O’Rourke not ‘proud’ of being in hacking group as teenager

Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke on Friday acknowledged that he was part of a hacking group as a teenager, saying he is not “proud” of the fact.

The former Texas congressman told reporters in Iowa while on the campaign trail that the hacking group was something “that I was part of as a teenager, not anything that I’m proud of today,” according to The Texas Tribune.

{mosads}“That’s the long and short of it,” he added.

Reuters reported earlier Friday that O’Rourke joined a “hacktivism” group called Cult of the Dead Cow when he was in high school in the 1980s.

The group reportedly released tools that allowed regular people to hack computers running Microsoft Windows.

O’Rourke told Reuters that he stopped participating in the group before it released the hacking tools. The outlet said it did not find evidence that O’Rourke participated in malicious activity such as breaking into computers. 

Reuters reported that O’Rourke did write essays at the time under a pseudonym. One fictional essay by then 15-year-old O’Rourke was written from the perspective of a person who ran over two children with a car, Reuters said.

O’Rourke launched his presidential campaign on Thursday, joining a crowded field of Democrats vying for the party’s 2020 nomination.