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CyberArmy was founded in mid 1998 by former Commander in Chief Pengo. Initially, the site was just a collection of hacker webtools on a free Xoom webpage, The page was used primarily in 1998 by Pengo (then known as Overlord) and blackhats from the Midnight BBS. The site was soon generating 1000 hits a day, and was closed down by Xoom. Alternate server space was donated by arctik.com and electronicarmy.com. The cyberarmy.com domain was registered about a month later (late 1998), and hosting was bought at hosting2000.com. Pengo added the discussion forum, a top 50 list, and search engines. By the end of 1998, the site received around 10,000 hits a day.
The focus of the site was soon to change from a blackhat hacker site to a Netizen's Union organization. In 1999, the net was buzzing with complaints - government regulation and control was being placed on the internet. And many, including spammers, were abusing and destroying the internet. Many, who were until that time solely interested in hacking computer systems, began to look at the web anew. The web had been created in freedom, and that freedom was now being threatened by national governments or abused by money hungry corporations.
In 1999, Pengo penned the first CyberArmy statement of purpose: "CyberArmy is a group of netizens who believe in a deregulated Internet, which is free from external control. We believe in providing tools to assist others who believe in a free Internet - we support Open Source. We campaign against those who abuse the free nature of the Internet. We believe that spammers, child pornographers, web based scammers, and malicious hackers are enemies of the Internet. We believe that the Internet can be self-regulated, and that we, as equipped and knowledgable netizens, can control and suppress abusers of the Internet, with legal methods, by consolidating together as a united CyberArmy."
In early-mid 1999 Pengo leased a RedHat Linux server, and co-located it at Digital Nation. Free webpage hosting, and shortly afterwards, the wildly popular "Zebulun Challenge" was added. The site's visitors could now be ranked according to success at these challenges, and awarded a level of control over the administration of the site according to this rank. In a sense, the site became self-regulating. CyberArmy very gradually began to evolve from a "hacker" site to a more Internet-centric community, taking responsibility for a number of ongoing projects and ideological aims.
CyberArmy Brigades, such as CAPF (CyberArmy Paedophilia Fighters) were wildly successfull, shutting down almost 100 child pornography websites. Through group efforts, spammer companies were wardialed until their telephone systems stopped working. We were also able to send several thousand petitions to the US Congress on issues that concerned the Echelon project. As of mid 2000 MSNBC, CNN, and ZDNet had articles on CyberArmy, CinC Pengo was regularly interviewed on radio and was a popular conference speaker in Australia. CyberArmy was receiving at some stages 260,000 hits a day (not including approximately 20,000 to the 3,000 hosted websites). 100,000 members were registered.
A brigade system was set up, whereby higher ranking officers (through the Zebulun Challenges) took control of subordinates to accomplish tasks directed towards the mission statement. At this stage there was a lot of discussion on ranking, and how ranks should be awarded. One camp took the view that ranks should be awarded on completion of the Zebulun Challenges (skill based promotion). Others took the view that rank should be awarded on brigade participation (effort based promotion). Still others took the view that a 'points' system should be set up, whereby points are awarded on completion of challenges and for doing various brigade tasks, and that ranks increase once a soldier attains the appropriate number of points. For some time, a dual ranking system was trialed (whereby soldiers had a separate Zebulun and brigade rank), although the trial was not successful due to confusion and complexity. In the end, a brigade based ranking system won out, and Zebulun was shut down. For some, the ranking issue remain contentious to this day - although without a doubt the current system has allowed brigades to flourish.
*** FIXME: Next paragraph is incorrect - Chawmp took over from Pengo when he stepped down, after some time previously as Acting CinC.
Due to work commitments, Pengo was obliged to hand over the site to CinC MrYowler? in 2001. After serving for only several months, MrYowler? had to step down due to serious health issues. The site was then handed on to the very capable then-Marshal Scanjack.
In May of 2001 the websites were relocated to a private LAN and connection provided by former Marshal ion6ix.
CyberArmy originally maintained an IRC channel on various networks for realtime communication, but as the demand productivity increased, CyberArmy created its own. The new network was set up by Chawmp, Enstyne and The 11th Angel, and has been maintained since then by a small team of operators and server donors. The network runs IRC server and services software based on Unreal and ircservices, but customized somewhat and maintained by Chawmp.
Around the beginning of 2002, CyberArmy's host suddenly lost its connection to the Internet. New hosting possibilities were being discussed, and since a redesign of the site was being considered, it was decided to take the CyberArmy website offline, along with Zebulun, until the new site was complete. A temporary forum was placed online during the downtime, and our IRC network remained up and running. The brigades also continued their work in the absence of the main CyberArmy site on their own domains, and via IRC.
Former ViceCinC marchon provided the solution by contributing hosting for CyberArmy from then until May 2004.
In September 2002, thanks to ViceCinC wa1800z's new backend code, CyberArmy came back online. Within the first week the site had received over 1,000,000 hits. CyberArmy has since brought a host of new services to its members, and is always continuing to develop more.
Since May 2004, CyberArmy has moved to a paid server thanks to the financial contributors on staff, who offered to pay for the hosting as a group. This move will hopefully mark a new era of stability in the future of CyberArmy.
In 2004, following some internal disagreements, the cyberarmy.com domain name was purchased by former CinC MrYowler?. Other staff, along with then-CinC scanjack, moved the current site to the cyberarmy.net domain name, preserving the content. The original cyberarmy.com domain is now no longer operational. There have been several attempts to purchase back the cyberarmy.com domain name, and many look forward to a re-unification of the domains.
From 28 October 2003 to 12 October 2005, snarkles served as the Commander-in-Chief of CyberArmy.net.
On 12 October 2005, Condor191 became the current Commander-in-Chief of CyberArmy.net.
*** TODO: Zebulun is now offline
*** TODO: Mention Dinah Opening
*** TODO: Describe CA under Snarkles
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