ABSTRACT
The Masters of Deception (MOD) were a team of hackers living in New York. Their big push was the exploitation of the telephone company infrastructure. During the 1980s and early 90s, mainframes and minicomputers were being used by telephone companies to control and perform administrative activities on the telephone network. Members of MOD for some reason had a need to show off their skills to other hackers and even demean other known hackers of that time period. MOD would boast about their hacking adventures, which is many times the very thing that brings a hacker down. Relative to prior hacking groups, MOD operated somewhat differently. While they willingly pooled information with one another, they took a controversial outlook on sharing information with other hackers who were outside their team. MOD had five of its team members brought up on charges and indicted in federal court in 1992 due to the efforts of a joint FBI/Secret Service task force.
