Cult of the Dead Cow, also known as cDc or cDc Communications, is a computer

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

and DIY

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...

organization founded in 1984 in

Lubbock, Texas Lubbock ( ) is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the nort ...

. The group maintains a

weblog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...

on its site, also titled "Cult of the Dead Cow". New media are released first through the blog, which also features thoughts and opinions of the group's members.

Timeline

The group was formed in June 1984 at the Farm Pac

slaughterhouse A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility. Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is not ...

by Grandmaster Ratte' (aka Swamp Ratte'), Franken Gibe, Sid Vicious, and three BBS

SysOp A sysop (; an abbreviation of system operator) is an administrator of a multi-user computer system, such as a bulletin board system (BBS) or an online service virtual community.Jansen, E. & James,V. (2002). NetLingo: the Internet dictionary. Net ...

s. In the 1980s the Cult of the Dead Cow organized and maintained a loose collective of affiliated BBSs across the US and Canada. It was during this time that the cDc is credited with coining the term "31337" as an alternative spelling of "

Eleet Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet. It often uses character replacements in ways that play on the similarity of their glyphs via reflection or other resemblance ...

" or "Elite", an expression denoting skill or greatness in a person, place, or thing. In December 1990, cDc member Drunkfux – the pseudonym of Jesse Dryden, the son of

Jefferson Airplane Jefferson Airplane was an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, that became one of the pioneering bands of psychedelic rock. Formed in 1965, the group defined the San Francisco Sound and was the first from the Bay Area to ach ...

drummer Spencer Dryden and grand nephew of Charlie Chaplin – gave birth to the modern

hacker con A computer security conference is a convention for individuals involved in computer security. They generally serve as meeting places for system and network administrators, hackers, and computer security experts. Events Common activities at hac ...

. HoHoCon, usually held in Houston, Texas, was the first hacker conference which invited the participation of both

journalists A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and law enforcement. In all, dFx hosted five annual HoHoCons. In 1991, cDc was named "Sassiest Underground Computer Group" by '' Sassy'' magazine. Also in 1991, the group began distributing music in the form of cassette tape albums sold through its

post office box A post office box (commonly abbreviated as P.O. box, or also known as a postal box) is a uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office. In some regions, particularly in Africa, there is no door to door delivery ...

. Many of these albums are now available online in their entirety. October 1994 saw the creation of the cDc's

Usenet Usenet () is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979, and it was ...

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distin ...

, alt.fan.cult-dead-cow. It was thus the first hacking group to have its own Usenet newsgroup. In November of that year, the group claimed responsibility for giving Ronald Reagan Alzheimer's disease, claiming to have done so in 1986 with a

blowgun A blowgun (also called a blowpipe or blow tube) is a simple ranged weapon consisting of a long narrow tube for shooting light projectiles such as darts. It operates by having the projectile placed inside the pipe and using the force created by f ...

. The cDc declared war on the

Church of Scientology The Church of Scientology is a group of interconnected corporate entities and other organizations devoted to the practice, administration and dissemination of Scientology, which is variously defined as a cult, a business, or a new religious ...

in 1995 during the alt.religion.scientology controversy, stating In 1997, the cDc began distributing original

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany, with support from other digital scientists in the United States and elsewhere. Orig ...

-format music on its website. In August 1998, they presented their popular Back Orifice tool at DEF CON 6. In February 2000, the cDc was the subject of an 11-minute documentary short titled "Disinformation". Also in February 2000, cDc member Mudge briefed President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton (Birth name, né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 ...

on Internet security.

cDc communications

cDc communications is the parent organisation of Cult of the Dead Cow, one of three groups that fall under cDc communications. The other two are the

Ninja Strike Force Godfrey Ho (Chinese language: 何志强 or 何致强, born 1948) is a former Hong Kong-based prolific film director and screenwriter, sometimes considered the Ed Wood of Hong Kong cinema. Ho is believed to have directed more than one hundred film ...

and Hacktivismo.

Ninja Strike Force

In 1996, the cDc announced the birth of its Ninja Strike Force, a group of "

ninja A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance, espionage, infiltration, deception, ambush, bodyguarding and their fighting skills in martial arts, including ninjutsu.Kawakami, pp ...

" dedicated to achieving the goals of the cDc, an intervention task force both online and offline. The cDc opened the NSF Dojo in 2004. An "NSF Dojo" Member also operates a streaming radio station, which features recordings of

presentations and other educational programming in addition to a wide range of musical styles and artists. Membership in the NSF is granted by the cDc to those individuals who stand out in their support of the cDc and its ideals. Members are recognized for their abilities, capabilities, and being the best of the best in their skills. In 2006 the Ninja Strike Force launched its own

microsite A microsite is an individual web page or a small cluster of pages which are meant to function as a discrete entity (such as an iFrame) within an existing website or to complement an offline activity. The microsite's main landing page can have its ...

Hacktivismo

In late 1999, the cDc created Hacktivismo, an independent group under the cDc communications umbrella dedicated to the creation of anti-

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

technology in furtherance of

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

on the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

. The group's beliefs are described fully in The Hacktivismo Declaration, which seeks to apply the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...

and the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freed ...

to the

. Among Hacktivismo's beliefs include access to information as a basic

human right Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

. The organization partially shares

Critical Art Ensemble Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) is a collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance. For CAE, tactical media is situati ...

's (CAE) belief in the value of secrecy, but challenges both with CAE and many

hacktivist In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hack ...

s on the subject of civil disobedience. The cDc model is, instead, one of disruptive compliance.Wardrip-Fruin, Noah and Nick Montfort, ed (2003). The New Media Reader. pp.782. The MIT Press. . Disruptive, in this case, refers to disruptive technology; compliance refers back to the Internet and its original intent of constructive free-flow and openness. Hacktivismo has also authored its own

software license A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both sour ...

agreement, the Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement, which is source available (but not

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

). Their work focuses on the development of software that empowers conduct forbidden by repression, rather than enabling (private or public) attacks on repressors. In general cDc hopes that open code can become the lingua franca of a

hacktivism In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of '' hack'' and '' activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in ...

that seeks to wage peace, not war. While the term isn't used, the software described in cDc's "Waging of Peace on the Internet" would create a set of connections between dissidents that sound in technoliberationist terms, rhizomatic.

Crossover associations with other groups

In addition to the obvious associations between Cult of the Dead Cow, Hacktivismo, and the Ninja Strike Force, the cDc also has crossover associations with several other organizations. These include the L0pht; founding members White Knight and Count Zero and final members Dildog and Mudge are all members of cDc. Additionally, The Nightstalker was a member of

Youth International Party The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. It was founded on ...

Line/Technology Assistance Program. Lord Digital, one of the founders of Mindvox, is a former member of LOD/H and a current member of the Sacrament of Transition. Red Knight was a member of the Masters of Deception. Also,

RaD Man __NOTOC__ Christian Wirth (born in the 1970s), better known by the pseudonym RaD Man, is an American computer artist and historian. He works in the field of ANSI art, a method of creating art using a limited set of text characters and color esc ...

, a member of the Ninja Strike Force, is one of the founders of

ACiD Productions ACiD Productions (ACiD) is a digital art group. Founded in 1990, the group originally specialized in ANSI artwork for BBSes. More recently, they have extended their reach into other graphical media and computer software development. During the B ...

. Another NSF member, Mark Hinge, is a founding member of the British hacker group The Syndicate Of London. Flack, another Ninja Strike Force member, was a co-founder of the horror "lit group" Soulz at Zero. Mudge later went on to program manage the CINDER program at DARPA, which aimed to detect 'insider threats' like the

WikiLeaks WikiLeaks () is an international non-profit organisation that published news leaks and classified media provided by anonymous sources. Julian Assange, an Australian Internet activist, is generally described as its founder and director and ...

sources.Darpa’s Star Hacker Looks to WikiLeak-Proof Pentagon
Spencer Ackerman, Wired, August 31, 2010, retr 2011 12 5

Electronic publication

During the 1980s, the cDc was well known throughout the BBS scene for their underground ezine, also called ''Cult of the Dead Cow''. The group claims to have invented the ezine. The Cult of the Dead Cow has been credited with coining the term "elite" as used in the hacker scene/computer underground in cDc textfiles of the 1980s. The ezine has led to some criticism of the group over the years; in a 1994 episode of ''Geraldo'' entitled "Computer Vice,"

Geraldo Rivera Geraldo Rivera (born Gerald Riviera; July 4, 1943) is an American journalist, attorney, author, political commentator, and former television host. He hosted the tabloid talk show '' Geraldo'' from 1987 to 1998. He gained publicity with the liv ...

referred to the group as "a bunch of sickos" for having published an article called "Sex with Satan," originally published in 1988.

Hacktivism

In 1996, cDc member Omega used the term "

" in an email to other group members. The group has been active in hacktivist causes since that time.

Hong Kong Blondes

In the late 1990s, the cDc claimed to have worked with a group of Chinese dissidents called "The Hong Kong Blondes." The group’s ostensible goal was to disrupt computer networks within the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, sli ...

in order to allow citizens to access censored content online. The Hong Kong Blondes were, ostensibly, one of the first hacktivist groups, though the group's existence and actions have proven to be an invented fiction. The cDc first spoke about the group publicly in a presentation at the 1997 Beyond HOPE Conference held at The

Puck Building __FORCETOC__ The Puck Building is a historic building located in the Nolita neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It occupies the block bounded by Lafayette, Houston, Mulberry and Jersey Streets. An example of the German Rundbogenstil styl ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. Members claimed to have advised the group on

strong encryption Strong cryptography or cryptographically strong are general terms applied to cryptographic systems or components that are considered highly resistant to cryptanalysis. Demonstrating the resistance of any cryptographic scheme to attack is a com ...

techniques. The cDc formally severed ties with the Hong Kong Blondes in December 1998. In 2015, former cDc member Oxblood Ruffin claimed without evidence that the hacking activities attributed to the Hong Kong Blondes were an invention intended to create a diversion and cover for the extraction of several Chinese pro-democracy activists. Asked about the group during a White House meeting in February 2000 organized by then

National Security Advisor A national security advisor serves as the chief advisor to a national government on matters of security. The advisor is not usually a member of the government's cabinet but is usually a member of various military or security councils. National secu ...

Richard A. Clarke Richard Alan Clarke (born October 27, 1950) is an American national security expert, novelist, and former government official. He served as the Counterterrorism Czar as the National Coordinator for Security, Infrastructure Protection, and Cou ...

with President

, Mudge admitted "We made them up."

Cyberwar

On January 7, 1999, the cDc joined with an international coalition of hackers to denounce a call to cyberwar against the governments of China and

Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...

Milošević trial

When questioning Patrick Ball during his International War Crimes Tribunal in 2002,

Slobodan Milošević Slobodan Milošević (, ; 20 August 1941 – 11 March 2006) was a Yugoslav and Serbian politician who was the president of Serbia within Yugoslavia from 1989 to 1997 (originally the Socialist Republic of Serbia, a constituent republic of ...

asked Ball about his relationship with the cDc. Ball had given a talk and been a member of a cDc-sponsored panel on hacktivism at

DEF CON DEF CON (also written as DEFCON, Defcon or DC) is a hacker convention held annually in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first DEF CON took place in June 1993 and today many attendees at DEF CON include computer security professionals, journalists, lawyer ...

9 in 2001.

Goolag campaign

In early 2006, the cDc launched the "Goolag" (a play on

gulag The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the State Political Directorate, GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= ...

, Soviet forced labour camps) campaign in response to

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

's decision to comply with China's Internet censorship policy and censor search results in the mainland-Chinese version of its search engine. The campaign consists primarily of the use of a parody of Google's logo which reads "Goolag: Exporting censorship, one search at a time." The group encouraged readers to make t-shirts and other merchandise and donate any proceeds from their sale to

Human Rights in China Human rights in mainland China are periodically reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Committee (UNHRC), on which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and various foreign governments an ...

. Students for a Free Tibet held an anti-Google rally in

Dharamsala Dharamshala (; also spelled Dharamsala) is the winter capital of Himachal Pradesh, India. It serves as administrative headquarters of the Kangra district after being relocated from Kangra, a city located away from Dharamshala, in 1855. The ...

India India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...

on February 14, 2006, employing the logo in a variety of ways. The cDc then issued a press release about the campaign, wherein it described

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...

, Google, and

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational corporation, multinational digital communications technology conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develo ...

as the "Gang of Four" due to their respective policies of compliance with the Beijing government's Internet policies. The

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washi ...

was also called out on this issue in the release. This press release, originally entitled "Congress jerks off, gang of four reach for raincoats," was picked up by many news sources, as an abbreviated version of it was distributed by

PR Web Cision Ltd. is a public relations and earned media software company and services provider. The company is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Chicago, Illinois; with clients worldwide. The company went public via reverse merg ...

(with the altered title of "Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) Launches Campaign Against Internet Censorship in China").

Tools

The cDc has released several tools, for both hackers/

system administrator A system administrator, or sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as servers. The system administrator seeks to en ...

s and for the general public. Many of these are related to

computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...

and are sometimes dubbed "hacker tools".

The Automated Prayer Project

The Automated Prayer Project, written by Javaman, is "a

VT420 The VT420 is an ANSI standard computer terminal introduced in 1990 by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). The 420 is the only model in the 400 series, replacing the VT320. There are no color or graphics-capable 400 series terminals; the VT340 re ...

connected to a

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared rad ...

Ultra5 via a

serial cable A serial cable is a cable used to transfer information between two devices using a serial communication protocol. The form of connectors depends on the particular serial port used. A cable wired for connecting two DTEs directly is known as a nu ...

which displays the output of a continuously running program. The signaling rate is limited to 9600

baud In telecommunication and electronics, baud (; symbol: Bd) is a common unit of measurement of symbol rate, which is one of the components that determine the speed of communication over a data channel. It is the unit for symbol rate or modulatio ...

. The program itself cycles through the

Rosary The Rosary (; la, , in the sense of "crown of roses" or "garland of roses"), also known as the Dominican Rosary, or simply the Rosary, refers to a set of prayers used primarily in the Catholic Church, and to the physical string of knots or ...

, displaying a new individual prayer once every thirty seconds. Each individual prayer is then sent out via UDP to a random machine on the Internet on a random port."

Back Orifice

Back Orifice (often shortened to BO) is a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer progra ...

designed for remote system administration. It enables a user to control a computer running Microsoft Windows operating system from a remote location. The name is a pun on Microsoft BackOffice Server software. The program debuted at

6 on August 1, 1998. It was the brainchild of Sir Dystic. According to the group, its purpose was to demonstrate the lack of security in Microsoft's operating system Windows 98.

Back Orifice 2000

Back Orifice 2000 (often shortened to BO2k) is a computer program that is similar in function to Back Orifice. Back Orifice 2000 debuted on July 10, 1999 at DEF CON 7. The original code was written by Dildog. Whereas the original Back Orifice was limited to the

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufactu ...

and

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released ...

operating systems, BO2k also supports

Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Wi ...

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was release to manufacturing, released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Wind ...

and

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft and oriented towards businesses. It was the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was released to manufacturing on December 15, 1999, and was official ...

. Some BO2k client functionality has also been implemented for *nix-systems. In addition, BO2k was released under the GPL. As of 2012, BO2k is being actively developed.

Camera/Shy

Camera/Shy was the first Hacktivismo project released. It debuted in 2002 at the H.O.P.E. 2k2 convention in

. It is a

steganographic Steganography ( ) is the practice of representing information within another message or physical object, in such a manner that the presence of the information is not evident to human inspection. In computing/electronic contexts, a computer file, ...

tool that scans for and delivers decrypted content directly from the world wide web.Einhorn, Bruce.
Hackers to Beijing: Have a Cow!
" ''

Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' online edition, August 5, 2002. Retrieved July 19, 2006.

NBName

NBName is a computer program that can be used to carry out

denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conn ...

s that can disable

NetBIOS NetBIOS () is an acronym for Network Basic Input/Output System. It provides services related to the session layer of the OSI model allowing applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network. As strictly an API, N ...

services on Windows machines. It was written by Sir Dystic and released July 29, 2000 at the DEF CON 8 convention in Las Vegas.

ScatterChat

ScatterChat is an encrypted

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

client based on Gaim. It was written by J. Salvatore Testa II and released at the H.O.P.E. Number Six conference in New York City on July 22, 2006. It provides

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can dec ...

as well as integrated

onion routing Onion routing is a technique for anonymous communication over a computer network. In an onion network, messages are encapsulated in layers of encryption, analogous to layers of an onion. The encrypted data is transmitted through a series of net ...

with Tor, and secure file transfers. Various flaws in the software have been elaborated by researchers.

The Six/Four System

The Six/Four System is a

-resistant

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

proxy written by Mixter, a member of both cDc and Hacktivismo. It works by using "trusted peers" to relay network connections over SSL encrypted links. Hacktivismo and the cDc further gained notoriety in 2003 when the Six/Four System became the first product of a hacker group to receive approval from the

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for busi ...

for export of strong encryption.

SMBRelay and SMBRelay2

SMBRelay and SMBRelay2 are computer programs that can be used to carry out SMB

man-in-the-middle attack In cryptography and computer security, a man-in-the-middle, monster-in-the-middle, machine-in-the-middle, monkey-in-the-middle, meddler-in-the-middle, manipulator-in-the-middle (MITM), person-in-the-middle (PITM) or adversary-in-the-middle (AiTM) ...

s on Windows machines. They were written by Sir Dystic and released March 21, 2001 at the @lantacon convention in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...

Torpark

XeroBank Browser (formerly known as Torpark) is a variant of the Portable Firefox

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

with Tor built into it. Torpark is intended for use on portable media such as a

USB flash drive A USB flash drive (also called a thumb drive) is a data storage device that includes flash memory with an integrated USB interface. It is typically removable, rewritable and much smaller than an optical disc. Most weigh less than . Since fir ...

but it can also be used on any

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magn ...

. cDc/Hacktivismo co-released v.1.5.0.7 along with Steve Topletz on September 19, 2006.

Whisker

Whisker is a project authored by Rain Forest Puppy that is no longer in development. It checked for thousands of known security vulnerabilities in web servers. Whisker Version 1.4 was co-released by the cDc at DEF CON 8 in 2000.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Cult of the Dead Cow Wikipedia articles with ASCII art Organizations established in 1984 Hacker groups