Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World

In a well-told if sometimes overreaching history, technology journalist Menn (Fatal System Error) chronicles one of the longest-established hacking groups, Cult of the Dead Cow, presenting it as a valuable antithesis to the military-internet complex. Also known as cDc, the collective has long been at the forefront of “hacktivism” as well as government cybersecurity efforts, with members lending their technological gifts to both the creation of anti-government surveillance software and the Defense Department’s DARPA agency. Menn offers authoritative insights into the organization’s inner workings, drawing on emails from and interviews with cDc members. He also spins an engaging tale about the group’s origins, among several disaffected teenagers in Lubbock, Tex., in the mid-1980s, but occasionally gets bogged down in side-stories, such as in an entertaining but unilluminating digression about one hacker’s family connections to the late ’60s San Francisco counterculture. Menn’s book covers almost too much ground for a relatively compact text. He elicits intriguing reflections from the hackers on various topical issues, such as the coopting of the internet by repressive governments, but only skims the surface of cDc’s many endeavors. Despite these drawbacks, Menn’s work does serve as a spirited examination of the art of hacking and how it might be used for good. [em](June) [/em]