indictment
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rose, Leonard 1959 births Living people American cybercriminals People from Elkton, Maryland Hackers

See also

References

External links