Mark Abene
Mark Abene, who went by the outlandish hacker moniker of “Phiber Optik,” was a member of the hacking group Masters of Deception (“MOD” for short). As a minor, Abene is alleged to have been involved in an assortment of small computer hacking crimes. Some say a victim of the federal government’s crackdown on hackers in the 1990s, Abene and other members of MOD were arrested in 1991 and subsequently indicted by a federal grand jury. He was ultimately sentenced to 12 months in prison. After his release, he maintained a reputation as a kind of folk-hero of the hacking community and has since gone on to enjoy a long career in cybersecurity and other IT endeavors, according to his LinkedIn.
