CyberArmy

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CyberArmy

Cyberarmy was once a popular 'hacktivist' internet community and set up like a regular army - which has evolved in recent years to become an organization dedicated to campaigning for Internet freedom.

From the CyberArmy.net Wikibase:

CyberArmy stands for freedom of thought, freedom of expression, and freedom of information on the Internet. We support the free creation, development and proliferation of ideas and knowledge through such forums as the open-source community. We recognize that in order for these ideas to flow freely, people must also possess the right to their own privacy. We further recognize that to preserve these freedoms and rights, they must be exercised responsibly. We seek to educate people about privacy and things that threaten it, and we seek to promote the responsible use of the Internet as a medium for the sharing of thoughts, ideas, and information. We believe that the people best qualified to regulate the Internet are its users, and we seek to empower them to remove or mitigate influences which are subversive to these freedoms and rights.

1 Membership
2 Dinah
3 Zebulun
4 Sered
5 Brigades
- 5.1 CyberArmy University
- 5.2 Privacy Commission
6 In the News
7 External link

[edit] Membership

Founded by the hacker 'Overlord', CyberArmy claims to maintain an active membership of around 3000 members, though at one time claimed more than 60,000. ZDNet Australia reports CyberArmy's membership in 2001 was 35,000 members. CyberArmy claims the reduction in numbers is attributed to the organization's evolution from a hacktivist community in the late 1990s to a more proactive and responsible organization today. It should be noted that the organizational changes included the removal of the popular Zebulun games from the CyberArmy website.

[edit] Dinah

Dinah is a codename for the backend software which powers CyberArmy's website. In December of 2004, Dinah's code became open source, and now any CyberArmy member can submit patches to the backend to add features or fix bugs. You can browse the code at any time by viewing https://svn.cyberarmy.net/dinah/browse/trunk/ (a CyberArmy account is required to login).

The CyberArmy wiki provides further details on dinah and Dinah Development.

[edit] Zebulun

Zebulun was a series of games intended to teach people about computer security by leading them through a series of challenges to hack into a fictitious computer system, located on a lunar base. It was one of the most well-known hacking challenges on the web at one point. Zebulun was available until late 2003, when CyberArmy began to focus entirely on other projects, which were managed via its system of brigades.

[edit] Sered

Sered is the new series of games released in December of 2005. In the bible, Sered was one of the sons of Zebulun (Gen. 46:14). The Sered challenges are located here. You must have an account at CyberArmy to play. Cheating or discussion of the Sered challenges is not permitted on the CyberArmy website or anywhere else. The challenges have a built in anti-cheating mechanism and cheaters will be banned.

[edit] Brigades

CyberArmy has a unique, hierarchical system of project organization, where a "brigade" responsible for each aspect of the organization's mission statement is formed from a group of members, who each hold a particular rank and set of privileges. Successive promotions through the ranks and membership of brigades determine the resources afforded to each member. Brigades have been created, removed and combined regularly throughout the organization's history, but in general exist for each of the various projects it is undertaking.

[edit] CyberArmy University

The 'CyberArmy University (also known as CAU) was formed approximately November of 2000, in the early days of the CyberArmy brigades system. Initially the CyberArmy University was named the CyberArmy Academy and the first Commanding Officer was General jarmaug. The original intent of the academy was to provide an educational institute to train and offer support to the members of the CyberArmy. This goal was to be accomplished through a group of dedicated volunteers. As the academy gradually grew into the University, a variety of methods were adopted to fulfil this goal including real-time classes, an online library, and a center for users to test the knowledge they had obtained. Embracing the ever-important principle that knowledge should be free, the CyberArmy University elected to make these resources openly available beyond CyberArmy members, effectively creating an unrestricted educational institute for anyone on the internet. To learn more regarding the history of the CyberArmy University, please visit the CAU page.

In January of 2006, then brigade commander and owner of the CAUniversity.org domain suffered a falling-out with CyberArmy executive staff. The CAUniversity.org site has since been dissociated with CyberArmy, though all the user-submitted articles remain intact. The official CyberArmy University site has now moved to university.cyberarmy.net.

[edit] Privacy Commission

The Privacy Commission (previously known as CyberArmy Privacy Commission or CPC) is a CA brigade which deals specifically with privacy issues, both online and off. It was established around 2002 and has had many leadership changes since. At present, PC has a monthly publication called Privacy Watch which is published around a certain topic within the privacy domain. Other projects currently running behind the scenes is the Petitions system which will allow for people to post petitions and have people sign them, then the data can be sent to the original poster of the petition and he/she can then use the signatures to pursue their cause. Another project about to make a big debut release is 'Your Voice!' This project is concerned with acquiring and keeping contact information for many government authoroties around the world including governments and other organisations. The result will be a large database of authority contact information which will be browsable by anyone who wishes to contact an authority and voice their concerns. Anyone will also be able to submit new, or update contact information, so that the database is maintainable, this of course will be done with a lot of supervision by the project administrators. For more information please visit Privacy Commission's website and Privacy Commission's brigade site.