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Eric Conspiracy Home Page

What Is The Eric Conspiracy?

Around 1987 someone on the newsgroup talk.bizarre uttered a semi-incoherent rant observing that there seemed to be an awful lot of hackers named Eric around -- ``and have you noticed'' (he said) ``that they all have moustaches and they're all UNIX system manglers?'' He then opined that these must be the secret signs of an insidious conspiracy.

Well, there went our deep, dark, ancient secret! No point in the hooded robes and solemn blood oaths of silence sworn by guttering torchlight anymore. Usenet has spoken. Yes, there is an Eric Conspiracy. You, too, may be eligible to join, use our nifty logo on your home page, and participate in our sinister plans for network and world domination!

Who Can Be a Member

To become an initiate of the Eric Conspiracy, you must meet the following criteria:

1. You must be an Eric

You may match on first, last, or middle name(s). We're not orthography bigots, if you're an Erik or Erich or Eirik you are also eligible. We're not sexists either, so Ericas and Erikas are also welcome. We've even managed not to be speciesist -- one of the qualified members is a cat.

2. You must have a Moustache

An eligible moustache may be real or virtual. You have a real moustache if you wear visible hair immediately above your upper lip. You have a virtual moustache if (a) you can produce pictures or the attestation of an initiated member to prove that you once had a real moustache, or (b) you can fake it. (Ericas and Erikas are encouraged to fake it.)

3. You must Mangle Unix

You are presumptively considered a Unix mangler if you are a Unix hacker, developer, or system administrator. If you are a Unix user, you are eligible if you have ever (a) run Unix on a home machine, (b) crashed your Unix host, (c) cracked your Unix host, (d) logged in late at night because you got tired of getting totally lagged during the day, thus ensuring that your host is swamped all the time.

Borderline cases will be decided by the iron whim of the initiated membership. (Yes, we can be bribed.)

Solemn Laws Of The Eric Conspiracy

  1. When asked if you are really a initiate of a sinister conspiracy to dominate the net and/or world, silently leave the room, say ``No comment'', smile without speaking or otherwise contrive to leave the questioner nervous, confused, and just a little more paranoid than he/she was before.

  2. At Eric Conspiracy meetings or while on Conspiracy business, address other initiates as `Bruce' (just to keep things clear).

  3. Always and everywhere, strive to earn Official Eric Conspiracy Coolness Points.

How to Earn Coolness Points

Any initiate can award another initiate Coolness Points. However, the award may be vetoed by any initiate with more coolness points than the awarder (but it's bad form to do this often). Here are some ways to earn Coolness Points:

  1. Practice your sinister maniacal laughter for use on noninitiates.
  2. Recruit new members.
  3. Use "Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs" as your Organization line. For extra sinister effect, add the following header to your outgoing mail and news: "X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy".
  4. Pull off a particularly neat Unix hack.
  5. Recover bits of arcane Eric Conspiracy lore via your pineal gland from the akashic records -- new Solemn Laws, sinister plans for world domination, etc.
  6. Think up more ways for initiates to earn Coolness Points.

Here is the official Eric Conspiracy logo, recognized by paranoids the world over as the sign of a truly superior world-girdling conspiracy:

Watch for it on our soon-to-be released lines of sportswear, action figures, and cosmetics. There is also a gray and white wallpaper version you can use as a background, and a half-size version you can use as an icon for a web link to this page.

Here are some other variants of the logo:


(If the mustachioed one on your right looks a little weird, it's because most browsers don't yet do the transparent background on PNGs right.)

And now, the Eric Conspiracy has its very own counter-conspiracy -- the World Eric Watchers Organization. They think they can monitor us, comprehend our dark designs, and foil them. The poor, doomed fools...

The Initiates List

Eric S. Raymond (WWW)
  • 2 coolness points for building this Web page.
  • 1 coolness point for doing a pretty good sinister maniacal laugh.
  • 1 coolness point for recruiting Eric Pederson.
  • 1 coolness point for recruiting Eric Sorensen.
  • 1 coolness point for recruiting Eric Peterson.
  • 1 coolness point for recruiting Eric Tilton.
  • 1 coolness point for recruiting Eric Randall.
  • 1 coolness point for routinely using "Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs" in his mail and news headers.
  • 1 coolness point for recruiting Eric Bruce Lindsay.

Eric Tiedemann (WWW)
Erik Fair (WWW)
Erik Troan (WWW)
Erika Biga
Eric Osborne (WWW)
Eric M. Ostrom (WWW)
Eric L. Pederson (WWW)
  • 1 coolness point for maintaining the alt.sysadmin.recovery manpage archive.
  • 1 coolness point for having thought up the "X-Eric-Conspiracy" header.
  • 1 coolness point for routinely using "Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs" in his mail and news headers.
  • 1 coolness point for recruiting Eric Smith.
Eric, the English domestic shorthair cat that owns Steve Fuller ,
Eric Sorensen
Eric Peterson (WWW)
  • 1 coolness point for routinely using "Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs" in his mail and news headers.
  • 1 coolness point for having the cojones to attempt to get a coolness point by bribery (i.e. telling me he bought my book). (No, this won't work for anybody else.)
  • 1 coolness point for designing the Official Sinister ECSL Banner Graphic.