Digital DawgPound
The Digital DawgPound (more commonly referred to as the "DDP") is a group of hackers, best known for a series of articles in hacker magazines such as 2600: The Hacker Quarterly and Make, the long-running webcast Binary Revolution Radio, and a very active set of forums with posts from high-profile hackers such as Strom Carlson, decoder,Phiber Optik and StankDawg. The stated mission of the DDP is to propagate a more positive image of hackers than the negative mass media stereotype. The group welcomes new members who want to learn about hacking, and attempts to teach them more positive aspects and steer them away from the negative aspects, by reinforcing the hacker ethic. Their goal is to show that hackers can, and regularly do, make positive contributions not only to technology, but to society as a whole.
The DDP was founded and named by StankDawg. His stated reasons were that he had made many friends in the hacking scene and thought that it would be useful to have everyone begin working together in a more organized fashion. He was motivated by the fact that there had been other well known Hacker Groups in the 1980s who had accomplished great things in the hacking world such as the LoD and the MoD. In 1988, while a junior in high school, StankDawg came up with the name on his way to the "Sweet 16" computer programming competition. He jokingly referred to his teammates as "The Digital Dawgpound".
StankDawg lurked in the shadows of the hacking world for many years throughout college under many different pseudonyms. In 1997 he popped his head out into the public and began becoming more active on IRC and many smaller hacking forums. He saw some insanely brilliant people who seemed to have the same mindset and positive attitude towards hacking that he did, so he decided to approach a couple of them to see if they'd be interested. There was always a huge emphasis not only on technical competence and variety, but also on strength of character and integrity. DDP members are good programmers and hackers, but more importantly, they're good people. By 1999 the DDP had its first members and from this partnership, creativity flowed.
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