CyberArmy

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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 is a community of computer enthusiasts who provide assistance to individuals and organisations to help them make effective use of the Internet as a tool for education, communication and collaboration.

Contents

[edit] Membership

Founded by the hacker 'Overlord', CyberArmy claims to maintain an active membership of around 3000 members[citation needed], though at one time claimed more than 60,000[citation needed]. 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 due to times changing and the games becoming slightly obsolete.

[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] Projects

CyberArmy has been slowly introducing a project hosting system to the community, initially - projects commissioned concerned the structure of the community and website. There are a much wider range of projects hosted on CyberArmy now, including a community hosting project, application and operating system development, and projects relating to Public Relations and community structure.

[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 Academy

The CyberArmy Academy (also known as CAA) was formed approximately November of 2000, in the early days of the CyberArmy brigades system. Initially the brigade started as being named the CyberArmy Academy and the first Commanding Officer was General jarmaug then it was changed to the CyberArmy University, and finally reverted back to CyberArmy Academy. 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 fulfill 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 Academy 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 Academy, please visit the CAA page.

In January of 2006, then brigade commander and owner of the original 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 Academy site has now moved to academy.cyberarmy.net.

[edit] CyberArmy Intelligence & Security

The CyberArmy Intelligence & Security brigade originally started in the very early days of CyberArmy and was originally known as Special Operations & Security. This brigade is charged with the task of researching and developing everything in the security and intelligence fields. One of the main projects created by the original Special Operations & Security was Windstone at windstone.x-mirror.com/v2/. The brigade has now flattened the hierarchy, converting the section to a Projects Brigade, leaving brigade membership only open to brigade staff and project leaders. To find out more about CyberArmy Intelligence & Security please visit cais.cgx.org.uk.

[edit] CyberArmy Projects

The Projects brigade was devised in late February, 2007 to further use of the CyberArmy projects system. Current generic projects commissioned include Game Development, Privacy Rights and Programming.

[edit] Open Source Institute

The Open Source Institute is one of the oldest brigades in CyberArmy as it started prior to 2000. This brigade is about anything open source by providing a community on osix.net to centralise services such as hacking challenges, development, IT news and open source tools. To find out more about OSI please visit their brigade site at CyberArmy Brigades.

[edit] Services & Support

From the Services & Support brigade page:

CyberArmy Services & Support was commissioned to manage, operate and conduct oversight of the various tools provided on the CyberArmy website. Members of SAS handle public and internal relations, feedback, as well as providing assistance to new recruits and helping them to settle gradually into the CyberArmy community. Their website can be found at sas.cyberarmy.net.

[edit] In the News

CyberArmy has been featured on MSNBC, CNN, and ZDNet, and appears regularly in smaller publications, online and in print.

[edit] External links