Darknet Diaries
Darknet Diaries

MoD

January 20, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

🎙️ The Voices & The Context

  • The Format: Narrative storytelling podcast episode (Part 2 of a two-parter), blending true crime recounting, historical clips, and interviews with real hackers from 1980s-90s New York.
  • The Key Players:
    • Host: Jack Rhysider, investigative journalist unraveling early hacker lore with dramatic flair.
    • Guests/Subjects: Mark (Fiber Optic), elite phone phreak and MOD leader; Eli (Acid Freak); John Lee (Corrupt); Jason Snitker (Paramaster); historical figures like Tom Kaiser and Fred Staples (NY Telephone security), Eric Bloodaxe (LOD), and John Perry Barlow (EFF co-founder).
  • The Vibe: Thrilling and nostalgic, mixing punk-rock rebellion with tense cat-and-mouse chases—funny pranks amid serious federal crackdowns.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **Part 2 Setup: Picking Up from the Bronx Hacker**
  • 2 (06:36) **Mark "Fiber Optic" Abene: Elite Hacker Profile**
  • 3 (13:46) **Harper's Magazine Forum Clash**
  • 4 (17:19) **Paul "Scorpion," Eli "Acid Freak," and Mark Unite**
  • 5 (22:18) **MOD Activities and "The Flow"**
  • 6 (27:22) **Linking MOD to AT&T Outage Panic**
  • 7 (34:20) **MOD's TimeNet Dominance**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Legion of Doom, step aside. There’s a new elite hacker group in town, and they’re calling themselves Masters of Deception (MoD). With tactics that are grittier and more sophisticated than those of the LoD, MoD has targeted high-profile entities and left an indelible mark on the internet.

This is part 2 of the LoD/MoD series.

Sponsors

Support for this show comes from ThreatLocker®. ThreatLocker® is a Zero Trust Endpoint Protection Platform that strengthens your infrastructure from the ground up. With ThreatLocker® Allowlisting and Ringfencing™, you gain a more secure approach to blocking exploits of known and unknown vulnerabilities. ThreatLocker® provides Zero Trust control at the kernel level that enables you to allow everything you need and block everything else, including ransomware! Learn more at www.threatlocker.com.

This show is sponsored by Red Canary. Red Canary is a leading provider of Managed Detection and Response (MDR), helping nearly 1,000 organizations detect and stop threats before they cause harm. With a focus on accuracy across identities, endpoints, and cloud, we deliver trusted security operations and a world-class customer experience. Learn more at redcanary.com.

This show is sponsored by [Maze][http://mazehq.com/darknet]. Maze uses AI agents to triage and remediate cloud vulnerabilities by figuring out what’s actually exploitable, not just what’s theoretically risky. They remove the noise, prioritize vulns that matter, and manage remediation, so your team stops wasting time on meaningless vulns. Visit [MazeHQ.com/darknet][http://mazehq.com/darknet] for more information.

Sources

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