The Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is Europe's largest association of hackers with 7,700 registered members. Founded in 1981, the association is incorporated as an eingetragener Verein in Germany, with local chapters in various cities in Germany and the surrounding countries, particularly where there are German-speaking communities. Since 1985, some chapters in Switzerland have organized an independent sister association called the Chaos Computer Club Schweiz (CCC-CH) instead.
Back Orifice 2000 is a computer program designed for remote system administration. It enables a user to control a computer running the Microsoft Windows operating system from a remote location. The name is a pun on Microsoft BackOffice Server software.
DEF CON 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, lawyers, federal government employees, security researchers, students, and hackers with a general interest in software, computer architecture, hardware modification, conference badges, and anything else that can be "hacked". The event consists of several tracks of speakers about computer- and hacking-related subjects, as well as cyber-security challenges and competitions. Contests held during the event are extremely varied and can range from creating the longest Wi-Fi connection to finding the most effective way to cool a beer in the Nevada heat.
In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism, 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 hacker culture and hacker ethics, its ends are often related to free speech, human rights, or freedom of information movements.
Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, indigenous, and traditional knowledge; freedom of information, building of open knowledge resources, including open Internet and open standards, and open access and availability of data; preservation of digital heritage; respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, such as fostering access to local content in accessible languages; quality education for all, including lifelong and e-learning; diffusion of new media and information literacy and skills, and social inclusion online, including addressing inequalities based on skills, education, gender, age, race, ethnicity, and accessibility by those with disabilities; and the development of connectivity and affordable ICTs, including mobile, the Internet, and broadband infrastructures".
Hacktivismo is an offshoot of Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc), whose beliefs include access to information as a basic human right. It was founded in 1999.
Grandmaster Ratte' is one of the founders of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker group, along with Franken Gibe and Sid Vicious. His official title in the cDc was "Imperial Wizard of ExXxtasy."
Josh Buchbinder, better known as Sir Dystic, has been a member of Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) since May 1997, and is the author of Back Orifice. He has also written several other hacker tools, including SMBRelay, NetE, and NBName. Sir Dystic has appeared at multiple hacker conventions, both as a member of panels and speaking on his own. He has also been interviewed on several television and radio programs and in an award-winning short film about hacker culture in general and cDc in particular.
Demon Roach Underground (DRU) was a Lubbock, Texas based BBS that was popular in the "hacker" scene.
Christien Rioux, also known by his handle DilDog, is the co-founder and chief scientist for the Burlington, Massachusetts based company Veracode, for which he is the main patent holder.
HoHoCon was a conference series which took place shortly before or after Christmas in Houston, Texas, sponsored by Drunkfux and the hacker ezine Cult of the Dead Cow. The fourth and fifth HoHoCons were also sponsored by Phrack magazine and took place in Austin, Texas. Phreaking software BlueBEEP was released at HoHoCon '93.
Cult of the Dead Cow, also known as cDc or cDc Communications, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. The group maintains a weblog 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.
The Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement (HESSLA) is a software license proposed by Hacktivismo that attempts to put ethical restrictions on use and modification of software released under it.
"Information wants to be free" is an expression that means all people should be able to access information freely. It is often used by technology activists to criticize laws that limit transparency and general access to information. People who criticize intellectual property law say the system of such government-granted monopolies conflicts with the development of a public domain of information. The expression is often credited to Stewart Brand, who was recorded saying it at a hackers conference in 1984.
Radio Zamaneh is an Amsterdam-based Persian language exile news platform and former radio broadcaster. "Zamaneh" is the Persian literary term for "time".
Mwende Window Snyder, better known as Window Snyder, is an American computer security expert. She has been a top security officer at Square, Inc., Apple, Fastly, Intel and Mozilla Corporation. She was also a Senior Security Strategist at Microsoft. She is co-author of Threat Modeling, a standard manual on application security.
The Collusion Syndicate, formerly the Collusion Group and sometimes spelled Collu5ion, C0llu5i0n or C011u5i0n, was a Computer Security and Internet Politics Special Interest Group (SIG) founded in 1995 and effectively disbanded around 2002.
The Syrian Electronic Army is a group of computer hackers which first surfaced online in 2011 to support the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Using spamming, website defacement, malware, phishing, and denial-of-service attacks, it has targeted terrorist organizations, political opposition groups, western news outlets, human rights groups and websites that are seemingly neutral to the Syrian conflict. It has also hacked government websites in the Middle East and Europe, as well as US defense contractors. As of 2011 the SEA has been "the first Arab country to have a public Internet Army hosted on its national networks to openly launch cyber attacks on its enemies".
