Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc)
More info
- Released
- 1984
- Type
- Hacker group
- Website
- cultdeadcow.com
The hacker group that started with absurdist text files on a Texas BBS and ended up releasing a Windows remote-control tool on stage at DEF CON.
The group formed in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas, around a BBS called Farmers of Doom. For years its main output was text files: satire, short fiction, mock manifestos and assorted nonsense, passed from board to board and now preserved on textfiles.com. Member Omega coined the word hacktivism in 1996.
In 1998 cDc unveiled Back Orifice at DEF CON, a program that gave complete remote control of a Windows 98 machine. The group called it an admin tool and a comment on Microsoft's security; antivirus vendors called it a trojan. Both had a point. In 2019 it emerged that US politician Beto O'Rourke had been a member as a teenager.