Cult of the Dead Cow

How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World

By: Joseph Menn

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis

The shocking untold story of the elite secret society of hackers fighting to protect our privacy, our freedom - even democracy itself...

Cult of the Dead Cow is the tale of the oldest, most respected, and most famous American hacking group of all time. Though until now it has remained mostly anonymous, its members invented the concept of hacktivism, released the top tool for testing password security, and created what was for years the best technique for controlling computers from afar, forcing giant companies to work harder to protect customers. They contributed to the development of Tor, the most important privacy tool on the net, and helped build cyberweapons that advanced US security without injuring anyone.

With its origins in the earliest days of the Internet, the cDc is full of oddball characters - activists, artists, even future politicians. Many of these hackers have become top executives and advisors walking the corridors of power in Washington and Silicon Valley. The most famous is former Texas Congressman and current presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, whose time in the cDc set him up to found a tech business, launch an alternative publication in El Paso, and make long-shot bets on unconventional campaigns.

Today, the group and its followers are battling electoral misinformation, making personal data safer, and battling to keep technology a force for good instead of for surveillance and oppression. Cult of the Dead Cow shows how governments, corporations, and criminals came to hold immense power over individuals and how we can fight back against them.

©2019 Joseph Menn (P)2019 PublicAffairs

Critic reviews

"Long before there was a multi-billion dollar cyber industry, there were some ethical hackers who showed us that the Silicon Valley emperors had no clothes. They looked like misfits, but they showed us how insecure the Internet was and how to make it better. Joe Menn makes this previously untold story entertaining and relevant to today's cyber threats." (Richard A. Clarke, first White House "Cyber Czar")

"Cult of the Dead Cow reveals a story few know about the origins of white hat hacking and the heroes it celebrates. Despite the title, hacking isn't dead yet!" (Vint Cerf, co-inventor of the internet)

"Cult of the Dead Cow is an exhilarating and essential look into a part of the hacker underground that has shaped the modern world in profound ways. Readers will be amazed by this crew of eccentric, impassioned geniuses who have so often served as the Internet's conscience while lurking unknown in the shadows. The depth of Joe Menn's reporting is as astonishing as his storytelling - no one could have captured this tale better." (Ashlee Vance, author of Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future)

As a fellow hacker, loved it

I learned to program when I was 12 in about this same era, but absolutely no one was around in my small town who understood what I was doing, including my parents. I wasn’t allowed to use the modem because phone calls were too expensive and had a pretty strict upbringing so probably would not have gotten into phreaking, but I wish I had discovered others with related interests earlier. Somehow I meandered into tech almost by accident despite not realizing people did programming for a living, and now am the CEO of a security company doing penetration testing and cloud security training. I have heard a lot about different aspects of this book from other sources but this really tied some things together. I even know more about some of the people I’ve been following on Twitter for years. Great read.

Modern history that is not in the history books

It is really important to understand what happened before and how that shaped our technology and the way we use it today, some of these stories I knew them, some others were new to me. It is well written and I enjoyed every single moment of it. If you are in the security or cybersecurity, you need to read this.

Good story telling

i enjoyed this publication. It was good for historical coverage and had a nice overview of hacker society.

better than i knew

what a special exposition. i was heavy in tech development and knew the fringes. the details are spectacular.

Somewhat scattered, marred by a poor reading

Jonathan Davis doesn't seem to read more than a few words ahead, so that each of his sentences is merely an assemblage of unrelated phrases. Indeed, listening with headphones, it's easy to hear how he has re-recorded individual phrases and edited them into a sentence. This robotic reading style means that the listener has to capture all the words, re-parse them into a more sensible prosody, and then replay the whole thing in one's head in order to figure out what was just said. It's like having Siri read the New York Times: The phonemes are all there but it takes significant effort to understand what one is hearing. Neither Siri nor Jonathan Davis understand a word of what they're reading.

Menn's writing style is to jump around all over the map. That's OK, but it takes an actor with some talent to bring out Menn's voice. Davis fails.

The first few chapters were an absolute blast for me, because I know or have met almost every one of the people mentioned (except Beto O'Rourke). I loved the world of BBSes back in the day, though I was never a hacker or a phreak.

As the book's timeline progressed, names came up that I wasn't that familiar with. (In a few cases, that's a good thing — plausible deniability ;-)) But as the book wore on, the dry chronicling of the antics of the CDC's members became quite boring. These are just geeks, no more or less interesting than the hundreds of other geeks I know.

Does it get better towards the end? I'm about an hour and a half from the end, and I am not sure if I really want to work that hard. And now that I no longer commute (covid isolation) the thought of listening to Davis butcher sentence structure is not appealing.

Nostalgic entertainment

Blast from the past and awesome stories. great insight on the history of the internet, the stories you don't hear.

A great bit of historical context.

This book is a must read for anyone curious about the birth of CDC and hacker politics.

Cult of the Dead Cow

The history of this organisation is fascinating. If you are interested in how hacking as we know it, got going and how this pioneering organisation was setup, this is the book for you.

Down the Cyber rabbit hole

Interesting glimpse into the history of computer hacking from the movie "war games" to recent u.s. election tampering.

Hackers United "Beto" O'Rourke for President

"You must know the past to understand the present and plan for the future" - Michael Scott McGinn. This publication is perfectly timed and it must educate the current classes of graduates. Do good. Be good. Be a part of history, don't just read about it. Vote. Get involved. Make a difference. Hack for a cause. Read and Reccomend this book.