Cult of the Dead Cow
How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World
Joseph Menn's history of cDc — the Texas-rooted hacking collective that coined 'hacktivism', shipped Back Orifice, and threaded its way through three decades of the security industry's coming-of-age.
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- Authors
- Joseph Menn
- Published
- 2019
- Publisher
- PublicAffairs
- Pages
- 272
- Language
- English
Read this if
Anyone who wants to understand the ideological and personal lineage of the modern security industry. Many of the people the book follows — Mudge, Veracode founders, the L0pht — are still load-bearing figures in 2026 policy and research, and the book explains how they got there.
Skip this if
Readers wanting deep technical detail. Menn is a journalist; the book is the social and political history. The Back Orifice, Hong Kong Blondes, and L0pht-Senate-testimony arcs are the technical anchors.
Key takeaways
- The hacker-to-defender arc that the security industry now runs on was largely socialized inside groups like cDc in the 1990s.
- The book's policy thread — that disclosure and ethics were debates, not assumptions — is its most underrated half.
- Several still-active companies and government roles trace directly to people who first met on cDc message boards; the genealogy chart is the book's quiet thesis.
Notes
Pair with We Are Anonymous (Olson) for the contemporary hacktivism continuation and with Sandworm (Greenberg) for the geopolitical successor. The book briefly intersects with Beto O'Rourke's biography — a media hook the book is honest about and doesn't lean on. Required reading for anyone newly working in security policy who wants to know whose footsteps they're walking in.
What to read before
What to read before Cult of the Dead Cow →Beginner · 2012
We Are Anonymous
Parmy Olson's reconstruction of LulzSec, AntiSec, and the early-2010s Anonymous moment — the chat logs, the infighting, the Sabu turn, and the FBI takedown that ended the era.
Beginner · 2011
Kingpin
Kevin Poulsen's reconstruction of Max Butler's career — from white-hat consultant to running CardersMarket, the carding forum that consolidated the early-2000s underground — and the FBI investigation that finally took him down.
Beginner · 1989
The Cuckoo's Egg
Clifford Stoll's first-person account of investigating a 75-cent accounting discrepancy at LBNL that turned into a year-long pursuit of a KGB-paid intruder across early-internet networks.
What to read next
What to read after Cult of the Dead Cow →Beginner · 2012
We Are Anonymous
Parmy Olson's reconstruction of LulzSec, AntiSec, and the early-2010s Anonymous moment — the chat logs, the infighting, the Sabu turn, and the FBI takedown that ended the era.
Beginner · 2011
Kingpin
Kevin Poulsen's reconstruction of Max Butler's career — from white-hat consultant to running CardersMarket, the carding forum that consolidated the early-2000s underground — and the FBI investigation that finally took him down.
Beginner · 1989
The Cuckoo's Egg
Clifford Stoll's first-person account of investigating a 75-cent accounting discrepancy at LBNL that turned into a year-long pursuit of a KGB-paid intruder across early-internet networks.
Explore similar books
Alternatives to Cult of the Dead Cow →Beginner · 2012
We Are Anonymous
Parmy Olson's reconstruction of LulzSec, AntiSec, and the early-2010s Anonymous moment — the chat logs, the infighting, the Sabu turn, and the FBI takedown that ended the era.
Beginner · 2011
Kingpin
Kevin Poulsen's reconstruction of Max Butler's career — from white-hat consultant to running CardersMarket, the carding forum that consolidated the early-2000s underground — and the FBI investigation that finally took him down.
Beginner · 1989
The Cuckoo's Egg
Clifford Stoll's first-person account of investigating a 75-cent accounting discrepancy at LBNL that turned into a year-long pursuit of a KGB-paid intruder across early-internet networks.