was made an example of, and was not judged according to earlier court standards. Abene had built up a significant reputation in the hacker sub-culture, for example regularly appearing on the radio show Off the Hook, hosted by Eric Corley (a.k.a. Emmanuel Goldstein), debating and defending the morals and motivations of hackers in public forums and in interviews, and lecturing on the history of telecommunications technology at the night courses of several New York City universities. At the time of the indictment he was working at MindVox, an early BBS/ISP founded by two New York LOD members, and subsequently on EchoNYC, a multi-user BBS and early ISP. ECHO users, ECHO management themselves and hackers around the nation expected Abene to get off with probation or at most a few months of jail time. Co-defendants and previous offenders charged with "hacking" offenses had received rather lenient punishments, and given his new-found enthusiasm for using his knowledge to constructive ends, the general feeling was optimistic prior to sentencing. A statement made by U.S. Attorney Otto Obermeier in conjunction with the indication was "The message that ought to be delivered with this indictment is that such conduct will not be tolerated, irrespective of the age of the particular accused or their ostensible purpose," was interpreted by Abene's supporters to mean that MOD was made an example of, to show that the authorities could handle the perceived "hacker threat". During sentencing, Judge Stanton said that "the defendant stands as a symbol here today," and that "hacking crimes constitute a real threat to the expanding information highway", reinforcing the view that a relatively harmless "teacher" was judged as a symbol for all hackers. Professional life Abene has spoken on the subject of security in many publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and Time. He has appeared as a speaker at both hacker and security industry conferences worldwide and frequently visits universities to speak to students about information security. After some years as a security consultant, he joined forces with former Legion of Doom member Dave Buchwald and a third colleague, Andrew Brown, to create the security consulting firm Crossbar Security. Crossbar provided consulting services for third party companies, during which the principals conducted business in the U.S., Japan, Brazil, and Sweden. As a result of the "dot com" bust Crossbar ultimately went defunct in 2001, largely due