Toronto Globe and Mail, February 27th 1996. Page C2
A Short History of Hackers, Phreaks and Worms
by Mathew Ingram
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Apart from Mr. Mitnick, there are seceral well-known personalities who
proudly fly the hacker flag - someone named Erik Bloodaxe runs a group called
the Legion of Doom, for example. There's also a notorious hacker who goes
by the name Phiber Optik.
But perhaps the most infamous hacker is Death Vegetable, or "Veggie,"
member of a group of hackers called the Cult of the Dead Cow.
As an illustration of the authority-defying nature of hacker culture, on
its Web page, the cDc warns that its site "may contain explicit descriptions
of, or advocate one or more of the following: nudity, satanism, suicide,
sodomy, incest, bestiality, sadomasochism, adultery, murder, morbid violence,
bad grammar, or any deviate sexual conduct in a violent context, or the use
of illegal drugs or alcohol."
The page also contains a quote from Thomas Jefferson that illustrates the
more serious "hacker ethic" that claims "information should be free." The
quote is: "Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security,
will not have, nor do they deserve, either one."
Founded in 1985, the cDc claims to be the oldest group still active in the
computer underground, and the only one with its own annual convention
(HoHoCon). It also claims to have disrupted communications on two
continents by moving telecommunications satellites, and to have altered the
environmental controls in local shopping malls by computer modem.
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Cult of the Dead Cow - Index