US presidential hopeful Beto ORourke was a member of the Cult of the Dead Cow, a hacking group known for inspiring early "hacktivism", the media reported.
Founded in 1984, the group is known for building exploits and hacks for Microsoft Windows and coming down heavily on Google and other tech giants including Yahoo! and Cisco for their perceived policies of compliance with China's Internet policies.
O'Rourke, former Democratic congressman from the US state of Texas, announced that he will run for president in the 2020 election on Thursday.
"I am running to serve you as the next president," O'Rourke wrote in a tweet on Thursday, adding that the challenges faced by the US "are the greatest in living memory."
In a video embedded in the tweet, the 46-year-old said while his wife sat beside him that he will run a "positive campaign that seeks to bring out the very best from every single one of us, that seeks to unite a very divided country", Xinhua news agency reported.
Having served as a member of the city council of El Paso, a Texas town that borders Mexico, O'Rourke said he will work to ensure that all Americans, irrespective of where they are, "can acknowledge that if immigration is a problem, it's the best possible problem this country can have."
In his announcement video made inside his El Paso home, O'Rourke also pledged to lift up the country's rural areas, "work on real justice reform and confront the hard truth of slavery and segregation and suppression," as well as "squarely confront the challenge of climate change before it's too late."
O'Rourke was narrowly defeated when trying to replace Republican Senator Ted Cruz in the November mid-term elections.
A father of three, O'Rourke was a representative in the House from 2013 to 2019, representing Texas's 16th district.
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