Beto O'Rourke was a
member of computer hacking group called Cult of the Dead Cow who posted fiction
about killing children and called himself 'Psychedelic Warlord'
- Democrats' newest presidential candidate's past as a
teenage hacker who posted bizarre fiction about killing children is
revealed
- Beto O'Rourke was member of hacker group called Cult of
the Dead Cow and called himself Psychedelic Warlord, he will admit in
a new book
- He posted on 'bulletin boards' - primitive equivalents
of websites - and has left some of his writing intact
- One story when he was 15 described running over two
children in the street and said: 'I just sat in a daze, sweet visions
filling my head.'
- Group stole credit card and calling card details to
avoid running up large phone bills on modems which would have been a
potential felony at the time
- O'Rourke admitted he pilfered long-distance service 'so
I wouldn't run up the phone bill' but did not admit whether that involved
credit or phone card fraud
- Democrat says in new book that Cult of the Dead Cow
taught him how to be 'apart from the system and look at it critically and
have fun while you're doing it'
- Group also posted pirated software, tools to hack
Windows computers and distributed an essay called 'Sex with Satan'
- Members later tried to keep O'Rourke's hacking past
secret when he ran for El Paso city council
DETAILS ARE IN THE BELOW ARTICLE.
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Beto O'Rourke’s Secret
membership in legendary hacking group
By REUTERS and DAILYMAIL.COM
REPORTER
Beto O'Rourke was a
teenage computer hacker who posted fiction about killing children, it was
revealed Friday - a day after he threw himself into the Democratic president
race.
Friends: Beto O'Rourke was pictured with old hacking friend Carrie Campbell in 1997 at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in New York.
O'Rourke acknowledged
in an exclusive interview with the author of a forthcoming book that he
belonged to the Cult of the Dead Cow, the oldest group of computer hackers in
U.S. history.
Book: This is the forthcoming book in which O'Rourke reveals being a hacker
Members of the hugely
influential CDC, jokingly named after an abandoned Texas slaughterhouse, have
protected his secret for decades, reluctant to compromise his political
viability.
Notorious group: The Cult of the Dead Cow was started in Texas - where O'Rourke was born and brought up - and developed into one of the best know groups of its type in the hacking world. Its members pirated software and stole credit and calling card details to pay phone bills
But O'Rourke said in an
interview conducted during his failed run for the Senate last year that he was
a member from the age of 15 until the age of 18, and pilfered long-distance
phone service to fund his primitive family computer's connection to the
'bulletin boards' - predecessors of websites - on which the group
existed.
He did not say if he
engaged in credit card or calling card fraud, which other members of the group
say they used to pay for their connections, and which could have been a felony
if he had been caught.
And O'Rourke was
revealed to have posted fiction during his time as a hacker, including a short
story written from the point of view of a driver who intentionally killed two
children because they were 'happy.'
In the interview
O'Rourke said being part of the CDC shaped his values in later life.
Founder: Kevin Wheeler, known online as Swamp Rat, was one of
the founders of the Cult of the Dead Cow. He and O'Rourke connected on a
bulletin board. O'Rourle says he gave up when he enrolled at Columbia
University, New York, but Wheeler remains part of the world and in 1999 was
seen releasing 'Back Orifice 2000', a hacking tool, at a Les Vegas hacking
convention
In a series of
interviews, CDC members acknowledged O'Rourke as one of their own, ending a
secret which they had agreed to keep to avoid damaging his career when he
became a politician in 2005.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE.
