Operation SunDevil
[related: Steve Jackson Games, EFF, The Mentor AKA Loyd Blankenship]
A covert and, by most measures, illegal operation conducted by the United States Secret Service in coordination with the CIA, FBI, and Ma Bell targeting the Legion of Doom/Masters of Deception and associated groups. Although Operation SunDevil led to a number of high profile arrests and the confiscation of over 100,000 floppy discs [1], it is now widely seen as a publicity stunt. In the wake of Operation SunDevil, the Electronic Frontier Foundation [2] (EFF) was formed - non-profit digital rights organization established by a pair of future Silicon Valley oligarchs John Gilmore (Cygnus Solutions), Mitch Kapor (Lotus) and cyberlibertarian activist (and former lyricist for the Grateful Dead) John Perry Barlow. Operation SunDevil is commonly seen as a shadow extension of the CONTELPRO program. The SunDevil's "crowning" achievement was the infiltration and prosecution of Steve Jackson Games [3]- an operation conducted by armed, physical SWAT raid on March 1, 1990 resulting in the forcible seizure of floppy discs containing the master copy of GURPS Cyberpunk, a toolkit inspired by William Gibson's Neuromancer personally compiled by The Mentor aka Loyd Blankenship, a Steve Jackson employee and purported member of the Legion of Doom. A warrant for the raid was issued based on the concocted claim that GURPS had been used by hackers to infiltrate the Ma Bell in order to manipulate various local 9-1-1 emergency systems. Following the raid, the EFF bankrolled a sophisticated and inordinately expensive federal suit, eventually resulting in the return of all confiscated floppy discs [4].
- ↑ Despite the operation's widespread condemnation, the limited fruits of Operation SunDevil were still used to warrant exponential governmental investment in various forms of surveillance technology and increasing latitude in civilian data collection.
- ↑ An organization now widely seen as an "astroturfing" tool for Silicon Valley oligarchs due to its aggressive and sustained attack on intellectual patents and property rights.
- ↑ In addition to the production and dissemination of various RPG's and hacking tools, Steve Jackson Games (SJG) also published the periodical Pyramid named for the role Egyptian pyramids played in the development of power generation technology and radio frequency communication systems.
- ↑ Unsurprisingly, the majority of discs were severely damaged - with many having been left out in the sun on a Ford Mustang dashboard in Arizona to morph and melt. And in white out, scrawled as though by a child, the phrase: “A wise man hears one word and understands two.”