cDc Media Global Domination Update

Cult of the Dead Cow

Global Domination through Media Saturation

Forward to the President. Red Alert. Full Steam Ahead. Power on.

This is Media Global Domination Update number two from the Cult of the Dead Cow's Ministry of Propoganda.
You have never seen us, but you may have felt our wrath. We operate in the bitter darkness outside the known channels. We thrive in the ferro-concrete walls of the technological civilization. We are the stainless steel rats, gnawing at the underpinnings of the 'Information Superhighway', spreading the power and propaganda of the Cow wherever we go.
Founded in 1984, the Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) is the oldest group still active in the computer underground; the only group (aside from a few layme p1RaT3 gR0oPzZz) with a female group member; the only group to host its own annual HoHoCon hacker convention; and, with over 300 text files in circulation, the most prolific group. cDc is definitely cooler than the Legion of Doom (LoD), and more importantly, our T-shirts are more colorful. We also have stickers.
Great, you may say, but have we ever disrupted communications on two continents by moving telecommunications satellites? Mhm. Hacked computing resources belonging to the three-letter agencies and the Pentagon? Yep. Altered environmental controls in local malls via modem? Done that. But unlike other hacker groups you've undoubtedly read about, we've never been caught.
With qualifications like these, it's not surprising that over the past few years, the media has looked to us as the darling boy (and girl) torch-bearers of the DIY-cyber-hacker-underground movement. It's our unfortunate cross to bear. But as the whole of Generation X follows our lead into the new millenium, we feel it is our duty to our peers to maintain the struggle and "raise high our freak flag," as it were.
On their behalf, we intend to dominate and subvert the media wherever possible. Information is a virus. And we intend to infect all of you.

There is no vaccine.
There is no escape.
There is no hope.

There is only cDc.

What follows is the abridged update on our progress to taint your global information outlets. Future progress reports can be found at

allmedia.html

And finally, a big hello to all our fans at the US National Archives and Records Administration, who can't get enough of our files! In fact, they spent much of February 23rd grabbing cDc #1 through #300:
 
Fri Feb 23 15:20:07 1996 1 tselba.nara.gov 2616 /pub/cDc/files200-300/cdc290.txt

Long live the underground! When the underground is gone, when the people's will to resist overbearing government and kneejerk morality is gone...
Then, shall I be able to declare America dead.
-- Jello Biafra

I. MAGAZINES/NEWSPAPERS MENTIONING OR QUOTING cDc OR ITS MEMBERS

II. MAGAZINE ARTICLES WRITTEN BY cDc MEMBERS

III. BOOKS MENTIONING cDc OR cDc MEMBERS

IV. BOOKS WRITTEN BY OR COLLABORATED WITH THE HELP OF cDc MEMBERS

V. cDc ON TV

VI. cDc ON RADIO

VII. cDc ON VIDEO

VIII. MISC

  • The Association of Research Libraries also had THIS to say about cDc:

    Cult of the Dead Cow

    A collection of telecommunicators who write text files. The files are numbered sequentially, but since they are often written by different people, they vary in style and content from issue to issue. Topics and form vary wildly, covering religion, defecation, cows, simulated and real capture files from BBSs, politics, hack/phreak articles, poetry, short stories, interviews, and mindless raving. The common themes running through all issues are dead cows and a focus on experimental mind control propaganda techniques. The group is laying the footings for a global empire based on a desire to control and command those who would oppose them.

  • No expose on the Information Age would be complete without featuring cDc and the L0pht. Naturally, we're a part of the MIT Media Lab's "24 Hours in Cyberspace"

  • The Magellan Internet Guide has reviewed the cDc web site and Veggie's Mr. T home page. The cDc web site received 3 (out of 4) stars and this rather dull, third-grade attempt at a review:

    Keywords
    Alternative Press, Rantings, Zines

    Audience

    Zine Readers, Free Thinkers

    Description

    The publishers of the Cult of the Dead Cow describe cDc as (paraphrased) the personal rantings of flamboyant and opinionated people in Telecom. The Ninja Strike Force is about stealthy, secretive agents that exist only to fight and die for the glory of the Dead Cow. An article called 'New Hack City' is about the results of 200 hackers who group together one New Years Eve. You can also browse through some online cDc archived articles.

  • The Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters and Academic Discussion Lists also recommends cDc:

    When you hear numbers like 12,000 total internet e-lists bandied about, the 1700 or so here are a valuable culling of that mass. At the same time, this is no blue-nosed selection: PSYCOLOQUY and MIT Press's *Artificial Life Journal* are there, but so is *Cult of the Dead Cow* -- not quite respectable, but in an odd way quite serious and worth at least a small detour if you happen to pass it on a gopher menu.

  • Recognizing the ironic opportunity to subliminally corrupt tens of millions of people through their computer software, cDc subversives have hidden special purpose code within the most popular multi-platform applications. As proof, those applications also contain our signature Easter eggs. Open the About box within Macromedia's Director 5.0. Type "cDc" and then click on any of the silhouettes on the lefthand side. The word ".ooM" will appear. We leave the others for you to find.

  • Daniel B in Sweden has incorporated cDc #275 into his resource guide on Christian cults.

  • If ever you find yourself in Lubbock, Texas, stop on by the MOTOR 308 club. Owned by cDc founding fathers Swamp Ratte` and Franken Gibe, MOTOR 308 is the area's only outlet for live underground music. Touring bands can contact Swamp Ratte` by e-mail for booking.

    MOTOR 308
    308 E. 40th
    Lubbock, TX 79404

  • This Spanish-language web-site contains an interview with an Argentinian hacker who talks about various groups and philosophies that have shaped the global computer underground. He mentions cDc, then claims that "The Cult of the Dead Cat, Inc." is also us by a different name. Ay, Carramba! It is not. Accept no substitute.

    IX. PEOPLE WHO WISH THEY WERE AS COOL AS cDc

      For their redemption, the Hiroshima Maidens folded paper cranes. For yours, we suggest you call, FAX or E-mail the following people with your bitchiest prose. Do it early and often. Enlist your friends!

      (In no particular order)

    • Cult of the Golden Cow, (see http://www.ptialaska.net/~dsalveso/). Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but only when we do it.

    • John Stephen Cowley ( dmcowley@msn.com). This loser deserves lots of E-mail from you.

    • "Hacker Chronicles, Vol II" CD-ROM. If you disapprove of yet another group of poseurs misappropriating intellectual property which belongs free in the public domain, contact these dorks at:

      Exclusive Distributor, Data Express, Inc.
      Telephone: (305) 572-4848, FAX: (305) 572-3454

    • Mich Kabay, Ph.D., Director of Education at The National Computer Security Association. He can be reached for comment here.

    • "Big Ron" of Hoboken, New Jersey, has lifted Carrie's DARKSIDE OF THE WEB web-pages, carefully cut her copyright notices from the HTML code and is trying to pass it off as his own at http://mars.superlink.net/zorro/darkside.htm Some of the links continue to point back to cascade.net Send Big Ron mail at zorro@mars.superlink.net

    X. THE cDc PUBLISHING EMPIRE

    • G.A. Ellsworth publishes COOL BEANS!

    • Pusher has a 'zine named Teach Me Pain

    • Reid Fleming publishes the The Royal Arch Mason quarterly (ISSN 0273-6276).

    • Carrie has A Day in the Life Of... & Girl Band Guide

    • Franken Gibe has DREAMWHIP

    XI. cDc DISTRIBUTION

    XII. WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT cDc

      "Cult of the Dead Cow?!.... These guys are a bunch of Sickos!"
      -- Geraldo Rivera, while pointing to a copy of "Sex With Satan", cDc #40

      "cDc? I'd have to vote them 'Most Likely to Pillage the Global Village'."

      -- Bruce Sterling

      "I am like Ward Cleaver compared to cDc... 'June, those cDc boys are outrageous, we shouldn't let the Beave play with them!@'"

      -- SuperNigger of MOD

      "cDc. Punks with computers. You've been warned."

      -- R.U. Serius, Publisher of Mondo 2000

      "The cDc is one of those groups, for true or not, whom one feels has 'underworld connections.' If you want hash, a bail bondsman, a nude model, a hit man, a smuggler, a Chinese hunchback dwarf, a system of ripping off AT&T, a hot car, a kangaroo with a broken tail, a cure for rinderpest, a fast loan, a mail drop for Justice Scalia, a long-out-of-print bit of pornography, or a Corvette from the mothball fleet... cDc is the group one contacts."

      -- Harlan Ellison

      "...it's pointless to compare LoD to the cDc... it's like comparing Albert Einstein to Charles Manson... Both were geniuses in their respective genre."

      -- Erik Bloodaxe of LoD

      "We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine and a whole galaxy of multicolored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, the first 200 cDc files, and two dozen amyls. But the only thing that worried me was the files. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible than a man with a fistful of cDc files."

      -- Hunter S. Thompson

      "Until I found the CULT OF THE DEAD COW, I was a high school nobody! I couldn't get laid if my life depended on it! Now, I'm humpin' all of my teachers!"

      -- Weaselboy, Net-celebrity

      "I can attest to the fact that cDc is the sexiest group of computer hackers there ever was. You may think this silly, but it's the God's honest truth."

      -- Jane Pratt, Editor-In-Chief, Sassy Magazine

      "LOVE YOU SEXTY[sic] HACKERS"

      -- Traci Lords

      "The cDc is the biggest can of Whoop-ass that I have ever seen!"

      -- Evel Knievel

      "Those cDc fuckers ran up my hotel phone bill while I was on tour!"

      -- Rod Stewart

      "I wish those CDC guys would spend less time writing textfiles, and more time in the Lab curing diseases!"

      -- Emmanuel Goldstein, Editor, 2600 magazine.

      "If it's illegal, immoral or revolting, cDc has a file about it -- and possibly three of them."

      -- Michael Hoy, Publisher, Loompanics Unlimited

      "The brilliant and contraversial bad boys of telecom, Lubbock's own Cult of the Dead Cow... This group of cyberpunk misfits has created over 300 text files, distributed internationally, and are setting new standards of humor and obscenity. The language and situations in these files are extremely harsh and not for the faint of heart. But if you're willing to read them, you'll find yourself looking straight into the eyes of Genius. And it's not always a pretty sight."

      -- Jaffo, Net-Celebrity

      "I know these guys, they've been around a long time. Fedland doesn't like them, the media tries to either use or glorify them, and some religious folk would like to strap 'em to a stake and have a cookout. Some people call them digital outlaws, some people call them satanists. The really misguided ones refer to them as 'malicious hackers'. The Elite of the Elite, The Cult of the Dead Cow. They know what's up. "

      -- Diogenes Osborne, Editor, Internet Cryptography Resource Guide

    1986                              You've grown up with cDc.
1987                              
1988                              The awkward adolescence, confused teens
1989                              and stumbling 20/30-nothings.
1990                              
1991                              
1992                              We always knew.
1993
1994
1995                              Now we're going to turn on you,
1996                              and leave you for dead.

    This Media Update has been brought to you by the letter 'Q' and the number 6
    Last Updated:6/11/96
    Copyright © cDc Communications, Inc., 1996


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