Josh Buchbinder,
better known as Sir Dystic, has been a member of CULT OF THE DEAD COW

Cult of the Dead Cow

Cult of the Dead Cow, also known as cDc or cDc Communications, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. The group maintains a weblog on its site, also titled "Cult of the Dead Cow"...

 (cDc) since May 1997,
and is the author of Back Orifice

Back Orifice

Back Orifice is a controversial computer program designed for remote system administration. It enables a user to control a computer running the Microsoft Windows operating system from a remote location. The name is a word play on Microsoft BackOffice Server software.Back Orifice was designed with...

.
He has also written several other hacker tools

Computer program

A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...

, including SMBRelay

SMBRelay

SMBRelay and SMBRelay2 are computer programs that can be used to carry out SMB man-in-the-middle attacks on Windows machines. They were written by Sir Dystic of CULT OF THE DEAD COW and released March 21, 2001 at the @lantacon convention in Atlanta, Georgia...

, NetE, and NBName

NBName

NBName is a computer program that can be used to carry out denial-of-service attacks that can disable NetBIOS services on Windows machines. It was written by Sir Dystic of CULT OF THE DEAD COW and released July 29, 2000 at the DEF CON 8 convention in Las Vegas.The program decodes and provides the...

.
Sir Dystic has appeared at multiple hacker conventions, both as a member of panels and speaking on his own. He has also been interviewed on several television and radio programs
and in an award-winning short film about hacker culture

Hacker culture

A hacker is a member of the computer programmer subculture originated in the 1960s in the United States academia, in particular around the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 's Tech Model Railroad Club and MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory...

 in general and cDc in particular.

Dystic's pseudonym is taken from a somewhat obscure 1930s bondage comic character named "Sir Dystic D'Arcy." According to the cDc's Sir Dystic, his namesake

Namesake

Namesake is a term used to characterize a person, place, thing, quality, action, state, or idea that has the same, or a similar, name to another....

 "tried to do evil things but always bungles it and ends up doing good inadvertently."

Back Orifice

Back Orifice (often shortened to BO) is a controversial computer program designed for remote system administration. It enables a user to control a computer running the Microsoft Windows operating system from a remote location. The name is a pun on Microsoft BackOffice Server software. The program debuted at DEF CON

DEF CON

DEF CON is one of the world's largest annual computer hacker conventions, held every year in Las Vegas, Nevada...

 6 on August 1, 1998. It was the brainchild of Sir Dystic, a member of the U.S. hacker organization CULT OF THE DEAD COW

Cult of the Dead Cow

Cult of the Dead Cow, also known as cDc or cDc Communications, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. The group maintains a weblog on its site, also titled "Cult of the Dead Cow"...

. According to the group, its purpose was to demonstrate the lack of security in Microsoft's operating system Windows 98.

According to Sir Dystic, "BO was supposed to be a statement about the fact that people feel secure and safe, although there are wide, gaping holes in both the operating system they're using and the means of defense they're using against hostile code. I mean, that was my message and BO2K

Back Orifice 2000

Back Orifice 2000 is a computer program designed for remote system administration. It enables a user to control a computer running the Microsoft Windows operating system from a remote location. The name is a pun on Microsoft BackOffice Server software.BO2k debuted on July 10, 1999 at DEF CON 7...

 really has a different message." Vnunet.com reported Sir Dystic's claim that this message was privately commended by employees of Microsoft.

SMBRelay & SMBRelay2

SMBRelay and SMBRelay2 are computer program

Computer program

A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...

s that can be used to carry out SMB

Server Message Block

In computer networking, Server Message Block , also known as Common Internet File System operates as an application-layer network protocol mainly used to provide shared access to files, printers, serial ports, and miscellaneous communications between nodes on a network. It also provides an...

 man in the middle (mitm) attacks on Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 machines. They were written by Sir Dystic and released 21 March 2001 at the @lantacon convention in Atlanta

Atlanta, Georgia

Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...

, Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

NBName

NBName is a computer program

Computer program

A computer program is a sequence of instructions written to perform a specified task with a computer. A computer requires programs to function, typically executing the program's instructions in a central processor. The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute...

 that can be used to carry out denial-of-service attack

Denial-of-service attack

A denial-of-service attack or distributed denial-of-service attack is an attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users...

s that can disable NetBIOS

NetBIOS

NetBIOS is an acronym for Network Basic Input/Output System. It provides services related to the session layer of the OSI model allowing applications on separate computers to communicate over a local area network. As strictly an API, NetBIOS is not a networking protocol...

 services on Windows

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...

 machines. It was written by Sir Dystic and released 29 July 2000 at the DEF CON

DEF CON

DEF CON is one of the world's largest annual computer hacker conventions, held every year in Las Vegas, Nevada...

 8 convention in Las Vegas

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...

. Sir Dystic reported the issue that NBName exploits to Microsoft; he was acknowledged in a security bulletin.