David Blake (born 1971), also known as StankDawg, is the founder of the hacking group Digital DawgPound (DDP) and a long-time member of the hacking community. A regular presenter at multiple hacking conferences, he is best known as the creator of the "Binary Revolution" initiative, including being the founding host and producer of Binary Revolution Radio, a long-running weekly Internet radio show which ran 200 episodes from 2003 to 2007. He also founded a group called Digital DawgPound, whose members regularly published articles in hacking magazines such as 2600: The Hacker Quarterly. He also co-hosted the first episode of Hacker Public Radio, an initiative which is still active as of 2026.
Biography Blake was born in Newport News, Virginia on September 13, 1971. He received an AAS (Associates in Applied Sciences) degree from the University of Kentucky 1992, and a BS in Computer Science from Florida Atlantic University as well as a CEH certificate. As of 2007, he is living and working as a computer programmer/analyst in Orlando, Florida. Blake is a member of the International High IQ society.
Hacking StankDawg is a staff writer for the well-known hacker periodical 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, as well as the now-defunct Blacklisted! 411 magazine. He has also been a contributing writer to several independent zines such as Outbreak, Frequency, and Radical Future. He has been a frequent co-host of Default Radio and was a regular on Radio Freek America. Additionally, he has appeared on GAMERadio, Infonomicon, The MindWar, Phreak Phactor, and HPR (Hacker Public Radio).
He has presented at technology conferences such as DEF CON, H.O.P.E., and Interz0ne. Blake has been very outspoken about many topics, many of which have gotten some negative feedback from different sources. His most controversial article was entitled "Hacking google Adwords" at DefCon13 which drew criticism from such people as Jason Calacanis. among others. His presentation at the fifth H.O.P.E. conference drew some surprise from the AS/400 community.
StankDawg appeared as a subject on the February 2005 television documentary "The Most Extreme" on Animal Planet where he demonstrated the vulnerabilities of wireless internet connections.
Digital DawgPound
The Digital DawgPound (more commonly referred to as the "DDP") is a group of hackers, best known for a series of articles in hacker magazines such as 2600: The Hacker Quarterly and Make; the long-running webcast Binary Revolution Radio, and a very active set of forums with posts from high-profile hackers such as Strom Carlson, decoder, Phiber Optik and many more. The stated mission of the DDP is to propagate a more positive image of hackers than the negative mass media stereotype. The group welcomes new members who want to learn about hacking, and attempts to instill in them the hacker ethic. Their goal is to show that hackers can make positive contributions to technology and society as a whole.
History
The DDP was founded and named by StankDawg. His stated reasons were that he had made many friends in the hacking scene and thought that it would be useful to have everyone begin working together in a more organized fashion. He was motivated by the fact that there had been other well-known Hacker Groups in the 1980s who had accomplished great things in the hacking world, such as the LoD and the MoD. In 1988, while a junior in high school, StankDawg came up with the name on his way to the "Sweet 16" computer programming competition. He jokingly referred to his teammates as "The Digital DawgPound".
StankDawg remained hidden to much of the hacking world for many of his college years under different pseudonyms until 1997, when he became more active on IRC and other smaller hacking forums. There, he met other hackers who he deemed capable and who he felt shared his mindset and attitude towards hacking. He began approaching them in the hopes they'd be interested in forming a group and working together. The team emphasised technical competence, variety, strength of character, and integrity. It featured hackers, programmers, phone phreakers, security professionals, and artists, with experience in multiple programming languages and operating systems. By 1999, The Digital DawgPound had recruited its first official members.
The DDP communicated and worked together on StankDawg's personal site, which was open to anyone who wanted to join in. StankDawg, however, was never comfortable with the fact that it was his name that was on the domain and that many people who were coming to the site were coming because of his articles or presentations but not really appreciating all of the other great contributions from other community members. In 2002, after watching the web site grow quickly, it was decided that a new community needed to be created for these like-minded hackers who were gathering. This was the start of the biggest DDP project called Binary Revolution which was an attempt at starting a true "community" of hackers. As the site grew, so did the DDP roster.
Members Over the years, DDP membership has included several staff writers for 2600: The Hacker Quarterly and Blacklisted! 411 magazine including StankDawg and bland_inquisitor. They frequently publish articles, provide content, and appear on many media sources across the global Interweb. DDP members are also regular speakers at hacking conferences such as DEF CON, H.O.P.E., Interzone, Notacon, and many more smaller and more regional cons.
Some DDP members hold memberships in Mensa and the International High IQ society. StankDawg is very proud of the diversity of the team and has spoken to this multiple times on Binary Revolution Radio. Members are from across the United States, Europe, and South America.
Recognition The DDP maintains a blog (which they refer to as a "blawg", a play on the intentionally misspelled word "Dawg"). Posts by DDP members have been featured on other technology-related sites such as those of Make Magazine, HackADay, Hacked Gadgets, and others.
Some of StankDawg's writing was very influential in the hacker scene. For example, "The Art of Electronic Deduction".
Works by Digital DawgPound members Printed Natas - "Backspoofing 101", Spring 2007, 2600 Magazine Natas - "Ownage by AdSense", Fall 2006, 2600 Magazine Black Ratchet - "Not Quite Dead Yet", Spring 2006, 2600 Magazine dual_parallel - "Port Knocking Simplified", Winter 2005, Blacklisted411 Magazine StankDawg - "The Art of Electronic Deduction", Winter 2005, Blacklisted411 Magazine dual_parallel - "Remote Encrypted Data Access", Fall 2005, Blacklisted411 Magazine StankDawg - "Stupid Webstats Tricks", Fall 2005, 2600 Magazine StankDawg - "Hacking Google AdWords", Summer 2005, 2600 Magazine StankDawg - "Disposable Email Vulnerabilities", Spring 2005, 2600 Magazine StankDawg - "0wning Universal Studios Florida", Fall 2004, Blacklisted411 Magazine StankDawg - "How to Hack The Lottery", Fall 2004, 2600 Magazine StankDawg - "Robots and Spiders", Winter 2003, 2600 Magazine ntheory - "Backspoofing: Let the Telco Do the Walking", July 2004, BR magazine Issue 2.1 ntheory - "Packet8 IP Phone service", July 2004, BR magazine Issue 2.1 dual_parallel - "White Hat Wi-Fi", July 2004, BR magazine Issue 2.1 hacnslash - "An IR receiver for your PC", July 2004, BR magazine Issue 2.1 StankDawg - "Hacking 101: Directory Transversal", July 2004, BR magazine Issue 2.1 ntheory - "Hacking Coinstar", September 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.2 w1nt3rmut3 - "Best buy insecurities: revisited", September 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.2 bland_inquisitor - "Kismet on Knoppix HD install", September 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.2 dual_parallel - "A Physical Security Primer for the Community", September 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.2 logan5 - "case modeling", September 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.2 vooduHAL - "Insecurities in my cafe cup", September 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.2 StankDawg - "Hacking 101: Targeting Theory", September 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.2 bland_inquisitor - "Denial of Service Attacks, Tools of the Tools", May 2003, BR magazine and Fall 2003, 2600 Magazine Issue 1.1 StankDawg - "Hacking 101: Footprinting a system", May 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.1 evo_tech - "Your rights and why you have already lost them", May 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.1 nick84 & StankDawg - "2600 Secrets", May 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.1 nick84 - "Watching the watchers", May 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.1 dual_parallel - "Public TTYs: Description and Methodologies for Free Calling", May 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.1 bland_inquisitor - "Cookies: The good, the bad, and the ugly", May 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.1 StankDawg - "A newbies guide to ghettodriving", May 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.1 w1nt3rmut3 - "Phreaking Italy", May 2003, BR magazine Issue 1.1 w1nt3rmut3 - "Best Buy Insecurities", Spring 2003, 2600 Magazine bland_inquisitor - "Honeypots: Building the Better Hacker", Winter 2002, 2600 Magazine StankDawg - "A History of 31337sp34k", Fall 2002, 2600 Magazine bland_inquisitor - "Telezapper, Telemarketers, and the TCPA", Fall 2002, 2600 Magazine dual_parallel - "Retail Hardware Revisited", Spring 2002, 2600 Magazine StankDawg - "Transaction Based Systems", Spring 2002, 2600 Magazine dual_parallel - "Hacking Retail Hardware", Fall 2001, 2600 Magazine StankDawg - "Batch vs. Interactive", Summer 1999, 2600 Magazine
Online StankDawg - "Wardriving with Mickey", October, 2005 dual_parallel & bland_inquisitor - "Slackware 10.2 Tips", September, 2005 logan5 - "The iPod: It's not just for music anymore", January 2005 bland_inquisitor - "Kodak Picture Maker: In's and Out's", December 2004 StankDawg - "Hackers Insomnia", October 2004, Frequency zine dual_parallel & bland_inquisitor - "Basic Slackware Security", April, 2004 StankDawg - "Scanning GO.MSN.COM", May 2004, Radical Future zine Issue #5 StankDawg - "Fun with the dnL flipit chatbot", December 2003, Outbreak zine issue #14 StankDawg & bi0s - "Inside Circuit City", December 2003, Outbreak zine issue #14 hacnslash - "Dumpster Diving - Art or Science?", September 23, 2003 bland_inquisitor - "Social Insecurity", December 2003, Radical Future zine Issue #4 ntheory - "Generating Millisecond Accurate, Multi-Frequency Wave Files in Perl", July 2003 StankDawg - "DMCA vs googlefight.com", December 2002, Outbreak zine issue #12 StankDawg - "Basic Directory Transversal", November 2002, Outbreak zine issue #11 StankDawg - "Hacking Movies", Winter 2002, Radical Future zine Issue #3 StankDawg - "AIM Transcript (Campaign For Freedom)", Winter 2002, Radical Future zine Issue #3
Presentations StankDawg - "Binary Revolution Radio - Season 4 live!", July 2006, H.O.P.E. Number Six StankDawg - "The Art of Electronic Deduction", March 2006, Interz0ne 5 and July 2006, H.O.P.E. Number Six StankDawg - "Hacking Google AdWords", July 2005, DEF CON 13 Black Ratchet (with Strom Carlson) - "Be Your Own Telephone Company...With Asterisk", July 2005, DEF CON 13 StankDawg - "Hacker Radio", July 2004, The fifth H.O.P.E. (guest panelist) StankDawg - "AS/400: Lifting the veil of obscurity", July 2004, The fifth H.O.P.E. StankDawg - "Disposable Email vulnerabilities", March 2004, Interz0ne 4
Binary Revolution In 2003, StankDawg moved the forums from his personal site over to a new site as part of a project called the Binary Revolution which he considered a "movement" towards a more positive hacking community.