Collusion Syndicate
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The COLLUSION SYNDICATE, formerly the Collusion Group, is a Computer Security and Cyber Lifestyle Special Interest Group (SIG) founded in 1995.
Collusion Group
The Collusion Group was founded in 1995 by technologist Tex Mignog, aka The TexorcisT (sic) in Dallas, Texas before moving the headquarters to Austin, Texas in 1997. Founding members included individuals that all operated anonymously using hacker pseudonyms (called "handles" or "nyms") including the TexorcisT, Progress, Sfear (sic), Anormal, StripE (sic) and Elvirus. The membership of this organization grew to an estimated 20-30 by 1999 and was not localized to its headquarters in Austin, Texas, with members in other states, countries and continents. The group made numerous open appearances at computer security events such as H.O.P.E. and DefCon and was often quoted by the media on computer related security, political and cultural issues.
The group also founded and financed other events such as the "irQconflict", the largest seasonal computer gaming tournament in the South-Central US.
www.Collusion.org
The Collusion Syndicate began publishing articles written by its members and others that submited articles in 1997 on their site, www.Collusion.org [1], their stated mission being to "Learn all that is Learnable". This site won awards including a Best of Austin [2] in 2000 by the Austin Chronicle where the site was described as "an edgy cabal of net-savvy punks and vinyl-scratching, video-gaming malcontents, laying it down in no uncertain terms with a lot of dark backgrounds and urban-toothed graphics and in-your-face-yo rants." SecurityTraq [3] credits this site as providing an early introduction to the concept of Hacktivism.
Tools/Inventions
AnonyMailer
1995 - An application developed to point out security issues with the SMTP protocol.
Port-A-LAN
1998 - The Port-A-LAN [4] is described as a "LAN-in-a-Box" and designed to facilitate quick network deployments. With CAT III 50-pin telco cable and break-out "harmonicas" to quickly deploy a 160 node network at a previously unwired location in less then one hour. (Developed prior to the advent of WiFi popularity.)
Electric Dog
2000 - The Electric Dog [5] is a remote control wireless camera robot created to demonstrate the practicality of simple robotics in routine office technical repair.
Notable Events
irQconflict
1995-2001 - The Collusion Syndicate hosted the largest seasonal computer gaming tournament in the South-Central US. These events took place in various venues in Austin, Texas, utilized Port-a-LAN technology and, due to it's size, required the re-engineering of the venues' electrical wiring. These events drew attendance from all over Texas and surrounding states.
Virtual Sit-ins
1999 - The Collusion Syndicate promoted Virtual Sit-ins [6] which are manual DDoS attacks created by hundreds of protesters attempting to overload the servers of the organization they are protesting by repeatedly requesting data, manually.
Media
- [Hactivism (txt)][7]
- [Hacktivism (ra)][8]
- [President pledges secure but open Net][9]
- [Info Security][10]
- [DDoS][11]
- [Govt Comp Sec][12]
References
See also
- 2600 The Hacker Quarterly
- Phrack
- Legion of Doom
- Chaos Computer Club
- Cult of the Dead Cow
- l0pht
- Crypto-anarchism
- Culture jamming
- E-democracy
- Hacker culture
- Hacker ethic
- Internet activism