Prime Cuts from Hacker History: 40 Years of cDc

Four Decades of Hacktivism and Culture

The year is 1984… Ronald Reagan is President, it is a “New Mourning in America.” In Texas, a small cabal of malcontents meet in an abandoned slaughterhouse, decorated with heavy metal band posters, satanic iconography, and, most ominously, the skull of a DEAD COW… As pirated copies of speedmetal and punk music play in the background, these erstwhile revolutionaries speak of their disillusion with The Way Things Are, and their obsession with their new computers. All over America, teens were waking to not just the typical dissatisfaction of adolescence, but the awareness that via these new modes of communication and interaction, they could meet like-minded others, have some illicit fun, and maybe, just maybe, change the goddamn world.

Milestone Tools and Historical Releases

1984 wasn’t the beginning of hacking, but brought perhaps the first real blossoming of the culture. The spread of the personal computer, and the modem, brought the birth of not just cDc, but the Legion of Doom, and 2600 Magazine. 1985 would bring Phrack Magazine, and a true explosion in the written culture, with t-files becoming the currency of the Truly Elite. In this session, members of cDc, 2600, LoD, MoD, and r00t will talk about what made them hackers and phreaks, swap stories, and answer questions posed by Prof. Walter Scheirer of the University of Notre Dame and audience Q&A.