Oxblood Ruffin is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 hacker

Hacker (computer security)

In computer security and everyday language, a hacker is someone who breaks into computers and computer networks. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, including profit, protest, or because of the challenge...

. He is a member of the hacker group 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), for which he serves as "Foreign Minister." He is also the founder and executive director of Hacktivismo

Hacktivismo

Hacktivismo is an offshoot of CULT OF THE DEAD COW , whose beliefs include access to information as a basic human right. It was founded in 1999....

, an off-shoot of cDc.

Ruffin is active in human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 causes and is a vocal proponent of hacktivism

Hacktivism

Hacktivism is the use of computers and computer networks as a means of protest to promote political ends. The term was first coined in 1994 by a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow hacker collective named Omega...

, a term which he has helped to define. He has participated in both technology and human rights conferences, both on his own and along with cDc.

He also has written articles for The Register

The Register

The Register is a British technology news and opinion website. It was founded by John Lettice, Mike Magee and Ross Alderson in 1994 as a newsletter called "Chip Connection", initially as an email service...

and .net

.net (magazine)

.net is a monthly Internet magazine published in the UK by Future Publishing. Founded in 1994, .net magazine is published every four weeks . The magazine is aimed at professional and amateur web designers, and a significant proportion of its readers are full-time web developers. The front cover...

.

Ruffin is also an infrequent contributor to both the cDc blog and the Hacktivismo News blog.

External links

• Archive.org snapshot of now defunct Oxblood Ruffin website
• Cult of the Dead Cow website
• Hacktivismo website
• http://lawmeme.law.yale.edu/static/pastevents/digitalcops/papers/ruffin_hacktivism.pdf"Hacktivism: From Here to There" - a paper presented by Ruffin at Yale Law School
  Yale Law School
  Yale Law School, or YLS, is the law school of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Established in 1824, it offers the J.D., LL.M., J.S.D. and M.S.L. degrees in law. It also hosts visiting scholars, visiting researchers and a number of legal research centers...
  
  's Conference on Cybercrime in 2004]