It was during this time that the cDc is credited with coining the term "31337" as an alternative spelling of "Eleet" or "Elite",[4] an expression denoting skill or greatness in a person, place, or thing.

[5] Also in 1991, the group began distributing music in the form of cassette tape albums sold through its post office box.

The cDc declared war on the Church of Scientology in 1995 during the alt.religion.scientology controversy,[8][9] stating We believe that El Ron Hubbard [sic] is actually none other than Heinrich Himmler of the SS, who fled to Argentina and is now responsible for the stealing of babies from hospitals and raising them as 'super-soldiers' for the purpose of overthrowing the U.S. Fed.

We fear plans for a 'Fourth Reich' to be established on our home soil under the vise-like grip of oppression known as Scientology!In 1997, the cDc began distributing original MP3-format music on its website.

An "NSF Dojo" Member also operates a streaming radio station, which features recordings of hacker con presentations and other educational programming in addition to a wide range of musical styles and artists.

[18] Their work focuses on the development of software that empowers conduct forbidden by repression, rather than enabling (private or public) attacks on repressors.

[16] In general cDc hopes that open code can become the lingua franca of a hacktivism that seeks to wage peace, not war.

The Cult of the Dead Cow has been credited with coining the term "elite" as used in the hacker scene/computer underground in cDc textfiles of the 1980s.

In the late 1990s, the cDc claimed to have worked with a group of Chinese dissidents called "The Hong Kong Blondes."

The group’s ostensible goal was to disrupt computer networks within the People's Republic of China in order to allow citizens to access censored content online.

The cDc first spoke about the group publicly in a presentation at the 1997 Beyond HOPE Conference held at The Puck Building in New York City.

[33] In 2015, former cDc member Oxblood Ruffin claimed without evidence that the hacking activities attributed to the Hong Kong Blondes were an invention intended to create a diversion and cover for the extraction of several Chinese pro-democracy activists.

[34] When asked about the group during a White House meeting in February 2000 organized by then National Security Advisor Richard A. Clarke with President Bill Clinton, Mudge admitted "We made them up.

"[35] On January 7, 1999, the cDc joined with an international coalition of hackers to denounce a call to cyberwar against the governments of China and Iraq.

In early 2006, the cDc launched the "Goolag" (a play on gulag, Soviet forced labour camps) campaign in response to Google's decision to comply with China's Internet censorship policy and censor search results in the mainland-Chinese version of its search engine.

The campaign consists primarily of the use of a parody of Google's logo which reads "Goolag: Exporting censorship, one search at a time.

"[39][40][41] The group encouraged readers to make t-shirts and other merchandise and donate any proceeds from their sale to Human Rights in China.

Students for a Free Tibet held an anti-Google rally in Dharamsala, India on February 14, 2006, employing the logo in a variety of ways.

[43] This press release, originally entitled "Congress jerks off, gang of four reach for raincoats," was picked up by many news sources, as an abbreviated version of it was distributed by PR Web (with the altered title of "Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) Launches Campaign Against Internet Censorship in China").

The Automated Prayer Project,[45] written by Javaman, is "a VT420 connected to a Sun Ultra5 via a serial cable which displays the output of a continuously running program.

It enables a user to control a computer running Microsoft Windows operating system from a remote location.

[50] NBName is a computer program that can be used to carry out denial-of-service attacks that can disable NetBIOS services on Windows machines.

[55] Hacktivismo and the cDc further gained notoriety in 2003 when the Six/Four System became the first product of a hacker group to receive approval from the United States Department of Commerce for export of strong encryption.