World's Top 10 Hackers
10. Eric Corley
Better known as a pseudonym from George Orwell’s book 1984, Emmanuel Goldstein, Eric Corley was a well-known figure when it came to hacking, especially in the 1980 and 90s. In 1999 he went to court for sharing DeCSS codes and a method to download it, a program that was able to decrypt content on an encrypted DVD. His court case stands as the first to test the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Corley was told to remove the program from his website. Though the main link was removed, almost 500 other websites had provided their own links to access and download the program. To continue this motion, Corley posted a banner stating that he encouraged mirroring of the link. And even today, you can still easily find the program.
Now Corley lives in N.Y.C. and hosts a radio show called Off the Hook on WBAI as well as Brain Damage on Stony Brook University’s WUSB. He also runs a magazine named 2600: The Hacker Quarterly that provides information about phreaking and basic hacking. In 2001, he took part in a demonstration against the jailing of Kevin Mitnick (see #1) and in 2004 was arrested for videotaping the demonstration and was charged with disorderly conduct.
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