cDc is more than a 'zine. We're a neo-Marxist, anarcho-socialist guerilla unit forged for the sole purpose of getting on TV. We're the smart-ass doctoral student who hands in his thesis written in crayon on a Big Chief tablet.
We're the kid who monopolizes television news coverage, waving and yelling, "Hi Mom!" in the background.
We're here to hurl watermelons into the windshields of oncoming infonauts.
Not only is cDc a secret society; a collection of the best computer hackers on the planet, but we're also the best and the brightest of the digiterati you're liable to find anywhere.
In the past year or two, it's become fashionable to upload your schlock to a web site and call it a 'zine; four stars and a "Top 5%" award if the tone of your 'zine is cynical. Lately, every time I pick up the paper and read a column by an Internet-enthused journalist, it always begins, "I was on the 'Net way before any other journalist." Investment bankers who fancy themselves "Internet experts" are saying ludicrous things like, "If you put a TCP/IP stack on your Windows machine, it turns it into a Unix workstation," and Wired and The Red Herring are eating it up.
Ha! We've been on-line and electronically distributing our 'zine for more than a decade! We remember the glory days: when the "Internet" was still the Arpanet; when White Sands Missile Test Range maintained 'guest' accounts with full privileges; when an Apple ][e with 128K of memory and an 80 column card was the computer to own.
"Battling to remain nonconformist"? Ha! We define it! Geraldo Rivera has denounced us on national TV; Bruce Sterling voted us "Most Likely to Pillage the Global Village."
We're the NSA's worst nightmare: a hacking group with infinite computing resources and an inexhaustible supply of talent and attitude. You really think you can compare us to these other groups?
Hardly. There's much more to the Cult of the Dead Cow than first glance might suggest. To give you a quick intro to us and our voluminous writings, I'd like to suggest the following:
MIT Media Lab's "24 Hours in Cyberspace":
http://www.cyber24.com/htm/6_204.html
cDc #200 - K-b00midy B00midy B00m File
cDc #320 - TEMPEST in a Teapot
cDc #275 - Joseph Smith: Man, yes; Myth, maybe; Prophet, NEVER!
cDc #40 - Sex with Satan (The file that got Geraldo's attention.)
cDc #86 - Screwdriver Flippin'
I think you'll find that there's no comparison between us and the also-rans you mentioned in your article.
Thoughtfully yours,