"A secret society of hackers, serving our own brand of justice"―DedSecDedSec is a secret hacking collective featured in the game Watch Dogs. Among their numbers is the son of Connor Malley (as indicated in the mission "No Turning Back"), and tattoo artist Clara Lille, who directly assists Aiden Pearce.
Description
DedSec is the most famous hacking collective that operates in Watch Dogs' rendition of Chicago. They are not affiliated with Aiden Pearce, though he does have dealings with some of its members. The group itself is opposed to the implementation and use of the ctOS and has the objective of proving that the system is flawed and unnecessary. The group's members hack into various ctOS systems for destructive purposes in order to highlight its weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
One way in which DedSec have voiced their opinion and made their presence known to the public was through their seizure of the ctOS' official website (http://www.chicago-ctos.com/). The website was seized and then subsequently transformed into an ambiguous advertisement page. The page was turned entirely black and covered with a DedSec logo, formed from ASCII characters. Similarly, tagging and graffiti has been sprayed onto a number of ctOS advertisement media and other Chicago signposts.
Audio logs left by one of their members, G1gg1L3s, reveals that DedSec's leaders are referred to as the "Council of Daves", or just "the Daves", because they all include the name Dave in their usernames in online communications.
Events of Watch Dogs
DedSec can trace their origins back to Umeni which at one point sent many of their engineers to prison, subsequently, after being released many of them went on to form the group and fight against corporate injustice and corruption.
At some point in the game, they contact Aiden Pearce to target many corrupt Umeni executives to have their revenge and later on contact him again to infiltrate Danny SoSueMe's mansion to recover data stolen from them. They also tip him on a shipment containing a Biometric Assault Rifle and to give him the whereabouts of two high ranking Chicago South Club members for him to dispose of on behalf of the group.
Following Clara Lille's death, DedSec declares her a martyr and promises a reckoning.
Near the end of the game, they contact Aiden again before he is about to take control of the CtOS satellite to ask for 30 seconds to search through the system and collect all data necessary that could help them in their quest for justice. However, Aiden refused to do so and Dedsec warned that they will not forget this.
It is revealed on one of their broadcasts during the credits that they are tired of people ignoring their warnings, stating their reputation has been damaged and that they had been attacked by other hackers such as Defalt, declaring a digital war upon Blume and the citizens of Chicago.
Bad Blood
During the "Council of Daves" investigations, it is revealed that one of DedSec's leaders had grown tired of the other Daves wanting more to "stroke their own egos through social media than bring about real change" and wished to militarize DedSec. The rogue Dave lured Dave04 and DaveZB over to the Ambrose Theatre, Defalt's old haunt, and murdered them, then coded a video of Defalt's meeting with the Daves into a QR square on the Pawnee Dam, as a message to the other Daves, to implicate Defalt. He then arranged a meeting with Daveftp, Dave Capisano and Dave_of_Spades at a construction site in Pawnee, then sent Fixers in to ambush them. However Raymond "T-Bone" Kenney learned of his treachery in time and arrived to protect the Daves from the waves of fixers sent to kill them. The Daves pledged their gratitude to Kenney, who declared that they now owed him a favor. It is unknown what became of the treacherous Dave.
Trivia
Part of the seized Chicago ctOS site bears the words "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who will watch the watchmen?), clearly outlining that they question who controls the ctOS.
They look up to Raymond Kenney as a hero and are interested in finding the Bunker as made evident when Clara says the facility could be of use to the hacktivist collective.
Defalt wanted to be a member of DedSec's council but was rejected because they wished to remain anonymous, it may be this event that cemented Defalt's hate towards DedSec and made him a black hat hacker. He then created his own hacks such as changing the profiling system.
DedSec likely means "dead security", referring to ctOS.
DEDSEC is a permutation of the It term SECDED (single-error correcting and double-error detecting), which is an error detecting and correcting protocol used in a computer systems memory.
Cultural references
The hacking collective can be likened to Anonymous and less so LulzSec in the way that they operate.
