The hugely influential Cult of the Dead Cow is notorious for releasing tools that allowed ordinary people to hack computers running Microsoft’s Windows. It’s also known for inventing the word “hacktivism” to describe human-rights-driven security work. And 1337 to supposedly refer to themselves.
So we're clutching our pearls because he did a little phreaking? Because pretty much everyone I know who's old enough built a blue box when they were a teenager. Including me.