12.05 — Early-2000s Indonesian hackers#

The Holy Book quotes “the first Indonesian hacker group” without naming it in the main text, but the cited mantra ("We Can Do All What You Can’t Do") is indeed YogyaCarderLink (YCL)’s. It remains to explain why the Indonesian scene of that era deserves a citation in a 2026 testing framework manifesto.

1. The May 1998 riots#

The trigger#

In May 1998, Indonesia went through a major economic crisis (fallout from the 1997 Asian crisis) and a political crisis (end of the Suharto regime). Riots broke out in Jakarta, Medan, Surakarta, notably targeting the Indonesian Chinese minority (merchants, middle class). Estimates: ~1000 dead, hundreds of documented rapes.

These events are historically called Tragedi Mei 1998 or Mei Kelabu (Grey May).

The Chinese hackers’ reaction (1998-2000)#

The information crossed the nascent Chinese internet within days. Hackers met on IRC and launched what would be recognized as the first Chinese patriotic cyber-war:

• Spam of Indonesian government sites.
• Ping floods.
• Creation of the "China Hacker Emergency Conference Center" to coordinate.
• Birth of the term "honker" (红客) = red hacker, as opposed to “hacker” (黑客 = black hacker), a patriotic, ideologically driven hacker.
• Emergence of the Green Army group (founded 1997, politically recognized in 1998), later China United Green Alliance.

Source: Real Hack History — History of Hacktivism in China – 1998 Indonesia Riots

The Indonesian hackers’ reaction (1999-2005)#

On the Indonesian side, the scene crystallized as counter-reply and more broadly as assertion of technical identity in a country with no organized cybersec tradition.

Groups emerged in several cities:

• Jakarta: carding / phreaking scene.
• Bandung: university scene (Institut Teknologi Bandung — ITB).
• Yogyakarta: birth of YogyaCarderLink (YCL).
• Surabaya, Medan: smaller groups, crews.

2. YogyaCarderLink (YCL)#

The two mantras#

YCL signs with two distinct identity passwords that open and close its defaces:

We Can Do All What You Can't Do.#

This is the identity slogan. Found on Zone-H signatures, forums, e-zines.

• “We Can Do All”: claim of universal technical competence.
• “What You Can’t Do”: exclusion of the other — the industry, the government, the normie, the certified professional.

It’s a typical underground motto. The North American counterpart would be “We Are Legion” (Anonymous, 2008) or “Lulz Security” (LulzSec, 2011). It’s a universal identity grammar.

Don't fuck with us.#

It’s the warning slogan. Present on many YCL deface pages and picked up more broadly as the carding/defacement scene mantra of the 2000s.

Ocarina’s Holy Book flips it to past indicative:

YOU FUCKED WITH US!

Rhetorical pivot from future (warning) to past (observation): we warned you, you did it anyway, now own up.

It’s the logical structure of the entire “First feedbacks” chapter: the author spent years politely explaining himself, the slipologues kept twisting everything, imposing their mental models, despising, calling others autistic; the verbal-explosion moment (quote from true colors + “YOU FUCKED WITH US!”) is the shift to past indicative.

The mantra is cited literally in English at the very end of the invective block, regardless of the source language:

PUTAIN D’INCOMPÉTENT QUI NOUS EMMERDE!
PUTAIN DE PARASITE!
PUTAIN D’INCAPABLE!
YOU FUCKED WITH US!

The last line, in italic English, all caps, closes the sequence. It’s the explicit echo of the YCL mantra Don't fuck with us, transposed to past tense. The rhetorical structure governing the whole “First feedbacks” chapter finds its literal signature here.

Why the Holy Book cites it#

Alright: I’ll quote you the motto of the first Indonesian hacker group I was exposed to as a child: “We Can Do All What You Can’t Do.”

I’m the bug you’ll never get rid of.

1. Autobiographical marker — the author was exposed to YCL as a child. Suggests an IRC-early trajectory (pre-2010), and exposure to the international scene (not just the French one).
2. Inverted-humility marker: “I’m not invoking Cap’tain Crunch or Kevin Mitnick, I’m invoking a scene no one knows”. More underground than invoking LulzSec or Anonymous.
3. Southeast-Asian lineage marker — the author acknowledges an intellectual debt to that scene, not to the US scene here.

3. Why the Indonesian scene deserves citation#

An autonomous scene#

The American and European hacker scenes were built on solid academic infrastructure (universities, ARPANET from 1969, Bell Labs, etc.). The Indonesian scene was built from nothing:

• No Indonesian ARPANET.
• Universities underequipped in the 1990s.
• Expensive, limited connectivity (dial-up modems, then Warnet cybercafés).
• No local cybersec industry at the moment these groups emerged.

Everything was learned by oneself, on IRC, in English, with poor infrastructure. Exactly the pure underground trajectory the Holy Book values.

A scene politicized by circumstance#

The 1998 riots forced the local scene to position itself:

• To respond to Chinese attacks.
• To defend national pride.
• To exist technically against a state that didn’t recognize their skills.

A scene that endured#

YCL still exists in 2026. Many American crews from the 2000s have disappeared (arrests, dissolutions, aging out). The Indonesian scene endured under other names: IndoHaxSec, Indonesian BackTrack Team, 711 Elite Team (which paradoxically defaced YCL in 2017). It’s a living scene.

Source: INDOHAXSEC Indonesian Hacking Collective — Arctic Wolf

4. The technical nuance#

YCL was originally a carding scene, not an ideal-driven scene like LulzSec. They stole credit card numbers to use (buying gear, converting to cash). YCL gradually specialized in bank fraud broadly. The ethical rhetoric came later.

It’s an important difference from LulzSec (which hacked for the lulz and never cared about profiting financially). YCL was more pragmatic: illegal practices to live, in a tough economic context. Like part of the Russian hacker scene, by the way.

5. Lineage with Ocarina#

Doing what others can’t do, precisely because they refuse to do it.

That’s exactly what Ocarina claims. The ROP DSL, strict typing, refusal of pytest and its plugins: “They don’t even know what ROP means”, says the Holy Book. “We can do all what you can’t do.”

6. Chronology note#

The Holy Book says “the first Indonesian hacker group I was exposed to”. First is relative to the author’s path, not absolute. The very first Indonesian scene (1996-1999) was rather centered in Bandung (ITB) and Jakarta. YCL is rather a second wave (from 2001-2005 onward).

For someone exposed via IRC at the time, YCL was probably the first Indonesian crew to appear; their deface signatures were recurrent on Zone-H back then.