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!

Conspiracy Logo

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. Carrying the logo and a link back to the Conspiracy page on your home page.
  5. Pull off a particularly neat Unix hack.
  6. Recover bits of arcane Eric Conspiracy lore via your pineal gland from the akashic records -- new Solemn Laws, sinister plans for world domination, etc.
  7. 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:

Conspiracy logo

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 older 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 (mail) (WWW)

Eric Tiedemann (mail) (WWW)

Erik Fair (mail) (WWW)

Erik Troan (mail) (WWW)

Erika Biga (mail)

Eric Osborne (mail) (WWW)

Eric M. Ostrom (mail)
Eric L. Pederson (mail) (WWW)

Eric, the English domestic shorthair cat that owns Steve Fuller (mail),

Eric Sorensen (mail)

Eric Peterson (mail)

Eric Tilton (mail) (WWW)

Eric Smith (mail) (WWW)

Eric Benoit (mail) (WWW)

Eric Hochman (mail)

Eric Randall (mail) (WWW)

Eric Hahn (mail)

Eric Backus (mail)

Eric Grabowski (mail) (WWW)

Eric Smith (mail) (WWW)

Duncan Alistair Eirik Sargeant (mail) (WWW)

Eric E. Coe (mail)

Erich Neuwirth (mail) (WWW)

Rik Erik Onckelinx (mail)

Eric Holbrook (mail)

Eric S. Johnson II (mail) (WWW)

Eric Pareja (mail) (WWW)

Eric Buddington (mail) (WWW)

Eric Smith (mail)

Eric Pement (mail) (WWW)

Eric S. Smith (mail) (WWW)

Eric Hegstrom (mail) (WWW)

Eric Andreychek (mail) (WWW)

Alan Eric Hodgkinson (mail)

Eric Gindrup (mail)

Eric Skagerberg (mail) (WWW)

Eric L. Fong (mail) (WWW)

Eric Wolf (mail) (WWW)

Eric Princen (mail) (WWW)

Eric Seven (mail) (WWW)

Eirik Refsdal (mail) (WWW)

Eirik Mikkelsen (mail) (WWW)

Eric Moberg (mail) (WWW)

Eric Brewer (mail) (WWW)

Arak van der Oudermeulen (mail) (WWW)

Eric Blaine Werner (mail) (WWW)

Eric Hopper (mail) (WWW)

Lars Eric Henning Strandin (mail)

Eric Kidd (mail) (WWW) 1 coolness point for writing an open-source XML-RPC library.

Eric Bruce Lindsay (mail) (WWW)

Eric Newhuis (mail)

Eric Lorenz (mail) (WWW)

Eric Redman (mail)

Eric F. Galliher (mail) (WWW)

Kori Mikael Erick Voigt Prins (mail)

Eriq Oliver Neale (mail) (WWW)

Eric Hughes (mail) (WWW)

Stephan Erich Krautsdorfer (mail)

Eric Meyer (mail)

Lars Erik Martin Hylerstedt (mail) (WWW)

Erik Domstad (mail)

Eric Gibson (mail)

Erik Olson (mail) (WWW)

Erik de Castro Lopo (mail) (WWW)

Eric Mericle (mail)

Eric Heidel (mail) (WWW)

Eric Naujock (mail) (WWW)

Eric Allman (mail)

Eric Koskinen (mail) (WWW)

Erik Meltzer (mail) (WWW)

Erich Ziegler (mail) (WWW)

Erik Jaeger Weber (mail) (WWW)

Eric B. Hymowitz (mail) (WWW)

Erik Mouw (mail) (WWW)

Eric Harley (mail) (WWW)

Erik Rossen (mail) (WWW)

Eric Toonen (mail) (WWW)

Eric Busto (mail)

Eric Richard Monson (mail) (WWW)

David Eric Smith (mail) (WWW)

Eric L. Reddish (mail)

Eric Pierce (WWW) (mail)

Eric Norige (mail)

Eric Brager (WWW) (mail)

Eric Zuiderduin (WWW) (mail)

Eric Chaves (mail)

Eric Sharakan (mail)

Eric Nehrlich (mail) (WWW)

Michelle Erica Campbell (mail)

Eric Jacobsen (WWW) (mail)

Eric McGlohon (WWW) (mail)

Eric Kuch (WWW) (mail)

Erik Michaels-Ober (mail) (WWW)

Eric Larson (mail) (WWW)

Eric Eekhof (mail) (WWW)

Thorbjørn Erik Lorentzen (mail)

Eric Gasior (mail) (WWW)

Eric (The Tigger Fox) Franson (mail) (WWW)

Eric Michael Woolhiser (mail) (WWW)

Eric Dubuis (mail)

 _____
/.   .\
|  .  |
| ~~~ |
| \_/ |
\_____/
Erik Sandberg (mail) (WWW)
  • 1 coolness point for recruiting himself.
  • 1 coolness point for being the Conspiration's representative in the International Olympiads in mathematics and informatics (IMO and IOI) in 2000.
  • 1 coolness point for contributing that our name is from Old Norse, and comes from the Icelandic word Eirikr, which means "the always ruling" or perhaps "absolute ruler".


Eric Tomé Blackaller (mail)

Erik Søderstrøm (mail)

Erik Wahlén (mail) (WWW)

Greg Eric Bacon (mail) (WWW)

Erik Wessing (mail) (WWW)

Erich Friesen (mail)

Eric Bischoff (mail) (WWW)

Erik Boge (mail)

Erik Dana (mail)

Daniel Eric Bennett (mail)

Eric Murphy (mail)

Eric Niver (mail) (WWW)

Marcus Erik Andersson (mail) (WWW)

Eric M. Dashofsky (mail) (WWW)

Eric Bear Albrecht (mail) (WWW)

Eric Einhorn (mail) (WWW)

Erik Pfundtner (mail)

Erik Axel Nielsen (mail)

David Eric Vivian Beckford (mail)

Eric Gentzler (mail)

Ralph Eric McGregor (mail)

Eric Lebherz aka Theodoric Thorley (mail) (WWW)

Erik J. Burckart (mail) (WWW)

Eric Weaver (mail) (WWW)

Eric Weaver (mail) (WWW)

Erik Brown (mail) (WWW)

Eric Shalov (mail) (WWW)

Eric Aube (mail)

Björn Erik Abt (mail) (WWW)

Erik Ritter (mail) (WWW)

Eric Bodden (mail)(WWW)