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Attrition.org Defacement Mirror Frozen In Time

Posted by timothy on from the cnn-drops-coverage-of-mooning- dept.

webword writes: "Attrition.org has decided to stop updating their defacement mirror. Their decision is based on problems associated with the rapid increase in web defacement activity. They don't have the time, energy, or money to keep it updated. Fortunately, the image gallery, music reviews, movie reviews, poetry, and contests, will receive more attention." Those things are certainly more interesting to me than who's scribbling where, and it was becoming no fun for the attrition.org folks to keep up with them.

8 of 52 comments (clear)

  1. why not open to volunteers? by ragnar · · Score: 3

    It seems to me that a better solution would be to call upon volunteers to maintain and edit this section of the site. Heck, I didn't even know attrition.org did other stuff. They have a significant namesake in archiving the underbelly of the web and I'm sure there are plenty of people who would contribute to the archive if they develop a decent interface for it. We have very little history on the Internet.

    --
    -- Solaris Central - http://w
  2. Another site mirroring defaced sites by bleh-of-the-huns · · Score: 3

    For those who are really interested in who is defacing what, and which companies where defaced and teh defacement of said site, http://defaced.alldas.de is also mirroring defacements.

    --
    I came, I conquered, I coredumped
  3. Of course... by Levine · · Score: 4

    You could look at this another way; now, all of the bored teenagers on IRC have no way to prove that they cracked momandpop.net, nor is their most revered accomplishment set in the annuls of history, so page-defacings decline.

    I mean, it is nothing more than a big "Lookie what I did" ego-trip. I know - I've seen the people that do it.

    Cheers,
    levine

  4. No! Th1z 15 L4m3! by supabeast! · · Score: 4

    Th3Y c4nn0tz do th1z! Wh3r3 w1ll my m1rC budd13z g0 t0 s33 @ll 0f my 31337 h4x0rz!

    L1nUx 43v4h! FUX0R US G0V3Rm3NTZ!!!

    /sarcasm off

    good.

  5. Re:God, who can blame them... by Alien54 · · Score: 3
    Well part of this is the sheer growth of the web, even if one percent of one percent of all sites were whacked, this would certainly increase to an alarming degree with the expansion of the web.

    The other aspect to this is that the scripty kiddies out there take it as a badge of honor to get a defaced site listed in a mirror. To a certain degree, while we want to document the carnage, maintaining a mirror becomes a reward system for the script kiddies. It acts like fertilizer, which is not exactly what we want in the first place. So it might be a good thing to stop rewarding the skript kiddies with the public acknowledgement of their vandalism.

    Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
  6. Sudden drop in defacements? by Calle+Ballz · · Score: 3

    If alldas doesn't become as popular as attrition, please watch for a sudden drop in defacements. The driving force for 99.9% of all defacements is for people to get attention. Most of the websites hit actually get the more traffic than they've ever got once they get posted on attrition. Who honestly cares about www.randomschoolinsomebackyardstate.k12.xx.us?? It's just a forum for underachievers to get attention. I think that with attrition leaving the scene, this entire web defacement trend just might calm down a bit.

  7. God, who can blame them... by Shoten · · Score: 5
    I certainly don't blame them in the least...I wondered how much longer they'd keep the mirror up. One entertaining perousal through Attrition's "Going Postal" section shows you a combination of impatient hackers showering profanity at Munge, Jericho, and the rest of the crew for not being fast enough at mirroring sites (as if that was their purpose in life), right alongside threats of legal action by clueless victims of defacements. And the whole while, to keep the moral high ground, Attrition would turn down security work by anyone mirrored, no matter how much money was offered or how strong the plea for help.

    I've seen a lot of discussion in the past year on the point of the Attrition mirror, including a session by Attrition themselves at DefCon last year, and this was clearly a long time coming. I'm sorry to see it end, but also in a sense happy for the fact that the guys who had to maintain the mirror will see some peace return to their lives.

    --

    For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
  8. Why didn't they set something up automagically... by jahjeremy · · Score: 4

    ...because they are sick of dealing with the type of people who deface webpages and write to them saying 'Oh, please teach me how to be elite haxor' or 'Dude, ya gotta help me break into my girlfriend's hotmail account' or (personal favorite) 'Help me hack my on-line homework because my teacher (?) is too lazy to grade papers.'

    I think after several years of fun and sarcastic replies, they've finally grown tired of the attention and want to stop attracting the riff-raff. Dropping the full mirror seems like it should help. Their site has tons of content and a huge text file archive that has been neglected lately. Probably they want to get back to adding meat to their already excellent site. Besides, with only 3 guys handling the mirroring, the rash of recent (and not-so-inspired) defacements forced them to spend hours mirroring all the crap.

    Also, they confirm each hack individually. How could one "automate" this without risking said kiddies trying to break or exploit the automated system. You're not exactly dealing with the most honest or moral segment of the computing community.

    Can you imagine receiving 10 or more e-mails a day similar to: 'Hey, where's my defacement? I put it up 10 minutes ago! God, you guys are slow. What are you doing, humping your sister?'

    Basically, they were performing a service for which they got nothing back except abuse from kiddies and sys admins. So they just said, "Fuck it." Frankly, I don't blame them at all and look forward to more great stuff popping up on their site.