Global kOS

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Hacker group

title: "Global kOS" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["hacker-groups"] description: "Hacker group" topic_path: "general/hacker-groups" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_kOS" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Hacker group ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox organization"]

FieldValue
nameGlobal kOS
abbreviationgKos
formation1996
dissolved2000
typeHacking
region_servedus
websitehttp://gkos.org/
::

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Global kOS ('kos' pronounced as chaos) were a grey hat (leaning black hat) computer hacker group active from 1996 through 2000, considered a highly influential group who were involved in multiple high-profile security breaches and defacements as well as a releasing notable network security and intrusion tools. Global kOS were involved with the media heavily and were interviewed and profiled by journalist Jon Newton in his blog titled "On The Road in Cyberspace" (OTRiCS). The group were reported multiple times to the FBI by Carolyn Meinel who attempted to bring the group to justice while members of Global kOS openly mocked her. The FBI had a San Antonio based informant within the group and individually raided several members after contact with the informant.

Overview

Global kOS were a loose collective of members of other hacking groups active in 1996 who released network and security tools for Windows and Linux. The group did not release exploit code as other groups did, each member maintained their own webpage and often acted individually or with their original group. Global kOS continually reiterated that their goal was entirely about rampaging across the internet and creating as much chaos as they could by releasing automated denial of service tools. The group was humorous and irreverent in interviews and press releases, they and affiliates openly taunted webmasters through website defacements. The group's members hacked and defaced a large number of websites in the nightly hacking contests over IRC on EFNet.

Releases

  • Up Yours! denial of service tool
  • Digital destruction suite collection of hacker tools
  • Panther modern denial of service tool
  • kOS Crack password cracking utilities
  • BattlePong IRC flooding utility

Up Yours!

Up Yours! the flagship release for Global kOS was an early point and click denial of service tool which helped to spawn the term 'script kiddie'. Up Yours! first appeared in 1996 and updated versions were released three times. Up Yours! was the denial of service tool used in the well-documented Nizkor attack. It is believed that the hacker 'johnny xchaotic' aka 'Angry Johnny' used Up Yours! to take down the websites of 40 politicians, MTV, Rush Limbaugh, the Ku Klux Klan, and multiple others. The author claims he came up with the name Up Yours! because he wanted to hear Dan Rather say it on national television.

In print: , , and

Members

Membership between Global kOS and other hacking groups of the time is difficult to determine as most members were involved in multiple groups, crossover appears between Global kOS, Technophoria, SiN and GlobalHell (gH).

  • AcidAngel - Author of the denial of service tools 'Up Yours!' and 'Panther modern'.
  • Materva
  • Glitch
  • The Assassin
  • NaCHoMaN - cracker
  • The Raven - author of 'kOS Crack'
  • Shadow Hunter
  • Silicon Toad
  • Spidey
  • That Guy
  • Zaven
  • Digital Kid

Affiliated members

  • Modify
  • BroncBuster
  • Banshee - author of bitchslap
  • The Messiah
  • Deprave
  • Cyan Ide
  • Kiss
  • dvdman
  • The boss
  • Revelation

References

References

  1. [http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2000/06/web-hackers-200006?currentPage=all vanity fair], Invisible Enemies (2000).
  2. [http://insecure.org/stf/HackersEncyclope2.0.html Hacker's Encyclopedia] Hacker's Encyclopedia
  3. [https://web.archive.org/web/19971015025803/http://www.otrics.com/acid.html AcidAngel Interview]
  4. [https://web.archive.org/web/19970411050103/http://www.otrics.com/h5.html OTRiCS]
  5. [http://web.textfiles.com/hacking/globlkos.nfo gkos info]
  6. [http://www.p2pnet.net/people/ John Newton bio]
  7. [https://web.archive.org/web/19971015025734/http://www.otrics.com/hackr-b.html AcidAngel gets Jon busted]
  8. [https://web.archive.org/web/19971015025803/http://www.otrics.com/acid.html gKos interview]
  9. [https://web.archive.org/web/19971015025817/http://www.otrics.com/acid3.html more on AA]
  10. "Carolyn and the FBI".
  11. [https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/global-kos-63883/#file-808509 Heavily redacted FOIA request]
  12. [https://books.google.com/books?id=YHfuGXTd45kC&dq=%22up+yours%22+email+bombing+software+acidangel&pg=PA57 investigating computer related crime]
  13. [http://www.nizkor.org/ftp.cgi/miscellany/up-yours-faq Up Yours! faq] {{Webarchive. link. (2018-09-18 Up yours FAQ)
  14. [http://www.pestpatrol.com/zks/pestinfo/d/digital_destruction_suite_1_0.asp DDS]
  15. (December 2019)
  16. [http://www.pestpatrol.com/zks/pestinfo/p/panther.asp panther]
  17. [http://ftp.novell.com/partners/tally/pru/TCAllPrd.txt files]
  18. "kos crack".
  19. "battlepong".
  20. "earliest reference to Up Yours!".
  21. "Automated hate".
  22. "Automated hate headers".
  23. [http://news.cnet.com/Unamailer-explains-bombings/2100-1017_3-258247.html Unimailer explains]
  24. [http://www.roadnews.com/html/Articles/historyofhacking.htm History of hacking]
  25. [http://news.cnet.com/The-Nets-most-wanted/2100-1023_3-221580.html The nets most wanted]
  26. [http://community.emailogy.com/scripts/wa-COMMUNITY.exe?A3=ind9612&L=LSTOWN-L&E=0&P=438630&B=--&T=text%2Fplain FBI response]
  27. [https://web.archive.org/web/19971015025824/http://www.otrics.com/acid4.html hacked emails sent to Jon]
  28. "gonullyourself".
  29. [https://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2000/03/35264 MostHateD to Plead Most Guilty] Wired magazine 03.29.00
  30. "Tutorial by Modify".
  31. [http://www.antionline.com/archive/index.php/t-254923.html Antionline]
  32. [http://www.pctools.com/mrc/infections/id/Nuker.BitchSlap/ bitchslap]

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

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