They claimed responsibility for giving Ronald Reagan Alzheimer’s disease. They also declared war on the Church of Scientology and stated their belief that founder El Ron Hubbard was Heinrich Himmler of the SS. The Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc or cDc Communications), founded in 1984, is one of the oldest computer hacking organisations, and their odd choice of name is far from the most intriguing thing about them.

Formed at the Farm Pac slaughterhouse in Lubbock, Texas in 1984, the cDc has developed and publicly shared many hacking tools, such as Back Orifice (BO), a remote administration tool which gains access to machines running the Microsoft Windows operating system. According to the group, its purpose was to demonstrate the lack of security in Microsoft's operating system Windows 98.