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Packet Storm Security site closed down
krp writes "The well known and regarded security softare and information site Packet Storm Security has been closed down by Harvard, who hosted the site, becuase of claims from John Vranesevich, of www.AntiOnline.com, about libellous material. The site will not re-open and backups will be destoryed. Ken Williams explains here and here - this guy put a lot of work into that site. "
Of course all backups skould be de-story-ed. As a matter of fact, I think I'll go de-story my backups right now. Thanks for the tip, Rob. :)
If it was good enuf to get shut down, who has backups of a banned site.
Sounds like a hot dog got slapped.
Having a past connection to 2600.com isn't worth much in the real world, it seems.
Did this individual have permission to have his classwork files on the server? Why weren't they on his own hardware?
The whole story sounds to me like a black hat hacker got his due.
Can I get a quick description of the site was about before it's demise?
What did packet storm serve? I can't really check the site out because, of course, it gone now.
-B
I'm really curious as to the "claims" being made which resulted in this action. A summary would be useful. After all it seems as if Harvard wouldn't have done this unless they were really concerned. If the claims are bogus (whatever they are) I'd like to see specific contradictory information.
Sounds like this JP guy needs a bullet right between his eyes and I think I will send him an email later telling him so.
On a side note, I will make sure my kids will NOT go to Harvard, (if I ever have kids) and I will do as much as possible legally to make JP and antionline's life a living hell.
Jason Salopek
i8086/Fishhead
jason.salopek@usa.net
it seems as though someone is either DOS'ing
antionline itself, or they got turned off by an upstream provider.
I'm hopeing their provider shut them down.. it'd be rather poetic justice.
I was searching for archives of the alleged libel made against AntiOnline when I found this:
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:8511647&dq=ca che:members.theglobe.com/catpitt/
Kinda funny that AntiOnline had the plug pulled at a Pittsburgh university under largely the same method as Packet Storm Security.
I suspect that Ken Williams is glossing over the real reasons his site was promptly deleted. Something about his "he ruined my life" sob story makes me think the guy's a loon. Keeping all of his coursework on an Internet machine without backups doesn't speak well of his security knowledge.
if you want to hear the truth about antionline, go to attrition or you can kill JP online at anti0nline (click on kill jp) .. personally I hope that real security sites like securityfocus.com kill antionline for good
thats my 2 cents
-robohaqr
if you want to hear the truth about antionline, go to attrition or you can kill JP online at anti0nline (click on kill jp) .. personally I hope that real security sites like securityfocus.com kill antionline for good
thats my 2 cents
-robohaqr
I agree totally. I'm seriously thinking about co-locating a box offshore, somewhere, in the next couple of years, and paying to stick it on someone's network, and mirroring things that I find useful. I'm sick and tired of this kind of crap happening.
alex
This is just such a shame.
JP is being a humorless big baby but was well within his rights to contact Harvard. But JP is supposed to be the big man now, so why doesn't he have lawyers that can draw up cease and decist orders. I don't know of any organization that would pull info off of their site simply due to a letter from a layman.
One would figure that the Harvard folks might be pretty smart (not due to their own intelligence, but simply being near the ora of MIT), but it appears they are nothing more that a pack of lilly-livered morons.
I wodner what will ahppen cuase we know harvard and LP are goign to get /.ed for this and hopefully it will attract more attention.
bbl emailing CNN
Like you've never fucked up before, right, God?
also www.opensec.net is gone too.
Amusing how he puts this quote in, after claiming he was threatened and harassed, after claiming he didn't even know about the pages until that day. Can one be harassed in absentia? If I write "John Vranesevich blows goats" is he gonna shut down /.?
http://www.attrition.org/negation/www/ao.030.html
Seems JP's sight has run afoul of copyrights in the past.
If the server "simply crashed," he would restore the data from the backup tapes, which did exist!
You accuse Mr. Williams of incompetence for not making backups. You're wrong---there were backups, but they have been confiscated by Harvard's administration. Williams' only mistake, apparently, was not sleeping with the tapes under his pillow.
To pursue legal action in the US has little to do with what is right and wrong. Even if you are 100% right, dead to rights, you still have to pay very much money and waste weeks/months/years of your life.
The US legal system is broken, the only answer is to do everything possible to avoid it.
This is why Harvard ran like a scared cat. Right? Wrong? Doesn't matter, just stay out of the legal system. The site maintainer should have kept their own backups.
"As for some of the comments about mirrors, Ken didn't allow them, so no one had them." Not a very wise decision. but "The site was getting over 400,000 hits/day and doing about 10 GB/day in transfers" I bet all the data that's now gone is distributed in servers and clients everywere. Can it be recovered? possibly.
1)Establish a central repository.
2)Have evryone who's ever had contact with his site check their chaches.
3)Check any other chaches out there[ servers cache too].
4)Check any archives out their[despite his mirror prohibition].
5)Send what's found to the repository.
Basically we're reconstructing his site. With the hit rate he was getting and the transfer rate, we should get a good portion of it.
Hi,
I just copied the body from your letter and sent it in my own name too. Hope you don't mind.
What about OTHERS? C'mon ppl!!!!
As a former student and a current employee of Harvard, I think this would be a good place to note that Harvard has a stated policy of requiring that all users of their computers, software, and and facilities are under obligation to turn over the rights to certain work to "The President and Fellows of Harvard College." Thus, Harvard owns the copyrights to such materials.
This could very well be Harvard's justification for deleting the stuff wholesale. You can read the particulars at this link.
It's interesting to me that Harvard did not choose to delete only the "libellous material". I understand this might not be trivial, but...
When Amazon.com is accused of selling books that are libellous, the entire site is not shut down, access to the specific book is disabled.
I hope this is not the education that Harvard is giving to its surgical students: there's the tumor, now you have to destroy the whole body.
I plan to be homophobic the rest of my life and there is not much you can do about it.
This sort of thing just makes the work being done
on freenet/fishnet/eternity etc all the more necessary.
Since it was on a Harvard server, Harvard probably made backups on a regular basis. In his e-mail he mentions that "that ALL of the content AND the backups made are either destroyed, being destroyed now, or will be before I can do anything to prevent it."
Doesn't Alexa archive the net, like every couple months?
They had this browser plug in thing that let you access an archive of a page if it was no longer available..
chris
This is not the first time Harvard has shown themselves to follow a policy, not of "innocent until proven guilty," but "guilty from the very first time anyone whispers a rumor that there might be guilt."
This is why I would not work or study at Harvard even if they paid me: all you need to do to destroy anyone there is to bring the most unfounded, baseless charge you can imagine, and Harvard will immediately throw their own weight behind your accuser's crusade.
This tactic is very commonly used by the Scientology people. Find some bulls*** reason to file a lawsuit against a critic and then do it in spades.
.ok, that's their choice to make. On the other hand, it's pretty chickens*** for them to destroy all the site's content.
:-).
It seems this guy has taken the same tack with regards to a competitor. Personally, I think if Harvard didn't want to host the site. .
Wow, it appears I've criticized two very litigious organizations in one post. Hope Rob doesn't keep logs of AC posting addresses
Well, I am a lawyer -- but not in MA. I did do a little poking into the issue of destruction of potenttial evidence in a civil case. A National Law Journal article cites a case in which Texeco executives were subect to criminal prosecution for so-called "spoliation." (I love jargon ;) But this was an extrme case.
Remember that this isn't even a case yet, much less a criminal prosecution in which full obstruction of justice charges might apply (unlike the Marine Aviator's videotape in the Italian gondola crash).
Preservation of evidence is a murky issue. The NLG article finds that, in general, "a duty to preserve arises once a party 'is on notice that documents and information in its possession are relevant to litigation, or potential litigation, or are reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.'" (Citing Wm. T. Thompson Co. v. General Nutrition Corp., 593 F. Supp. 1443, 1455 (C.D. Cal. 1984)).
The usual advice for an organization with lots of electronic records is to have a "retention" (destruction) *policy*, and then stick with it. You can't generally fire up the shredder in Ollie North style once the doodoo is on a trajectory towards the fan. (It's like the goaltending rule:)
Read the article--it's interesting.
Actually, the NEC Research Institute in Princeton, already has such a distributed memory system in development, with I believe a working prototype (goto www.intermemory.org). It has two great features:
1) It functions without any central authority.
2) Because of the way the files are encoded and dispersed (using the properties of polynomials), you can set the degree of dispersion so that ANY arbitrary percentage of the nodes in the system can go down, without any loss of data.
its not open source though
I totally agree. How can Harvard let themselves be pushed around by a nobody hacker advocate? Harvard has virtually unlimited access to the most competent legal minds in the country. ("Want us to put in a good word for your law firm to the '00 grads? Do us this favor...") Threatening legal action against Harvard is like carjacking the local mob boss, or at least strikes me that way. There has to be some other weighty info we haven't heard about here.
OR mabye it's a result of moral and religious beliefs.
......
Where do most of the child molestors come from ?
hmm
----------------------
Typical attempt at a comeback with your "your hatred is really just repressed desires" crap, nothing new and nothing sucessful.
*YAWN*
Jason Salopek
i8086/Fishhead
jason.salopek@usa.net
what do you mean?
Backups aren't backups unless at least one copy is offsite somewhere.
JP want's to play with fire, so he shall receive
(just figured out where I'm not going to collage!)
Did you just find that out? Harvard had accepted your application for admission?
He had his schoolwork for another institution on a Harvard server? And he's not a student, faculty, or staff member of Harvard?
Why wasn't it deleted two weeks ago? If you press Harvard administration on the matter, they'll be asking their staff that question, not apologizing to outsiders.
Since he can demonstrate actual damages. It was
suprising that harvard let him on in the first place.
How can you think that people can check out anything when one side has apparently managed to get all the evidence destroyed.
I'm not going to trust anything out of their mouths if they're the only ones talking. Fine, say he's bad, now show me the archives to PROVE IT or you prove nothign, other than you want to be another microsoft.
as far as the concern of nodes going down, as long as your gateway servers are writing parity data along with the actual data (similar to a raid setup), then downed nodes could be reconstructed on the fly.
alex
I just couln't belive when i saw it...The packet Storm was THE SITE devoted to real security, geeks (good word, good word). From the Guru, to the just begging -it was the site. When i first say it, sadly just a few months ago. I it was unbealible. All you need it was there No Doubt! always amazed. Then i hear the biggest sell-out, once-was-something-now-its-down-to-hell, site calling for the closing, hence ruining the life of someone who gave a lot to the community asking FOR NOTHING IN RETURN, and was taken down. By people to blind to see beyond the money they make in they're elite site-as long as i get the bucks. /!)simply give the word hacker (that we all have fought to bee seen as good thing) a bad name. Shame on those whose deeds harmed a good man. Too bad you are to deep in your filth to raise your head high, and thus u have to take others down.
(IM NOT TALKING ABOURT
Let them fly... we will not fall!
(i ussually post as core pump... forgot my pw right now)
I was just recently begining to mirror Packetstorm, and to get an idea of how much stuff there was and where to start first I mirrored all of the html and shtml files on the site. I also have everything under the cryptography directory mirrored from when it was still on genocide2600. Anyway now that the site is down I regret not having started earlier. But since I have an listing of all the files that were there in the html, it should be possible to reconstruct most of the archive from other sources. I can put what I have up online somewhere if there's any intrest (I'd think so) it's about 54 megs for just the .?html stuff.
hey,
if apparently all it took was a letter from JP treatening some sort of legal action to get harvard to take this action. Why do we not do the same back. All that is necessary is that one of sysadmins at a major corporation that used ken's site extensively send a letter to Harvard stating that Harvard is preventing you from doing your job correctly, and threaten legal action. Harvard will sh*t its pants again and will bow to any demands that are made.
These guys (antionline|attrition|hnn|2600|packetstorm) are script kiddies all around. Ever notice how HNN posts so many links to news about software piracy? Is warez "hacking" now? Exploits are grabbed verbatium from Bugtraq or other lists. Any exploit they create is certianly based upon Aleph1's shell code. The only thing these guys specialize in is saying shit about other people behind their back just to make themselves look better.
For some real "hacking" news, check Innterpulse.
antionline is not down.....I can goto the site. It is under tremendous load, but not all together down.
But the PacketStorm people are the ones who said the evicdence was destroyed... Script kiddies fighting script kiddies... I love it.
Due to the types of threats that I have been receiving, and that sites like PacketStorm have been propagating, local law enforcement agencies were put on alert, and began doing extensive extra patrolling of the residence of my family members, my own residence, and the AntiOnline Offices. I realize that the actions that I have taken against PacketStorm may greatly increase the immediate threat against my family, myself, and my company; and that the harassment will now only get worse. However, I will not allow my family, myself, nor my company to become a victim. I am standing my ground, and will continue AntiOnline's mission of putting an end to malicious hackers.
excuse me? a threat to you and your immediate family? a threat from who if i may ask? the only people who seem to care about you are 16-year old script kiddies.
stop being a baby, John.
(I'm the same AC who has the incomplete mirror)
I've been working on a series of programs that will store and transmit files in a distributed way, such that no one can prove that anyone has the file, or that the file even exists. There are three ideas I have for this, and have some prototype code working.
0. An index format that will tell you everythingyou need to know about the file, without having the file actuily present. Basicaly it's a filename, size, MD5 hash, tuple (and some other fields) when I clean up my indexing program I'm thinking of writing an RFC on it so that anyone can use it. I can give some more details if anyone's intrested. (I'm going to release this program into the public domain, not GPL)
1. A distributed file archive that uses a secret shareing scheem to split a file into M peices, of which some threshold of N peices needs to be brought back together (N=M) in order to reconstruct the file. Then get a bunch of people to donate disk space to holding single peices. When someone needs to get their file back they contact N of the places the shares are stored. As long as the number of sites which go down is less than (M-N) you cna still recover the file, and if someone who runs one of these sites gets haulled into court, they can claim innocence because they really don't have the file. I still need to write the networking stuff to automatie this, but if you don't mind spliting the files by hand and then moving them around yourself (...)
2. A networking protocol baised on the Dinning Cryptographers problem, with measures added to the protocol to prevent hostile people form disrupting the net. Breifly, the DC problem is a way of broadcasting a bit (or in my implementation a large block of bits for efficency) to a group of people, without anyone in the group or any outsides knowing who is transmiting. The only drawback is that it uses up huge amounts of bandwith because everyone must transmit the same amount of stuff all the time. Anyway this can be used for everything from an anonymous chat system where no one can tell where anyone is comming from, and who they're talking to; to a file request/broadcast system where someone can ask for a file knowing only a (size, MD5) tuple and anyone with the file can send it out, neither party knowing anything about each other.
3. An archive file format (yes another one) which is self steganographic (for lack of a better term) Basicly to store a file in it you must also supply a password, the password doesn't have to be kept secret or anything. But the file is stored in the archive in such a way that you can't tell if there is even a file present or not. So if the stromtroopers try to get you to reveal what's in one of these archive files, you can give them the password for the innocuous files in the archive, and not tell them the passwords to the sensitve stuff. There should be no way to prove that the sensitve stuff even exists at all and that the innocuous stuff was all there is. The only problem I'm having with this one is that you end up with huge archives filled with mostly white noise.
Anyway, those are my basic ideas so far.. Every day another site gets shut down shows me that I really need to get this stuff finished and put out there (I'm writing versions in C and Java, and I'm going to release full source with them) would anyone be intrested in using this stuff when (if) I actuily finish?
It is exactly this kind of crap that must be stopped. People who pull this kind of shit are defective. In fact, in my world they would be removed from society. Shut down themselves. I am sure that whoever these assholes are (I won't even BOTHER WITH their names, it simply ISN't worth my time) have made slanderous/libelous statements in their lives. Isn't it only fair that we shut them down too? And what about that jackasses website? Bah. I will not stop emailing people until Harvard ceases this and puts that site back up. And I will mail the bastards responsible until that time as well. I urge everyone else who liked the site to do the same.
Excuse me, I've known Ken for years and hosted his site on MY computer for the first year of it's existance.
/jp directories content (which was hosted on our site also). Why? I'm not sure, but most likely due to him knowing that we'd tell him to get lost. For that matter, our upstream provider has never once mentioned to us that they were receiving complaints.
The Genocide2600 Group never ONCE received a complaint from JP regarding the
We never once wanted to see PSS leave our system, but it became a matter of finances and this deal worked out for the best for all parties (well, so it seemed on the cover).
Anyways, just my 2 cents worth to the discussion.
--Dox
--Genocide2600.com Security Admin
--doxavg@Genocide2600.com
It's worse that that actually...
I know a former worker for AO.. he stated that that JP and AO wants nothing more
than money...
As I said before in my other post, besides the fact that people who have worked at AO say he's an "idiot". He seems to also be a lying, sneaky "idiot".
Using Social Engineering to make the people at Harvard think he's the one being hurt..HA. He's known that site has been there since the start
but he just didn't get to think of a plan to shut it down until now.
There's a good reason why sysadmins are like this. Everyone treats them like shit, so they treat everyone else like shit. In order to justify their worth to themselves, they must degrade the worth of others.
It's the same reason why poor southerners tend to be more racist than others. Essentally, sysadmins are skilled lackeys, and most of them at least subconsciously realize this. Thus, they try to create an inflated picture of themselves by thinking of all the power that they wield in an organization.
It's exactly the same mentality as the janitor who thinks he is very powerful because he has a big keyring, or the robber who thinks he has lots of power because he can hold people up at gunpoint. Ultimately, all of these people wield very little power because while they have a good deal of immediate physical power, the social institutions which grant them that power can take it away just as easily.
Huh?
If someone freaked out and did something so stupid why are we not to blame them? Also I could see pulling the site while they figure out what to do, but destroying all the back ups is unforgivable.
say what... heheh i know what you need to do!
This all seems like a good idea at first, but what if people start putting undesirable infomation on the system. How could it be removed? I don't mean things like unpopular political views and whatnot, but things like kiddy porn, or hate speech. Once these things were in the system, they couldn't be removed. A solution to this would be to let someone control the file system and its contents, but doesn't that put us back where we already are?
It could also be because they like what they do. I know I do. And the most common thing that I have always heard (cue big eyes and a clear fight or flight reaction) is "holy shit" and then they want to get a ruler "just to see";)
:) (I could be saying yes, I could be saying no, I could be saying no while trying to say yes to sooth my wounded spirit ...)
.44 Magnums (not as clear, as I have a lot of guns, but I don;t really only have BIG, SCARY guns, although a .300 Weatherby might be a bit off-putting to some people), the ones who act like (little) dicks with no provocation, the ones incapable of kindness, and so on, well, that might be some of the problem there.
...
... but how could I not be proud of it, it is so imposing, women run screaming (well, they need to be talked into it) ... damn, there I go again.
...
Of course, it sounds like you could be right on the money, too
Yes, I have suspected the same thing for a long time. The sysadmins on a permanent power trip, getting RX-7s or 944s and trying to add turbos and so on, the ones with several
I have to confess that I have noticed that I have never wanted a big, powerful, road-eating car with flames on the side and a thunder-chicken decal on the hood. In fact, I want one of those snazzy new VW tdi Golfs (ooooooh -- 94 bhp!) for the wonderful mileage. I have always loved UNIX because of its grace and small size, and I feel sad that the encryption needs these days will probably render a lot of 386s unusable for most purposes (i.e., a single box) because of the waste of a good 386. I have always liked small things, perhaps because I haven't lived with any small things close at hand. Ahem.
I think that the issue might be that for many people UNIX was an escape from isolation in childhood and UNIX doesn't really give you interpersonal skills. I am not saying that it can't (there is a lot of good writing out there and a lot of good, clear, provocative thinking), I think that it generally doesn't. IRC is similar. In short, there is little in the wired world to draw an abused and endlessly bitter person out of his or her own personal hell. And this goes for the working wired world.
I am currently working with a person who would rather kill himself than admit that he doesn't know something. It is a real pain. He is so unpleasant that a number of sysadmins under him have left in the last 18 months. LDS (Little Dick Syndrome)? I don't know. But you wonder. I have seen him be so unpleasant to women that they cry. Makes me wonder if being so caustic is the only way that he will ever get one of those female critters he has only seen unwrapped in pictures to scream
I have always found that kindness, not to be confused with giving too much, and being helpful and teaching, not to be confused with being a bore and doing peoples' work for them, tends to be the mark of a generous person. Generous people, more often than not, are relatively happy. Mean people are generally unhappy. Guys who are hung like hampsters are generally pretty bitter.
Also, I have noticed (to my satisfaction, as it have made the odds better), that as unmarried women get older and pickier about certain things (preferenced de amor) and less about others (whether or not the guy looks like one of Menudo), they seem to take a second look at technical guys, especially if word gets around (and with women, it normally does, in, oh, 30, maybe 45 seconds)(assuming less than 500 women, of course -- it can take up to a minute with several thousand)(that is a joke -- I do not have routing data) that nerdy sendmail guru/scraggly perl monkey/quiet and shy engineer/300lb network guy is "big" (accompanied by rolled eyes and significant gestures to prove the point and collective intakes of breath). I have seen the effects in the nerds. Lady is smiling and happy. Nerd suddenly becomes outgoing, happy, confident, and much less productive. This happens by 30, or earlier. Later, and you have a hard case (beaten regularly by the popular kids, molested my NT Admins, or something) or, well, someone who would have to get by on personality (cause the trouser trout ain't carrying the argument), except, oops, he doesn't have any.
I dunno. But you did touch on my favorite topic, and one that concerns us all, since the world we live in after all revolves around it (mine, not yours, and I would bet money that mine is bigger). There I go again
Oh well. Off to check the E4ks, and then I can play with that dual 486 that was about to be trashed. I think that I can scavenge some memory somewhere around here and some old Micropoli
That looks like me when I started on unix. I had SEEN people using it, but I didn't know how. I knew a lot of command names, but now how to use them. So I just started reading docs and randomly trying things until I learned. The only difference being that I wasn't doing DoS attacks!
I think , or more so I noticed that you have misquoted Ken Williams in your article. You state and I copied and pasted this in my e-mail:
"Funny how I spent the past few years donating my time, literally thousands of hours, to "the security community", never making even a penny off the time and work I invested, and have now lost it all because some asshole named John Vranesevich is able to make a quick phone call, fabricate absurd stories about criminal activity and bullshit I never did, and effectively ruin years of work, my education, my career, my life. "
Now I read his e-mail in HackerNews.com, his e-mail states :
"Funny how I spent the past few years donating my time,literally thousands and thousands of hours, to "the security community", never asking for or making a single penny off the time and work I invested, and have now lost it all because John Vranesevich and a few of his IRCfriends are able to make quick phone calls,fabricate absurd stories about criminal activity, libel, threaten to sue Harvard, and I don't even get to plead my case. I am guilty without even being informed of what was going on. "
I think your are misleading your readers into thinking that Ken Williams is someone who is continuingly trying to bringdown your reputation when in fact you have been responsible for that, by lying and misquoting. Your quote are difamatory and misleading such things which you have accused Williams of doing.
Well I hope your lies will be exposed soon.
Also various companies that attempt to archive the web -- Alexa, others...
I guess we could also consider people who get welfare the Fed.
get in touch with me dacaje@NONOSPAMtir.com
and I will re-build the archive with FTPsearch etc.
thanks
PacketStorm Is Shut Down
An AntiOnline Editorial
Thursday , July 01 1999
Apparently for some time now, PacketStorm Security, a popular underground collection of security related tools and information, has been maintaining a vast archive of materials about
AntiOnline. These materials included entire stories, copies of the weekly mailbag, e-mails, and other materials copyrighted by AntiOnline LLP.
On top of that, and what was far more serious, the site contained dozens and dozens of items which included: e-mails, messages, documents, images, and even public surveys. These
materials were libelous, and in some cases, were blatant threats against members of my immediate family, myself, and my company.
While I value the right to free speech as much, if not more, than the average American, I do not believe in individuals posting threatening and harassing documents about another
individual, and their family members. It was for this reason, and no other, that I contacted Harvard University, which was hosting the PacketStorm Website, and requested that it be shut
down. I did not threaten legal action, but simply directed University Administration to the website, for them to view, and to judge, on their own. Below is a copy of that letter:
Greetings:
May I first say that I did my best to see that this letter got sent to the appropriate individuals. I had some difficulty determining who those individuals may be, so if I have made an error, I
would greatly appreciate it if you would forward this letter on to the appropriate individual(s).
My name is John Vranesevich, and I am the Founder and General Partner of AntiOnline LLP, a computer security company based outside of Pittsburgh, PA.
Earlier today, one of my colleagues forwarded me the following URL:
http://packetstorm.harvard.edu/jp/
Needless to say, I was shocked and outraged at what I saw. This page contains a large archive of libelous and, to put it bluntly, sick material. Everything from archives of copyrighted
material from our website, to altered pictures of my family, to 'stories' about me which contain images ranging from people engaged in homosexual activities, to a nun that appears to be
covered in seminal fluid.
I am astounded that an institution as prestigious Harvard would be party to the dissemination of this type of material. It is my hope that the University Administration was unaware of this
site, and now that it has been brought to their attention, it is my hope that it will be dealt with promptly.
I have worked to help several educational institutions develop 'Acceptable Use Policies', and if Harvard is similar to them, the above URL would be a clear violation of that policy.
It is my hope that the above mentioned domain will be shut down immediately, and that the individual responsible will be seriously reprimanded.
I hope to hear from you soon about this matter, and what you may have done regarding it.
Yours In CyberSpace,
John Vranesevich
Founder, AntiOnline
Tonight, Ken Williams, the founder of Packet Storm Security, released a letter to the public. The letter read in part:
Funny how I spent the past few years donating my time, literally thousands of hours, to "the security community", never making even a penny off the time and work I invested, and have now
lost it all because some asshole named John Vranesevich is able to make a quick phone call, fabricate absurd stories about criminal activity and bullshit I never did, and effectively ruin
years of work, my education, my career, my life.
Ken, I know what it's like to dedicate many, many, thankless hours into a project, believe me. But, you did not loose your site because of me, you lost it because of you. I could not stand
by and watch your site be used as a platform to harass and threaten my family, myself, and the business which I have worked hard to start. While you, and others who 'follow you' may
criticize me for what I did, I think everyone that's reading this, who has family members that they love, and a career that they enjoy, will admit to themselves that if in my shoes, they
would have done at least the same. I hold absolutely no grudge towards you as a person, and I hope that you have the best of success in all that you do.
Due to the types of threats that I have been receiving, and that sites like PacketStorm have been propagating, local law enforcement agencies were put on alert, and began doing
extensive extra patrolling of the residence of my family members, my own residence, and the AntiOnline Offices. I realize that the actions that I have taken against PacketStorm may
greatly increase the immediate threat against my family, myself, and my company; and that the harassment will now only get worse. However, I will not allow my family, myself, nor my
company to become a victim. I am standing my ground, and will continue AntiOnline's mission of putting an end to malicious hackers.
People in this country have the right to say and do whatever they please, unless that is, what they say and do infringes on the rights of another - anonymous.
Yours In CyberSpace,
John Vranesevich
Founder, AntiOnline
Back To AntiOnline
I've uploaded it to http://packetstorm.nl.linux.org/packetstorm-html.t ar.gz
OK, if someone were to put up sexually explicit, forged pictures of me on the internet somewhere, I would be very quick to complain to the internet provider about it, threatening lawsuits if it was not removed immediately.
If I were a University, and I trusted someone to put up a useful internet sight on my equipment, I would feel that that trust was violated if that person then went and used that space as a forum to personally attack another person, especially if that attack involved pornographic or libelous content.
From what you guys say, John Vranesevich is a jerk. I will not dispute that. But that does not excuse in any way Ken Williams using equipment that is the property of Harvard University from putting up such material. Harvard University is well within it rights to close down this sight.
As I see it, the people who are losing out are the people who found the Packet Storm web sight so useful. I surely hope that the material will be retained, and an alternative sight will be found.
But the online community should put the blaim not on John Vranesevich, who it seems to me simply wanted to have this libelous material removed. The blaim lies squarely on the shoulders of Ken Williams, and he should be chided for betraying the trust that Harvard university put in him.
I also feel that Ken's letter explaining why Packet Storm was closed down was highly misleading. No where did he explain what it was that John was complaining about, giving the impression that it was all made up.
I hope that Ken learns his lesson. I hope that Harvard or someone else puts up this website minus the libelous material. But I understand Harvard's fear of a lawsuit and why they are planning to destroy all backups.
Also, if Ken had had a written contract with harvard, I am sure that there would have been a clause forbidding the material he had on it, and I would think that Harvard would have good grounds to sue Ken, so it is lucky for ken that he did not have a contract.
I'm posting as an anonymous coward because I am a coward - I don't want DoS done to me.
They could have gone through the gigabytes of 3733t wAr3Z or just looked at http://packetstorm.harvard.edu/jp/.
*Rant On*
Ken has done exactly the same that that people criticize JP about: using his website for a personal vendetta against someone else. The general Slashdot sentiment would have certianly been different had someone applied the following filter on the html:
sed -e 's/AntiOnline/Slashdot/g' -e 's/JP/CmdrTaco/g'
Just look what happened to MindCraft when they said Linux was slow...
*Rant Off*
"that appears to be covered in seminal fluid." Now THAT would be funny!
lets get em'
what channel
what network
what time
what nicks
thanks for that - i got a great laff
schools can kick you out pretty easily.
if an administrator has a grudge against you
they can use the school system pretty well (they
are usually full of technicalities and loopholes that they are
more familiar with anyways) to kick your ass any which way they want
it to be kicked. many students were kicked out in the 70s for no reason
other than the way they dressed etc. remember kent state, some
were even shot just for standing outside with sign posts. in short: schools
are no kinder than the military industrial complex they are incubators
for.
packetstorm was not out to shut down antionline
its just anti democratic. anyone who wants to silence someone
else merely because they find them annoying is
just a techno elitist fascist son of a bitch.
this includes you you fucking moderators!
if you keep ANYONE from talking on the net
simply because you think they are stupid
then you are no better than jp, or any of
the goddam control freaks sons of bitches
that have ruined the lives of so many millions
of people this century.
if the fed govt finances and props up institutions
who opress people, whats the difference? can the
govt just go around hiring people to shut citizens up
and say 'oh the govt didnt do it someone else did (nevermind we payed them)'
Hmmm, so it seems that they didn't destroy the backups as they mentioned earlier...
2 87456-1,00.html
But I've no idea as to how true the statements in this story are...
http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,2
Why does an altavista.com search for 'link:packetstorm.harvard.edu' return nothing while 'link:antionline.com -url:antionline.com' returns 1801 matches? Was this site even active? Even if they had a robots.txt, there should be at least one site out there which didn't and would be indexed.
I don't see it in the source (JavaScript or anything). anyone?
Server side script checks for blocked REFERERs, most of the browsers send 'em now.
This is ApacheBench, Version 1.3
Copyright (c) 1996 Adam Twiss, Zeus Technology Ltd, http://www.zeustech.net/
Copyright (c) 1998-1999 The Apache Group, http://www.apache.org/
Benchmarking www.AntiOnline.com (be patient)...socket: Too many open files
PS: read the story on linuxworld it shows just how scriptkiddish this antionline is.
how do i know you just didnt make that log up
it would be easy as hell
what proof do you have? why should i believe you?
furthermore is it ethical to take someones history file without
their permission and post it on the web? what about copyright law?
what about a right to privacy?
i dont think you can fight nazis by becoming a nazi
I did a search for packetstorm genocide2600 on google And I found a about 10 pages from packetstorm.. not much, but could be useful for a mirror
then again, he probably doesnt know who alan turing is.
hell alot of my profs dont.
sometimes the world sucks cock!
hows that?
he dressed like a woman and was gay!
big difference!
and mindcraft has lots of of battle lawyers
JP is a newbie.
While I was a student at Harvard, there were several instances of possible copyright infringements by students I knew on Harvard-run web servers. The Office of the Special Council (Harvard's in-house lawyers) make it a policy to act quickly and decisively in such a case to minimize Harvard's liability. In the two instances of which I am aware, the web sites were immediately taken off-line, and the students were contacted. The data, however, was not destroyed. In both cases, the permissions on the files were changed, and the student was informed that they needed to keep the files off the web until the issue was settled.
Harvard's rapid and - quite frankly - extreme response in this case surprised me, although by their copyright policies (which I posted earlier), they are well within their rights, unfortunately. I would suspect that the Office of the Special Council had more evidence than just JP's word, although I wouldn't be shocked if they didn't... assuming JP was convincing.
You can keep REFERER headers from being sent by using the "Internet Junkbuster" proxy.
Curious, Vranesevich is a slavic name.
But in Russian, "vrane" means "lies".
Anonymous out of laziness, not cowardice.
Psychologists say no such thing, but fags do. I find it far more likely that, deep down, fags recognize they're living in a state of arrested development, and their puling and sniping stems from a secret desire to give up the charade, pack it all in (heh) and settle down to a heterosexual lifestyle like everyone else. All this mouthing of pseudoscience and the accusations about everyone else's sexuality are just a screen.
Do what is being to Yahoo/GeoCities. BOYCOTT ANTIONLINE.
Thank you for sharing.
;)
Yup, LDS. I think that it affects script kiddies and IRC goons as well.
I know that when I discovered girls (a little late, at 17, courtesy of an open-minded 35 year old neighbor)(thankyouthankyouthankyou Christy), I sure wrote a lot less for a few years
Of course, I had something that made it worth her while. Heh. I guess if you don't, you can always be an NT admin.
And damn, man: "never seen a unix [sic] admin in the flesh"? Stop it with the straight lines already -- you're killing me!
Seems fitting that 2 of the biggest posers in the hacking/cracking scene have joined together in a union fit for a story in some lame Hollywood made for TV movie. I'll take Ken's word over JP's ant day of the year bar none.
From www.antionline.com, coming from the article WWW page. The Site You Visited Before AntiOnline Is On The Denied Referer List The site that you visted before AntiOnline is a Denied Referer. What does this mean? Basically, it means that AntiOnline does not allow the site that you just came from to link directly to AntiOnline content, or to utilize any resources that may be part of the AntiOnline Network.
To find out how you can stop malicious hackers, visit AntiOnline's Fight Back!
For the latest security news, views, and information, visit the Main AntiOnline Website.
Isn't that some sort of theft of data? NO matter how it got there, destroying 3gb of someone elses data is not legal.
Could this person not hold the university responsible for both the delteion of his school work (his failure of a course) as well as destruction of his copyrighted material (the site itself)? Given that someone with 'authority' personally gave him the okay to set it up?
I hate that.
Fight back.
A meta-script-kiddie war!
This is great stuff. Keep it up guys.
I would gladly donate to help his defense. On a low end just him, on a high end all of the constitution. This is a sympton of something more. Welcome to orwells nightmare. America isn't what it used to be. I rather hope it crashes like rome did (everything hits the fan around century 2). Then we can try again to have the country we deserve.
Besides JP is an ass. He sold out.
Careful here. This looks pretty much like as a fake. For instance, he looks very much like he never used a unix C compiler, but without a 'ls -l', he guesses that the name of the executable file is 'a.out'.
Also, he looks like he never used much Unix before, but he knows the name of many commands (pico, cc, write, cd, ftp, ps, kill, logout, cat, pine, write, w, ls, man, lynx, talk, vi, mv, chown, mkdir, mail, clear, '--help' option, and the './program' way to run programs). Strangely enough, in the log, by some miracle, he knows the name of the command but too often doesn't find the proper arguments. This is unlikely.
Given this little gem (pointed out by another below), I'm not surprised.
Snagged from freshmeat.net where it was posted by J-Dog.- --------------------
-----------------------------------------------
* S T A T E M E N T *
As a service to the Internet community, Harvard agreed to host a Packet Storm Security Website for security-related materials only. Without Harvard's knowledge, unrelated content was put on the Harvard server, including sexually-related material and personal attacks on an individual not affiliated with the University. A Harvard administrative site focused on security issues is not the forum for this type of material. We are returning the content on the site and hope that Packet Storm will make its security tools available through its own Website.
Joe Wrinn
Director
Office of News and Public Affairs
Joe Wrinn
Director, Harvard News Office
1350 Massachusetts Ave., Rm. 1060
Cambridge, MA 02138
Phone: 617-495-1585
Fax: 617-495-0754
joe_wrinn@harvard.edu
Here is the direct link to Antionline editorial on the subject:a cketstorm.html
http://www.antionline.com/archives/editorials/p
If anitonline's statements are correct, Ken Williams is no saint who was needlessly attacked. I am not saying antionline is a saint either, but it does look like there are two sides to this story.
Apparently for some time now, PacketStorm Security, a popular underground collection of security related tools and information, has been maintaining a vast archive of materials about AntiOnline. These materials included entire stories, copies of the weekly mailbag, e-mails, and other materials copyrighted by AntiOnline LLP.
On top of that, and what was far more serious, the site contained dozens and dozens of pages of libelous, harassing, and threatening items which included: e-mails, messages, documents, images, and even public surveys. These materials were libelous, and in some cases, were blatant threats against members of my immediate family, myself, and my company.
While I value the right to free speech as much, if not more, than the average American, I do not believe in individuals posting threatening and harassing documents about another individual, and their family members. It was for this reason, and no other, that I contacted Harvard University, which was hosting the PacketStorm Website, and requested that it be shut down. I did not threaten legal action, but simply directed University Administration to the website, for them to view, and to judge, on their own. Below is a copy of that letter:
Greetings:
May I first say that I did my best to see that this letter got sent to the appropriate individuals. I had some difficulty determining who those individuals may be, so if I have made an error, I would greatly appreciate it if you would forward this letter on to the appropriate individual(s).
My name is John Vranesevich, and I am the Founder and General Partner of AntiOnline LLP, a computer security company based outside of Pittsburgh, PA.
Earlier today, one of my colleagues forwarded me the following URL:
http://packetstorm.harvard.edu/jp/
Needless to say, I was shocked and outraged at what I saw. This page contains a large archive of libelous and, to put it bluntly, sick material. Everything from archives of copyrighted material from our website, to altered pictures of my family, to 'stories' about me which contain images ranging from people engaged in homosexual activities, to a nun that appears to be covered in seminal fluid.
I am astounded that an institution as prestigious Harvard would be party to the dissemination of this type of material. It is my hope that the University Administration was unaware of this site, and now that it has been brought to their attention, it is my hope that it will be dealt with promptly.
I have worked to help several educational institutions develop 'Acceptable Use Policies', and if Harvard is similar to them, the above URL would be a clear violation of that policy.
It is my hope that the above mentioned domain will be shut down immediately, and that the individual responsible will be seriously reprimanded.
I hope to hear from you soon about this matter, and what you may have done regarding it.
Yours In CyberSpace,
John Vranesevich
Founder, AntiOnline
Tonight, Ken Williams, the founder of Packet Storm Security, released a letter to the public. The letter read in part:
Funny how I spent the past few years donating my time, literally thousands of hours, to "the security community", never making even a penny off the time and work I invested, and have now lost it all because some asshole named John Vranesevich is able to make a quick phone call, fabricate absurd stories about criminal activity and bullshit I never did, and effectively ruin years of work, my education, my career, my life.
Ken, I know what it's like to dedicate many, many, thankless hours into a project, believe me. But, you did not loose your site because of me, you lost it because of you. I could not stand by and watch your site be used as a platform to harass and threaten my family, myself, and the business which I have worked hard to start. While you, and others who 'follow you' may criticize me for what I did, I think everyone that's reading this, who has family members that they love, and a career that they enjoy, will admit to themselves that if in my shoes, they would have done at least the same. I hold absolutely no grudge towards you as a person, and I hope that you have the best of success in all that you do.
Due to the types of threats that I have been receiving, and that sites like PacketStorm have been propagating, local law enforcement agencies were put on alert, and began doing extensive extra patrolling of the residence of my family members, my own residence, and the AntiOnline Offices. I realize that the actions that I have taken against PacketStorm may greatly increase the immediate threat against my family, myself, and my company; and that the harassment will now only get worse. However, I will not allow my family, myself, nor my company to become a victim. I am standing my ground, and will continue AntiOnline's mission of putting an end to malicious hackers.
People in this country have the right to say and do whatever they please, unless that is, what they say and do infringes on the rights of another - anonymous.
Yours In CyberSpace,
John Vranesevich
Founder, AntiOnline
if it is the slashdot effect it wouldnt be too out of character for him to claim that slashdot performed a DOS attack on him, 'justifying' the referal block he seems to have in effect.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Because it's America, Land Of The Free. How many women presidents have you had? How many members of your cabinet (or equivalent) are openly gay? Not many, I'll bet.
Strange place.
I haven't had time to read all of the postings; however, it seems that everyone has the impression that the site is gone. We do not need to search our cache, nor do we need to whine.
d net/story.html?s=v/zd/19990 701/tc/19990701380.
Yahoo has an article, in which it says "Harvard intends to send the complete contents of the site back to Williams so that he can post it elsewhere." http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/technology/z
You realize that all you are doing by spouting threats is lending credence to JP's side of the story...
John Vranesevich is a twit who has done NOTHING to help the security community. He continually makes himself look like a fool when he thinks he has some rightous cause. I looked up the defininition of "lamer" and it cross-referenced me to John Vranesevich. I wonder if he's gotten his copy of Win2k Beta 3.
P.S. I hope the venture capital he got kills his "business".
Basically, he sucks. He just does this stuff to get attention, like some little kid having a spaz at the supermarket. Hell, all you have to do is read his site to realize that the guy's not quite right in the head (egomania, anyone?).
Anyway, the best way to handle a guy like this is to ignore him.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
If it's anything like the genocide site, there is a block on robots and linking directly to subpages. The return page if you try is very obnoxious and accuses you of bandwidth theft. This guy was a fucking moron and deserves to lose everything for that alone because if he'd just let Google spider his site he could have redownloaded the whole thing from their cache.
I wonder if that could really be JP himself just trying to get another enemy in trouble for making death threats?
Posted by Lord Kano-The Gangster Of Love:
I too am very seriously considering mirroring a few pages locally. If I can work out some type of reasonable deal with either my cable or DSL company I will.
Most of the pages that I want to mirror are political in nature, but the principle is the same. Just because someone wants it shutdown does not mean that is should be.
My question is this, why did he not have local backups of his work? I don't even do work for customers without keeping a backup of it for a while. (just in case they stiff me on the payment, I can still get paid for my work).
LK
Posted by Ungrounded Lightning Rod:
If the allegedly injured party asks to have
the site taken down and the backups destroyed,
and this is done, he'll look rather silly
demanding in court the evidence that he told
them he wanted them to destroy.
Posted by crunchberry wonderfuck:
HNN has an update; Harvard will return a copy of the site to Ken Williams. Also AntiOnline (JP's site) is uber-down. No DNS, no nuthin'. Figures, I suppose.
Posted by Ungrounded Lightning Rod:
He was not a Harvard student, but a student
at another university. According to his
postings, a Harvard sysadmin had offered to
host his security website - and he kept the
only copies of his class notes from the other
school's classes, his website, and the related
data on this Harvard machine - trusting them
to back it up for him and keep it available.
Oops.
i believe the answer is New jersey.
:)
But what does that have to do with the discussion?
Werd.
Someone called, threatened to sue and whoever was on the phone probably freaked out and pulled the plug.
What JP doesn't realize is that eventually, this sort of behaviour will chase all his potential viewers away. Without traffic, his VC-funded site will go down the tubes and all will be well again.
The best thing to do is to just ignore him and his site and stop visiting.
Werd.
Actually, he goes to *my* school, and he worked on that site all the time. (if you saw him on a machine, some of what he was doing was telnetting somewhere to maintain things, do the requisite surfing to see what the #*(@ is going on, etc, etc.)
:) (he's got some other stuff too, but his real web site was packetstorm)
He was looking for another place to host his site, because it was so huge. I should have grabbed the humor section when I had a chance, he had a lot of classic stuff archived there.
Oh, and what does he have on his local web site? His pgp keys.
Poor fellow BOFH, getting shut down by just a regular B...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Same here... I knew many of the common commands, but couldn't always remember the arguments and didn't always get the format right... this is not that farfetched at all.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Looks like the router loop is fixed, but now his web server is dead. Last good hop is antionline-gw.cust.stargate.net.
Am I the only person who remembers this story?
8 5.html
http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/86
The main difference, of course, is that AntiOnline wasn't shut down because of derogatory statements. But it does seem rather ironic.
Adam
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise.
The official response from Harvard (found at www.hackernews.com):
=======================
* S T A T E M E N T *
As a service to the Internet community, Harvard agreed to
host a Packet Storm Security Website for security-related
materials only. Without Harvard's knowledge, unrelated
content was put on the Harvard server, including
sexually-related material and personal attacks on an
individual not affiliated with the University. A Harvard
administrative site focused on security issues is not the forum
for this type of material. We are returning the
content on the site and hope that Packet Storm will make
its security tools available through its own Website.
Joe Wrinn
Director
Office of News and Public Affairs
Joe Wrinn
Director, Harvard News Office
1350 Massachusetts Ave., Rm. 1060
Cambridge, MA 02138
Where ARE you all now? Clearly Harvard should have nothing to fear as the 1st Amendment should protect it. Or maybe you're too embarrassed to realise what the 1st amendment is: a poorly-worded declaration of nothing much, open to the befuddled interpretation of every senile justice who bribes his way into the Supreme Court and every bored libel case juror dumb enough to not figure out how to evade jury service.
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
Umm, this seems like it would have been a fairly easy thing to verify before taking action, wouldn't it? Am I right to assume that PacketStorm never contained anything of that sort?
I can't believe that there isn't a single person out there that did a wget -r on that site. If you happen to have a mirror of that data, even if it is partial and a year old, please get in contact with Ken or the cDc. Or post the URL here, if you can stand the traffic.
The cypherpunks have been working on "non-erasable Internet space" for some time now. They call them "Eternity servers" and they already have some working prototypes running. If you would like to see a world where it is mathematically impossible to censor someone's web pages (without taking down the whole 'Net), then visit some of the following sites, and/or subscribe to the cypherpunks list and pitch in!
I've known Ken Williams for about three years now,
ever since he came to NCSU and zephyred me about
how to use the Sparc4s we had at the time. I
gave some of my typical LabOp(tm) Brand Advice
and watched him eat it up. He was in the lab for
days. He slept there, he ate there. We split
pizzas and good conversation. (He still owes me
lunch for admitting PERL is better than Java)
Eventually, all his hard work paid off and he
picked up on network security and got packet storm
up and running. Although I never contributed, I
was a long time listener.
I say I know him pretty well. As well as anyone
else around at NCSU. We're all pretty damn
unsatisfied that he's been treated this way,
especially since he gave us knowledge and he
was a campus character to boot.
Ken is not a bad person, he's not someone who
is likely to hurt anyone. He's got his opinions, he voices him, and doesn't expect you to change
yours for his. All he ever cared about, really,
was the information.
He's the Real American Cracker.
He knows his stuff, and doesn't pretend to know
what he doesn't. He'll talk your ear off about
networks and share a cigarette over some talk
about how weak the System is. He's just a good guy, that's all, and I'd say that in any forum or institution, International or Domestic.
That's all I have to say about Ken.
Now, the others....
Harvard was trying to protect itself by purging Ken from its records. Destroying his site was just that. Not letting him have the backups was the line. Hopefully, in the future, they'll be less like little bastards and more like men.
JP. Shove him. Don't pay him any respect. In my eyes, AntiOnline has been a pox on the security community for too long....
Peace,
BFD
--- Think outside the box.
It's really a shame seeing a site like Packet Storm shut down. It was a really nice source of information. JP has done things like this many times before. From shutting down public IRC servers which he had no rightful adminstration access over to shutting down PS which said some things he didn't like. He has gone too far this time and I have a feeling that popular opinion about him and his buddy, Carolyn Meinel, are about to change. Carolyn Meinel. Do not trust a word she says. She, like JP, will say anything to get you to do what she wants you to. I will not go into full detail about her, but if you have not heard of her before, run far far away. (P.S. For all newbies wanting to learn about security, there will be an open wargame at www.tg0d.org and help will be provided for those who need it.) I have dealt with the two of these people for almost a year. They are frauds and don't care about anything you do. To see more about my personal exprience with meinel and JP, check out schematic.org. For more information about what happened with JP and Meinel, check out (one at a time, for the next 1 mins only) www.whereipretendtowork.com.
My
I can only hope that the web site wasn't that important to him (yeah right), or that Ken is just pretending not to have any backups.
People with important data ought to be a little more paranoid. Don't trust someone else to keep your data safe. Always have a copy on you.
What I can't believe is that anti-online denied
a cketstorm.html
requests that were referred from www.attrition.org
to the following URL. How immature.
http://www.antionline.com/archives/editorials/p
--mere mortal--
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:6863037&dq=ca che:www.antionline.com/archives/pages/ww w.netsnitch.com/
This cached page from google is probably an example of the type of thing that they are complaining about
--mere mortal--
It is sad to see Packet Storm go down, especially in this manner. IMHO this was a childish move on JP's part, and Harvard didn't make things much better by destroying all of Ken's data.
I'll bet there is more to this story than we are being told.
Good luck in whatever you do next Ken...
Actually, it isn't that he will get kicked out of school. First, he is going to fail one of his CS clsses because all his scholl work was on the Harvard computer. Second, if he gets charged with computer crimes he could have his computer accounts revoked, which the University can pretty much do at will. As a CS major having your computer account revoked is pretty much equivalent to being kicked out.
"Quotes that show the real AntiOnline"?
http://www.attrition.org/negation/quotes.html
Now most of these are taken out of context, and they mostly show that
1. JP has a sense of humor.
2. JP isn't very polite.
3. JP made one insensitive quote about albanians - don't know if that makes him a RACIST (sic!)
Disclaimer: I don't know JP, he might be a rapist KKK member eating children for breakfast as far as I know, but pulling those quotes out of context doesn't really makes me certain that he is...
/El Niño
Okej, the RACIST link went to a separate page with more quotes, but I still think most of those first quotes doesn't show JP to so very terrible.
Also, please understand that I'm not defending JP in any way for being an asshole, which it seems he is, I just think that _first_ quote page wasn't very good for conveying that.
/El Niño
Heh, that's a mighty nice compliment from you... I must say, though, that both cDc and l0pht have great respect for the work that PacketStorms's been doing. There's been a real need for a comprehensive vulnerabi9lity database, and the fact that Ken was doing that non-commercially is real service to the computer security community. Indeed, the site was so well respected that it was mentioned in InfoWorld's Security Watch column not two weeks ago.
I, at least, hope that Packetstorm will find a backup and a new home, or that somebody new like www.securityfocus.com will step in to fill the gap. Otherwise we might go back to the "bad old days", where the only people who know about certain vulnerabilities are small groups of hackers and irresponsible vendors with no incentive to fix problems.
In praise of full disclosure,
Tweety Fish, cDc
Vistors can look at the archive at:
UPloaders can use:
to upload all the stuff they saved from packetstorm.PLEASE, do everything in your power to save the knowledge in the packetstorm archive from being lost... (hint to moderators :)
Thanks,
Rik van Riel
Nah, free speech means I can say this:
"I'm gonna find you and waste your pathetic loser ass into fish food for my pet pirhanas!"
Yep. It does. Now, is there any context that I might actually do this? Nope.
I can also say, "I wanna blow the muthafuckas up!" Again, it might get someone's attention, but, again, there is no context about who I want to blow up.
Does JV have "malicious hackers" stalking him, as he claims, or is he just listening for the footsteps just a little bit too closely? He may claim these bad things have happened to him.
Seems like JV has just a bit too thin of skin. If the only way he can wall it off is to try and get rid if it by running to the Teacher or Mommy, well, I guess that's his right. Or is he really crying out for help and can't afford to go to the public mental health clinic to talk about his delusions?
Too bad we all lose by the loss of someone else's web site from his paranoic rantings and actions.
That the click-through on
Bullshit if the 1st Amendment only applies to the Federal Government.
http://www.attrition.org/negation/
Moderators: I don't beg for upping of my posts scores, but I think its important for everyone to see JP for who he is.
Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
When I saw antionline home page describe itself
as the "National Enquirer of Cyberspace" I had
all the information I needed to make a judgement.
Now I'm sure the National Enquirer NOT in cyber-
space is right about 1 time in 5000, but life is
short and I'm betting short odds.
-- Larry Smith
In his letter to Harvard, John Vranesevich accuses Packet Storm of posting images of "people engaged in homosexual activities".
Why, exactly, would that be any worse than people engaged in heterosexual activities?
In addition to his other stellar characteristics, it looks like JP is a homophobe.
People, we need to catch things like this. Homophobia should not be tolerated in the online community.
Cheers,
James, who is not homosexual but knows a whole lot of great people who are.
[ r a n t ]
This is so depressing, and more, it enrages me to think that this kind of stuff can happen.
Anyone who wants to do _anything_ as a public service can no longer simply "just do it" -- cover your backsides, boys and girls, because if you piss off anyone, I mean _anyone_ your "host" might decide to send you up as a sacrificial lamb.
Get everything in writing.
Keep backups of everything on a really big hard drive.
Encourage supporters to archive your site.
I think it's shameful that Harvard won't let him get the information he needs to graduate. I think it's shameful that his professor doesn't seem to give a damn. Personally, I think Harvard's reaction disgusts me more than AntiOnline's.
Don't think for a second, however, that I approve of AntiOnline's actions to any degree. I'm ashamed that they can do this stuff and still look themselves in the face at night. So much for the computing "community."
It's going to get worse. Apparently, the whole idea that the internet is a medium for the free exchange of ideas is getting less and less true, becasue any idea that you don't like can be litigated out of existence.
[ / r a n t ]
Eviscerati.Org: All Hail the Eviscerati
1. 'whois antionline.com'
2. dial
>Where do most of the child molestors come from ?
Both in terms of raw numbers, and if I remember correctly, percentages - heterosexuals.
What do First Amendment rights have to do with this? At last notice, enforcement of the First Amendment only applied to the federal government.
Please don't reduce the importance of "free speech" and the American First Amendment by crying censorship each time somebody is squelched. The First Amendment ONLY applies to the federal goverment.
While I might not agree with the action Harvard took, they were fully within their rights. There was no contract in place, and Ken was not a student. I fail to see any criminal intent here.
I wonder if that could really be JP himself just trying to get another enemy in trouble for making death threats?
He'd better not be. That would be stealing Laurence Godfrey's schtick.
I miss Meept.
I am sure there is an offsite backup, but owned (or paid for) by Harvard.
Here's a rather hilarious .history file that allegedly comes from one of JP's accounts.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
After working with him for that time period, I can easily say he's a total asshole, and likes to take everything said as it was directed at him. He got picked on a little too much in school, and now, if anyone "picks on him", his retaliation is to sue. Back when he was an op in #HackPhreak, his retaliation was to ban their entire domain/country. Some things never change.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
That a no-nothing kid and a flack like Clown Princess can call up Harvard and threaten lawsuits against one of the best security talents in the ether is absolutely abominable...
It's time to act...submit your protest letter online [you can even cut and paste this one in] to Harvard's handy UIS Suggestion Box
and/or email Harvard at:
uis-webadmin@harvard.edu
provost@harvard.edu
--diva
diva Pasty Drone NewsTrolls, Inc.
>Completely apart from whether or not this legal action has any merit, couldn't Harvard get
>in a lot more trouble for destroying evidence in a suit than they are likely to face in the suit itself?
Bill Gates & his executives would disagree.
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
First off, It seems unlikely to me that Harvard, with a reputation of being an excellent law school, would destroy evidence if some sort of wrong-doing had been done. They really ought to know better.
But, if they did wipe the site completely, Ken has nothing to worry about in terms of lawsuits (without evidence, it's all he-said-she-said), disciplinary action from Harvard (he's not a student), or loss of his job (no reason, because there's no evidence).
Furthermore, I suspect he would have a good case against Harvard for destruction of his site, including the loss of his schoolwork. (Can you say Harvard is a cracker?) If I were on a jury, I'd certainly have Harvard pay him enough so he wouldn't have to worry about his schooling being screwed up.
If, however, Harvard does have a copy, then there is a possibility of a lawsuit happening. In which case, Ken Williams has really nothing to worry about from Harvard claiming he cracked their systems -- even the world's worst lawyer could get a judge/jury to see that 400K hits could not go unnoticed. If Harvard knew about it, they must have approved of it.
That would leave only the alledgedly libelous material. Which, if it was as John Vranesevich claims, than KW deserves whatever he gets. If it is not, than JV should be rightly counter-sued.
My guess is that Harvard pulled the server and is preventing KW access until they can determine what's what. If there really was libellous material, they certainly don't want KW to go and erase it.
Wait and see is all we can do.
Stupid people will be persecuted to the fullest extent allowed by law.
The main page seems to load, but all the links are broken from what I can tell.
Yup. The cover-your-ass position for Harvard in any matter similar to this is:
1. Take the site in question offline (done).
2. Make more backups of the questionable material, so that the lawyers can sort it out later. Especially if Harvard is sueing the site owner! How are they going to sue if they're destroying the evidence they need to sue?
Something just doesn't make sense.
traceroute 208.166.177.37 from here doesn't get past border1-hssi2-0.minneapolis.usinternet.com
Chuck
Cheezus, for the past year and ½ we've been watching seminal fluid on the seal of the US white house.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Ken disabled robots while he was on genocide2600.com , so I doubt they got much..
----------
"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
just a quick note..
It has come to my attention that you have confiscated the data that
belonged to Ken Williams, a brilliant man and a close friend of mine.
The 4 gigabytes of Data that was formerly hosted on
packetstorm.harvard.edu contained 7 months of school work , and 4 years
of dedication into the Internet's largest security site, "Packet Storm
Security".
In no way was Ken using the server space (graciously donated to him by
Jeff Gray!) for profit, but as a storing house to hold his life's work.
Please, mail Mr. Ken Williams (snail mail) copies of the data that
belongs to him. You can contact him here: jkwilli2@unity.ncsu.edu
Thank you,
-Andrew Niese
Founder, Fresh Software
----------
"They misunderestimated me." --George W Bush, Nov. 6, 2000
Things seem to be clearing up...Harvard has not in fact wiped the site completely, and antionline is no longer online...
from www.hackernews.com:
AntiOnline is currently offline. It is unknown if this was done
due to a descision by John Vranesevich, his ISP, or if some
other action has been taken. HNN has offered to host
AntiOnlines comments but we have not received a
response.
We have word that the PacketStorm site has not been
deleted and that Harvard University will be supplying Ken
Williams with a back up copy of the site.
As long as litigation remains only a threat
they can destroy the material that is their property.
I'm sure there are agreements present where this
guy waived ownership rights to his work while
employed there.
Whatever the case, Harvard has no worries.
For penalties to arise from destroying evidence
there must be a lawsuit filed already, and a mere threat will not do.
Hmmm... Harvard administrators consented to housing the info.
They aided him in maintaining the site.
Gave him superuser privileges. (Made him a privileged user).
There was a threat of lawsuit, and they destroyed his IP that they allowed him to publish for very long long time.
Depending on the value of the material (which would have to be argued), He may have a claim against Harvard yet for conversion, intentional infliction of emotional distress (killed is school project with their outrageous response thus depriving him of his educational benefits and expenditures in tuition), perhaps even interference with a contract. All of these are tort (injury) type claims and punitive damages would be available. OOOO He has some reputation damages as well!!! Ha Ha, he's got claims... Harvard will settle on a handsome sum of cash after a little bargaining.
Let's get him a lawyer to represent him on a contingency fee basis in a lawsuit against Harvard! He must be really really pissed.
With that much information of that much importance - why does no one have a backup of the site? I wouldn't trust my college to hold the sole copy of anything I cared about. Is any of this data someplace else, or does anyone have copies of it?
Leilah
~ Leilah
Sorry but at this point in the game Ken has way more credability than JP does. A month ago I would have agreed....but the events (articals Ive read....interviews with JP....E mail snippets from both attrition.org and antionline.com) that have passed these last few weeks do not weigh on JP's side. No Im not totally convinced JP was paying hackers to hack government sites.....but I do think thers much more to it than JP lets on....at the very least he knew about senate.gov beforhand then lied about several times. That is conspiracy.
As for the material on the site that was supposedly ther as an assult on JP: thats the same kind of crap almost a half dozen web sites have been posting for months. Why? Because JP's an ass.
The Packet Storm incident just solidifies that. Pure and simple. Some of that stuff was lightweight compared to what www.innerpulse.com prints about him on a weekly basis.
I have serious doubts that anyone (including ken) would think they could get away with hosting a site like packet storm at havard without telling anyone. That agrument just doesnt fly.
Its these kinds of things that make ppl *HATE* JP.
I think only one things for certain now: the net will make him bleed.
Every time one of these sites goes down, I get closer and closer to mirroring every decent site I visit locally. I shouldn't even have to consider that... And doesn't the site just say "accused", which implies nothing's been proven anyway?
Something doesn't sound quite right about this whole thing...
If you have off-site backups, it doesn't matter too much if your data is destroyed.
The original claim that Harvard were going to destroy the site and its backups just emphasizes the point that you need off-sites which are under different administrative control than the originals, as well as at a physically different location.
This is total bullshit. Even if the data on the site was controversial, their rights END when they tell you to shut it down. It is completely illegal for them to destroy your data like they have done. I have a friend who is an IP lawyer and he thinks you would have a good shot at landing a nice settement if you sue them. Verbal contracts are STILL contracts, you just need someone to verify that you had such a contract in the first place. You would need someone who heard the contract or has firsthand knowledge of its existence to testify to that fact and then you have proof that it existed.
You should also ask for the drives - if they don't know what they are doing when they delete it you might be able to retrieve some of the data. It takes a triple format to totally erase all data from standard hard drives. There are companies that specialize in recovering data in these situations. My 1st ISP had a hacker breakin where he wiped their system and they got it all back using a company like that. They can also restore CDs if they were only broken - you need to burn the pits and valleys out to destroy a cd, shattering it only destroys the ones under the cracks and those can be repaired often. I don't know any off the top of my head but I am sure a quick search will turn up someone who can provide these services, though they are not cheap. If a fellow slashdotter has any such information could you post it below?
This is blatant censorship - just because they do not like the nature of the data does not give them the right to destroy it. They have the right move it off of their servers only. Destroying the backups instead of returning them to you, especially if they know you have no other copies, is illegal destruction of intellectual property. If you had any of it copyrighted it will be even better for you in court.
At the very least you should be able to get the university to allow you time to make up for the lost class materials.
Even if there is a 'hidden' side to this story, it is still irrelevant. Destruction of IP is still a crime.
Sorry about the rant but this sort of thing really, really ticks me off...
Hell is being intelligent in a world full of idiots.
He wants a job in IT but he doesn't make backups of his important data?
If you'd take a second to read some of the links about this, you'd see that Harvard is destroying the on-site backups of Packet Storm Security as well.
"I was told by Leo Donnelly at Harvard, via phone, that ALL of the content AND the backups made are either destroyed, being destroyed now, or will be before I can do anything to prevent it. All 4+ GB of files in the publicly accessible directories, over 45,000 files collected and archived over the years, are gone." -- Ken Williams, from a letter at attrition.org.
Given that the Slashdot blurbs appear to be from the story submitter and may reflect a lack of understanding of the issue (like the one about Yahoo "owning" all of the GeoCities content) you'd think reading the corresponding links wouldn't be too much to ask before commenting.
Jay (=
Because Harvard is not only shutting the site down, they are deleting all of the material on his machine (including 7 weeks of schoolwork for the classes he was taking at another school -- he wasn't a Harvard student) and destroying the backup tapes as well.
Jay (=
Scary how the AntiOnline version is tweaked just enough to make Ken Williams seem vengeful and juvenile.
And what's funny is that the version on HNN is apparently PGP-signed (the signature is at the bottom of the message!), where the (edited, I assume) excerpt from AntiOnline is not. Gee, wonder which one I'm going to believe?
I think that qualifies as a Perry Mason moment...
Jay (=
As good a person as Ken is, I find it a shame that someone who spent as much time working on his site, has to have it shutdown. Whenever I have a question regarding some security topic, he usually has an answer for me. I just feel sorry for you folks that won't have the opportunity to use him and his website a resource in the future. Rock on Ken.
Ok, these actions seem to be very rash on Harvard's part. I can understand why they want to avoid anything that might lead to a lawsuit, but before taking such extreme measures one would think they would set up a hearing or something so that both sides can be heard.
:-) and have him/her help him out.
If I were him I would look up his Terms of Service and demand access to his IP (Int. Property, not the address, which is obviously owned by Harvard) as long as Harvard doesn't do something along the lines of Yahoo...even then I think he would have a right to it. Find a 3rd year Law student (hmm...not many of THOSE at Harvard...
And shame on his part for not keeping a local backup of the site...ok, I have never been there, so it could have been organized in such a way that it would take up massive amounts of disk space, but he could at least have backups of the important sections.
It's sad when an organization such as Harvard will comply with someone they have never heard of rather than trust that their students know and are doing the Right Thing(tm).
Tom Byrum
"Someone should shut Anti-Online down using the same tactics. They shouldn't be allowed (by the community, of course it's legal) to narc all their alleged contacts, then get paid for it."
Apparently someone has. Antionline has been unreachable (from here anyway) for at least the last hour.
As a Unix/Linux newbie, I haven't gotten too involved in security issues as yet, so I've never had occasion to visit the PacketStorm site. However, I find this kind of harassment, as well as Harvard's complete bendover in the face of a legal threat from this Vranesevich yahoo is unconsionable. They did not bother to even speak to Ken Williams before trashing _all_ of his data.
IMO, the second is more likely. This doesn't mean that we are being misled - just that we have an incomplete view. Can anyone who has emailed Harvard management (or who is within Harvard management), or who is otherwise involved with this, provide more information on what is actually going on?
"Where do most of the child molestors come from ?"
:P
They're usually straight...Gay != Child Molestor.
"OR mabye it's a result of moral and religious beliefs."
If your beliefs are that you will hate somebody based on their preferred sexual behaviour that is with a consenting adult, and you want to use COERCION to enforce those beliefs on others, then I shit all over your beliefs.
but I believe you're wrong. If I where to say to someone "I'm gonna find you and waste your pathetic loser ass into fish food for my pet pirhanas!" that would be a physical threat and I could be charged with assault. The right to free speach (in the US) does not mean you can say whatever the hell you wish - this has been well established in US courts, the typical example of this is yelling "fire" in a crowded theater when there is none - putting the crowd in a panic and endangering lives. Likewise, you can not say whatever you like about whomever you like. This may lead to a character depravation lawsuit - the US tabloids deal with this often. In short, if you are trying to damage someone's reputation by making false claims or such, legal action can be brought against you.
If what this letter says is true, then I'm on JV's side. Also,if it is true, it is a shame that the whole site will be destroyed all because of one person's unprofessional behavior.
I'm sure a lot of people disagree with such things (and I don't agree with all of them), but you have to play by the rules to win the game (just as the FSF has done by creating the copyleft). Go ahead, flame me!
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
but I believe you're wrong. If I where to say to someone "I'm gonna find you and waste your pathetic loser ass into fish food for my pet pirhanas!" that would be a physical threat and I could be charged with assault. The right to free speach (in the US) does not mean you can say whatever the hell you wish - this has been well established in US courts, the typical example of this is yelling "fire" in a crowded theater when there is none - putting the crowd in a panic and endangering lives. Likewise, you can not say whatever you like about whomever you like. This may lead to a character depravation lawsuit - the US tabloids deal with this often. In short, if you are trying to damage someone's reputation by making false claims or such, legal action can be brought against you.
If what this letter says is true, then I'm on JV's side. Also,if it is true, it is a shame that the whole site will be destroyed all because of one person's unprofessional behavior.
I'm sure a lot of people disagree with such things (and I don't agree with all of them), but you have to play by the rules to win the game (just as the FSF has done by creating the copyleft). Go ahead, flame me!
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
This is not the first incident of JP shutting down something because of material on it relating to him. JP also recently (within the last week) shut down the HappyHacker IRC server which I helped maintain. This was a public server that he had no authority over, which he shut down due to people making fun of him and questioning his journalistic tactics in a public chat room. It is ridiculous that he can get away with what he's been doing lately. Check out http://www.attrition.org/ne ws/content/99-06-26.001.html for more info on the HappyHacker incident.
-Andy (a.k.a Punchdown)
After having worked with JP almost a year now on HappyHacker, I am finding it harder and harder to believe what he has said. I've been involved in incidents with him and then he turns around and says something totally against the truth. In my book, he no longer has any credibilty.
Plus, I don't think that genocide has the bandwidth to accomodate it anymore. It's only on a T1 I believe, and I think that PS was getting up to 8 GB of transfer a day.
That doesn't stop them being a bunch of criminals. This kind of attitude does not help.
"I want to use software that doesn't suck." - ESR
"All software that isn't free sucks." - RMS
Gay Pee is a pathetic college dropout who never did any work and has attached himself annoyingly to the cracking community. Nobody wants you around Gay Pee! You're feed for the pseudo-intellectual and the newby. Go suck ass over in Redmond or something you annoying little chihuahua
Actually he has a 33.6 acording to one of his posts, so it would have taken a really long time. I do think not keeping his school stuff at home was a bad idea though.
-matt
I am kicking myself for not doing a getwww of packet storm security. They should have setup a mirror. Too bad about his school work though they should return at least that to him.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
I agree slander is lousy, but he had a good site with a great deal of information. Its a shame to see it go. I do regular security audits on my network 500 hosts + and I run penetration tests using these sites as references, seeing a large library of exploits and information go is sad. PacketStorm used to update each date too, unlike
rootshell which seems to fall asleep every month.
Rootshell is also rather incomplete when looking for vulnerabilities. I hope fydor updates exploit world soon.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Everyone seems to be missing the whole point to this whole fiasco -- these two people are just trying to get public attention by trying to get the entire planet involved in their little skirmish. I remember about a couple of years ago when JP's original AntiOnline server was shut down by his college (pitt.edu) because the content was considered inappropriate by the college and we can clearly see that he is now trying to make his past situation the same for Ken Williams. There are also several hundred clues that I have found out that tell me that JP is a very unliked individual in the "underground community" which is an oxymoron in itself considering most of the people who claim to be in this community are always trying to get public attention by whoring themselves out to the press (i.e. Pete Shipley, Se7en, Brian Martin, route, Carol Meinel, John Vranesevich, etc...). There are also several clues that tell me that alot of people try to take what JP says out of context to discredit him and this really pisses me off because these people are doing exactly the same thing JP is and it is really does not help in ther vendetta against him. /JP directory at www.Genocide2600.com/JP I have seen that JP was actually wronged by these people and that Harvard's actions were justified and that they should not even be involved in JP and Ken's fiasco.
Then there are clues that tell me that JP is a self-centered egomaniac who deserves what he gets and his contradictive statements make him look bad in everyone's eyes. I can also see that Ken Williams and his friends has tried to twist the truth to make it look like only JP is in the wrong but after looking at the supposed mirror of the
If only we stopped giving in to our crab mentality and refrain from trying to bring people down and just worry about more serious things such as helping the Open Source community, making the public aware of security issues, and to advance in scientific studies we would be in a better shape than the next inhabited star system in the universe.
It's pretty clear that we're receiving only one side of the story here. There's no way Harvard would destroy all of the contents of this site if there's legal action coming. They know better.
/. finds the rest of the story I'd love to hear about it.
The claim that he's going to get kicked out of school is rather dubious as well, Getting sued is not grounds for removal at any school I've ever heard of (Heck I know of people who were sued by their own school and still graduated), sure it's possible, but there has to be something else going on here. All you students go read your student code of conduct and tell me about the part where you're automatically kicked out of school for being accused of something.
If someone on
-Rich
That's a strong point. Wouldn't it seem that if legal action was coming in, destroying the evidence beforehand could be viewed as admitting guilt? Wasn't there some fairly famous precedent... what was it called... water-something...Meanwhile, I hardly see the logic in bringing down a HUGE site, just because there were complaints about some of the content. At any rate, it seems like the complaints were about the /jp directory, so why didn't they just remove that? Seems like a fishy deal...gotta feel bad for the guy, the email especially brings a tear.
This story points out the flip side. Anyone who publishes on the Web, or who helps someone else publish on the Web, is exposed to the same legal risks that paper-and-ink publishers have.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
The fixed link is over here.
Let me get this straight. Because AntiOnline is threatening legal action, Harvard is destroying all copies of the relevant data? Completely apart from whether or not this legal action has any merit, couldn't Harvard get in a lot more trouble for destroying evidence in a suit than they are likely to face in the suit itself?
Weblogging Considered Harmful:
Any DNS lookup I do fails, even trying to get it directly from their dns servers...
--
You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me.
I really can't fault him for not making backups. Backups were made on a regular basis, by the Sysadmins at Harvard. If he made any mistake it was that he trusted Harvard
How fesable is it for him to make backups of 3+gb worth of data that's all on a remote server. How often should he have backed up? given a 56k modem connection to the net how frequently could he back up if he were downloading CONSTANTLY, probably once every other day or so. His link is probably faster than that, but 3gb is a lot to be backing up like that. I'm sorry for his loss, and sorry that the admins at Harvord are being such morons.
-Ted
Looks like the /. effect strikes again. Either that, or someone has taken "care" of antionline. Waiting to read their "allegations" before I make a reply. But I agree that destroying ALL of the Packet Storm data is wrong on Harvard's part. Even if their "stellar" image were tarnished by any controversy, they would get over it. It *IS* Harvard afterall.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
He's just a scared kid who talks big. Go pay him and his friends a visit on #hackphreak on undernet...You will see what these people are really like.
Let's face it boys and girls, these two are not very likeable characters. Neither one of these guys will win contests for likeablity. But like what happens when most things come through this forum, we shoot first, ask questions latter.
FACT: I doubt Harvard wouldnt have looked at the link on the site before the pulled the page. More then likely it was full of alot of the crap that was said about it or Harvard would have said to go screw yourself. Being from a private university, appearances must be kept up. In fact, here where I goto school three staff members were fired for posting a Playboy nude of Pamela Andersen. Harvard's covering their ass.
FACT: These two have had a long running feud between each other and this a pissing contest. However, somebody got caught were their pants down this time. I doubt anybody here would have want their work copied like antionline has been for the past how many months by packetstorm.
FACT: I doubt the FBI, Air Force, Computer Associates as well as numerous others would have put their trust into someone who they didnt throughly check out.
My point, grab both sides of the story before you start taking sides. Both of these sites have been credits to web but when they dengerate to this stuff like making threats or taking each others sites down, it just feeds the fire. This is a pissing contest plain and simple. Nothing less and nothing more. Pack up the stuff and move on.
Hangtime
1. http://www.attrition.org, various random "hackers", and possibly Packetstorm have been dissing JP (and vice versa) for a while. He claims they are malicious hackers and script kiddies, they claim he is clueless and a careless self-aggrandizing journalist.
2. This is purely subjective, but I have heard a lot of good comments being made about
Packetstorm on this discussion and not many good comments about JP.
3. I would love to know the actual root of their conflict and why exactly they are going
after each other like this. I don't think we have gotten the full truth from either side.
Conclusion: This is just another episode in "Hacker Wars:The Phantom Lawsuit" (Or maybe
Script Kiddie Wars?)
The only reason all cover-ups appear to fail is that you never hear about the ones that succeed.
Okay. Perhaps the univeristy acted harshly. But from my point of view, if someone was hosting something on my network, because one of my staff let him (who didn't have the authority to, and the network admin probably DOESN'T have the authority to delegate university resources wherever he feels like it), and I was threatened with a lawsuit, I would say 'delete it all, this isn't our problem'.
No, I probably woulnd't bother erasing all the backups, because that is a PAIN and makes extra work.
Yes, the guy who's site was gone should have had a backup. It's not your web-hoster's responsibility, generally, to keep backups of your site for you.
Yes, anti-online might be bad.. but you know what? I've been at this game for 15 years now. You can drop lots of names that I understand.. All the cDc fellows have done many many great things that added to my enjoyment of the computer world, for instance. Names like Kevin Mitnick that actually stand for something, there are lots of them. But who are these antionline people? Or packetstorm?
All I see are a bunch of kids who like calling themselves 'security' experts.. why, because they hacked some sites? because they know some exploits they farmed out of the net like wild mushrooms in the forest? Yes, some of them put up nice sites, collect information.. but then they go on big slander campaigns against each other.
You knwo what? I couldn't care less if Attrition.org says antionline.com violated some stupid copyrights. None of this is REAL! Run a site, brag lots, sign your mail as the 'founder' of some group/site/whatever... GET A JOB! GET A LIFE!
Someone in a post here on Slashdot mentioned the l0pht had been accused of something....
how does L0pht Heavy Industries, the old cDc guys, compare with ANYONE who is new? They do REAL things, they work HARD at it, and they have been doing so for a LONG LONG TIME! And they STILL don't go around bragging like a bunch of kids.
Damn. What is the world coming to.
--
mindstrm
Founder of nothing.
Member of nothing.
I myself have personally spoken to JP. This man is compeletely insane. He threatened me with legal action for criticizing him in the IRC channel #hackphreak on Undernet, I suspect he caused my previous ISP to terminate my account due to so-called "IRC abuse," and he generally acts like a child when he doesn't get his way. At one point, he was the senior operator in #hackphreak, at which time he proceeded to ban entire ISPs, until he was removed from the channel for banning *!*@*. This man cannot accept any sort of criticism, however he deals it out constantly. He has criticized several other news/underground sites, repeatedly. But the thing which bothers me the most is how he claims to be a member of the "underground" community, while all he has served to do so far is to hurt it. Finally, as many others have said, the sad thing is JP has broken no laws. This man is devoid of morals, but there is really nothing anyone can do. The only thing I can do is suggest that you do not visit AntiOnline, and pray for JP to be hit by lightning. Linux is like a dog. It's fun to play with, but you wouldn't want to take it home.
With Don Lapre's amazing money-making plan, I am now able to live in this cardboard box with no worries at all!
Souns like Ken might want to contact the ACLU about some legal help. IF this is considered a free speech issue they might want to help.
PacketStorm was quite clearly in violation of Harvard's acceptable use policies, which, like most universities, actually permit VERY LITTLE. Their correct response should have been to cut off the server from the outside world, allow Ken to get his data, and be done with it. .) to uphold, trustees to satisfy, and lawyers to please.
Their real mistake was inviting him onto the network in the first place. A site like this, operated by one person and centering on controversial issues like cracking and information security, is bound to attract unwanted attention. It should NOT be located on the net of a private, conservative university which has a repuation (albeit not a good one among people I know. .
--JZ
Amazing. Antionline's legal facism strikes again. Criticism can not be had of this Amazingly Wonderful Security Site, and it's Amazingly Wonderful Contributors because as we all know, Antionline is always right, always will be, and... oops... damn, I must have crossed over from another universe again.
It's almost funny how antionline can claim to be what it is, when all it does is try to shut down competitors. I've never seen anything useful come out of antionline, and I doubt I ever will. Packet Storm actually had something to contribute, and while I didn't visit the site that often, this really ticks me off.
Of course, Harvard is trying to cover their ass, as opposed to supporting packet storm, because they're scared of the controversy. It's kind of sad when everyone around is scared to protect first amendment rights. But then hey, I'd be screamin my head off in pure terror if anything that had to do with Ms. Meinel even thought about me.
I toggled a toggle and buttoned a button, but when I got done, I was done doin' nothin'.
The really sad part about this is that his school work was on there, and is now gone. The fact that this could end his grad school career because of the timidity of Harvard AND the increasingly idiotic actions of JP. If JP has his way, it looks like all security sites will have to disappear. Even if JP has to hire a hacker to frame them.
obscure images/cDc obscure@cultdeadcow.com www.cultdeadcow.com
Let me begin by saying that something libelous is quit bad for the person expecially if it means that his family is involved. This response must be temered with one of rationality about the event. Did he really suffer any harm. Seems to me that this person shutting down his server and "taking away his livelyhood" from his page is rather harsh.
In addition I am an ardent person who believes that Acceptable Use Policies (AUP's) are bad. No worse than bad just plain authoratarian and more like natzi's or maybe Doestyveski's Grand Inquisitor. It really seems that people have to force their belief's down other's throat's in this world. Every time I ever have to use a public computing service it makes my blood boil that I have to put up with stupid, inane rules that have little practal importance. For example I pay tax dollars to fund things like libraries to have a better computer than I have at home. Then they turn around and say that I cannot do this and that. It just makes me want to strike at the heart of them when I do get something better (get $100,000 and buy a top of the line machine with the finest network protocols and produce a better FREER service than they offer). This guy seems to be the type of person that many sysadmins are just a restrictive loud BOFH. Most of the people I have met in this area are quite (how shall we put this delicately.....evil) they were rude to me to the point of me giving the name of the lawyer who would contact them. They act like everything is their private fiefdom and no one has any rights. They speak of users like they were some sort of permanent underclass of people who just don't have a clue. I really thought that someone like harvard with people paying >$30,000US a year to go there would be above siding with a fool like this. It seems that all network admins are just not in tune with what it means to be fair, pleaneant, or knowledgable with anyone.
I know for this if I ever get a job like that I will make sure on my grave that I will make sure people get a fair shake and not tossed around like so much trash. I say why dosn't harvard grow up and give people more freedom!
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
I would feel rather flattered that I would be well known enough that someone wasted a couple days in photoshop making me look like a homosexual just to embarass me?? Is that supposed to be emparassing? This guy must be delusional
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
It could be that sysadmins have the mentality they do due to limited size of genitals so they compensate by administering BIG machines. Just a thought.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Basically it is because not a whole lot of people have the same views. The same effect can be achieved with womeone who wears a pink shirt to work instead of a white one (like all the other people). Just draws a reaction.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Yeah it was however it is still nice to get the word out to people who don't view the whole ball of wax (-1 comment threshold) like me.
Incidently I might act as a partial mirror if I could just out of principle of the thing.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
II. FreeServers.com may terminate user accounts at any time, without notice for conduct that violates these guidelines, or
- -
for any other reason, and may terminate user accounts and delete any and all user information for conduct that FreeServers.com
believes is harmful to the business of FreeServers.com, or any of its users, or partners. Pages found in violation of these items
may be subject to immediate deletion and removal from our servers, and their webmasters subject to banishment from the
Freeservers network. The following is a non-exclusive list of content and behaviors that are UNACCEPTABLE on
FreeServers.com.
b. Content that condones, promotes, contains, or links to warez, cracks, hacks, their associated
utilities, or other piracy related information, whether for educational purposes or not.
-----------------------------------------------
I guess that rules out the mirror thing damn
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
How was material submitted to the site?? How could anyone get pictures of anything like that on there?? Just dosn't add up. I say just start having everyone go at one time say about 0700 EST to his site and wait til it crashes that might change the tune a little
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Actually the people that I have met have all been windows/mac/netware admins. Never really have seen a true unix admin in the flesh though.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
It's not evidence until there's a suit, right? Except for some things that are already required by law to be kept on file (financial records, etc.), wouldn't this be legal? Or is the threat of a suit enough to make this a crime?
By the same reasoning, my company uses a POP3 server, mandates no mail be left on the server, and does not back up the directories where actual mail resides.
Someone should shut Anti-Online down using the same tactics. They shouldn't be allowed (by the community, of course it's legal) to narc all their alleged contacts, then get paid for it.
With things like Google and Alexa, aren't there a few places where one might find this data available for retrieval? And doesn't that make destroying evidence a whole lot harder?
Looking at the various content of the different "ANTI" Anti-online sites, and AntiOnline itself,
looking up personal information on the people involved, it seems simply - Childish. How old is JP? If he was a underclassmen in High School in 96, it's reasonable to assume he is just starting college or is a senior in High School.. If anything this just leads one to ponder the overall
maturity level of JP.. "Attack me and I harrass you.." and then to do something as silly as go up against MSNBC, who, I'm sorry to say, have a whole department of Lawyers.. In a real lawsuit, who do you think would win? It's really just immature and silly.
Accually I thought so too (read my comment)
But if you look at packetstorm.genocide2600.com
you find out that he did say this (apparently revised his statement a few times) but this is exactly what was quoted by JP minus the cuss words in which he notes where removed at the bottom of the page.
Could someone post an email address please?
I want to let them know that Packet Storm was a VERY valuable ANTI-hacker tool for me, as a professional sysadmin, and that I strongly object to their onesided handling of this. Packet Storm contained 'antiJP' stuff long before it moved to Harvards domain, and deleting the content was more than wrong, it was criminal.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
Ken's reply was that that Harvard's claim was itself libelous, and he intends to hire legal eagles in response.
Harvard's playing this as if they didn't nothing wrong, which is nonsense. "Sexually" related material? Out of How many GIGS of Data, they found something they didn't like? Sorry, I think not. I think they yanked it without ever looking at it to start with - they just pulled the plug on a single (JP) complaint.
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
To: uis-webadmin@harvard.edu, provost@harvard.edu
Subject: Letter of Protest
Dear CAIS and the Harvard Computing Community,
I am writing to protest strongly Harvard's confiscation of Ken Williams' site PacketStorm.
Ken is one of the brightest talents in the security community, has worked tirelessly for years on security related issues and has freely shared his
work with the rest of the community.
To pull his site and prohibit him from accessing his own content is outrageous.
As a professional network administrator, I used his site services at least once a day, and found his content to be professional accurate and trustworthy. His content helped me PROTECT MY NETWORK, and according to all reports, you've destroyed all of his content, his hard work, and a RESOURCE that I used. This is absurd. His content, regardless of libelousness, existed BEFORE it came to Harvard's domain, and libel suit threat aside, destroying data like that is a crime. If you wanted it removed, pull the plug on the machine, and RETURN the data to Ken.
It is my sincere hope that you will reconsider your actions.
Thank you for your considerate attention.
Sincerely,
Seth Cohn
network administrator of [removed for privacy]
Help achieve Liberty in your lifetime - join the Free State Project - http://www.freestateproject.org
when you make an HTTP requrest, you send more then just the URL you want (usualy) you also send aditional information, including the page that you linked from, so it wouldn't requre any javascript to implement a page like that....
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Just open a new browser window, and paist the URL, (I also did it from IE to netscape...)
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
people comming from slashdot........
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
"People in this country have the right to say and do whatever they please, unless that is, what they say and do infringes on the rights of another - anonymous." WOW, I guess we should all live by that then, since it was written by "anonymous"... with all the contributions that "anonyomous" has made to western civilization. And seeing how "anonyomous" Was pivotil in the creations of the 1st amendment. it's to bad what happend to "anonyomous" in the end, ironic, though, considering....
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Sorry, I just wanted to kill this side thread as quickly as possible :)
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
has attached himself annoyingly to the cracking community. Nobody wants you around Gay Pee!
AHAHAHAHAHAHA
rejected by the Cracking comunity...
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Hasn't anyone else though that up?
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Nothing is better then java, period
(this is sarcasm, btw)
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Yeh, but with a system like that, how are you going to stop things like kiddie porn?
there could be some problems with systems like that...
and what about SPAM???
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
One of the ways that Alan Turning thought that someone could lose a turning test would be to use ESP to find out whether or not it was a person or a box.... hrm
_
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
If you were that well in with the main sys-admin who you hosted your site/server...surely you would ask for your own backup image once a month !!!
3Gb is a shit load to lose, all for the cost of a DAT/DLT etc.... and for your own peace of mind its always nice to have .
poor guy
this biz about blocking linking from slashdot, hackernews, etc. proves what type of site antionline is - designed for skr1pt k1dd13s only. jp _wishes_ he had the cred of slashdot..
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
is obviously the seminal issue in determing who is right in this dispute ;)
-- your knees hurt, don't they?
Heres the mail John Vranesevich says he sent to Harward. If this mail is what made Harward close the site, then I'm all on Vranesevich's side. The important thing to remember, though, is we don't know!
(1) English is not my first language, so I'm sorry if this is the right word, what I mean is e.g. publishes fake porn images of me.
Obviously you haven't heard of WGet. It performs similar functions to WebWhacker, etc. Open source, with a win32 version available. Lets you spoof a version reply if necessary. Get it at your favorite GNU tool website.
I never got a chance to see the material that John Vranesevich says were "blatant threats against members of my immediate family, myself, and my company." Can anyone fill the rest of us in on what the material was? Without seeing the evidence it's impossible to make a call of whether the material was inappropriate. Either way, Harvard's reaction seems like overkill.
The Hacker News Network has more information with explanation of why the data has been destoryed as well as letters from Ken Williams. etc.
My problem here is that they ( may have ) invited Packet Storm onto their computers and somehow gained intellectual rights to their data . Whether the data was in part copyrighted material is another matter altogether . Harvard could have simply kicked him off . Destroying the backups .... just incase the site was using RDNS lookups ) .
was totally unneeded if they were covering their butts . Furthermore , Antionline made it very difficult for me to access their site to see what was going on .
I had to disable cookies and clear my cache before I could get ot www.antionline.com .
I had already tried to reconnect ( figuring that I could get a new IP address from my provider that way
I don't know . The tactics involved were a little
reminiscent of Scientology .
And remember :
Slander is the promotion of PROVABLY untrue statements .
Your squire
Squireson
squireson@bigfoot.com
While I agree that Harvard is making a big mistake shutting the whole site down, and by destroying the site itself, the fact remains that we don't really know what the hey is going on. We've got Kevin's righteous indignation side of the story, and a reply from the now-vilified JP. No one here(at least no one admitting) has seen the offensive material, or knows what happened behind the scenes to get to this point. Yeah, it sucks that the site is down, but WE DON'T HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION. For instance, two days ago, around my office, people were talking about helping that "nice little Honduran boy who made it all the way from Central America to New York!" Come to find out the kid lived in Miami, and was only smart enough to make up a nicely believable story. Moral: Give the story time to develop, without jumping right on the banner headline: "POPULAR SITE SHUT DOWN BY JERK!"
Amen! My first question was why the site's maintainer didn't have his own backup, and my second question is why he wasn't hosting the site himself or paying someone to host it, rather than leeching Harvard's bandwidth.
The ACLU is not a substitute for your own legal counsel. They are not "happy to provide pro-bono legal services to defend the first amendment" in the general sense that you imply. Many ACLU participating attorneys may in fact be happy to provide pro bono (no hyphen) defense of the First Amendment, but the ACLU itself is interested in setting precedent that will broadly affect the legal system, not in fighting every fight themselves. More notably, this isn't a First Amendment issue. The government is not attempting to limit anyone's free speech. If the site were being hosted by a paid webhosting provider, there would be a potential breach of contract case, but since Harvard was donating its equipment and bandwidth and chose (rather rudely, perhaps) to cease donating said items. I've read the material on attrition.org, and a number of press pieces on the antionline disputes. I'm withholding judgement until I can see antionline for myself again. Do me a favor, join the ACLU and learn about it and help the group in its defense of the Bill Of Rights. If you do that, I doubt you'll continue to offer their services as you do in this post.
Since Packet Storm has died (just figured out where I'm not going to collage!) is there any place else that had that kind of thing? It was an invaluble resource, and now it's gone. This bites big time! I think it's time to make a trip to Pittsburg. --Sea
Being biggoted is no better than what Mr Vranesevich has allegedly done. It is offensive and ignorant to be homophobic. Please consider this in the future, and think about what it would be like for someone to discriminate against you because of who you are.
itachi
A gentleman from Harvard Net Ops was kind enough to reply to a email I had sent him earlier in the day, and he included a Harvard press release. They are in fact going to return the full contents of the site to Ken Williams, although the site is no longer welcome on the Harvard network. The decision was in fact based on the fact that there were "sexually-related material and personal attacks on an individual not affiliated with the University". Which does change the situation, IMHO. I do home that a new home can be found for PacketStorm, but Harvard's decision is much more understandable now.
itachi
That site was one of the best resources on the 'net for security related stuff. I used it on a regualr basis along with several others to keep tabs on what was coming out in the way of exploits. As a sys admin in the INFOSEC field the loss of this site hurts. JP's AntiOnline crap site isn't worth a damn and his antics to get this site removed are pathetic.
your statements concerning this site make it obvious that you've not been paying attention and that you've never visited Packet Storm prior to it's being pulled. You're much the poorer for it....
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Ken's site was pretty dynamic and he just overhauled the entire thing when he moved it over to Harvard's server (grr). Files and exploits were posted on a daily basis if not hourly. On top of that mirroring it for yourself might have been complicated by the fact that his site blocked tools that honored "robot rules" (right term?). Tools that I attempted to use to suck down interesting files during off hours were blocked by his site - yeah these were Wintel tools. Obviously there are tools that would've ignored the rules but having to find such a tool would've made mirroring things harder.
This is a REAL shame and I'm most distressed. If it comes to a legal fight for Ken I'll be contributing to any fund that gets setup. A shame he didn't provide any addresses for the schmoes at Harvard that claim to be destroying his data before he has a chance to stop them - something smells badly here.
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
=======================
* S T A T E M E N T *
As a service to the Internet community, Harvard agreed to host a Packet Storm Security Website for security-related materials only. Without Harvard's knowledge, unrelated content was put on the Harvard server, including sexually-related material and personal attacks on an individual not affiliated with the University. A Harvard administrative site focused on security issues is not the forum for this type of material. We are returning the content on the site and hope that Packet Storm will make its security tools available through its own Website.
Joe Wrinn
Director
Office of News and Public Affairs
Seems to me that harvard is giving Ken his site back.
If the events that Ken describe are accurate, his situation does indeed suck. However, there are lessons to be learned here.
1) ALWAYS BACKUP DATA. This seems to burn you whenever you don't.
2) Always have a written contract. Harvard is pulling the site because he isn't a student. Because his contract wasn't written, and he isn't a student, Harvard doesn't have any reason not to pull the site without a hearing. The site shouldn't have been there in the first place, at least, in the eyes of Harvard. I'm sure Antionline knew this. (Strange, I can't connect to their site now... Timeouts and all...)
3) ALWAYS BACKUP DATA - this goes for regular users too. If you have a site you love with information you love, backup that information, if nothing else.
I truly feel for Ken. He seems to have gotten a shaft that few of us can ever imagine receiving. I would reccomend that he get a good lawyer, fight the charges, and file a counter suit. If he has been acedemically, financially, and personally destroyed by this, and their claims have no merit, then he should be able to punish them legally.
However, I doubt he has any case against Harvard. It *IS* Harvard, and he isn't a student. They're just wiping their hands clean. What can you expect from the school that has helped shape the dismal state of the Americal Legal System?
His only hope is that Jeff Gray makes a backup of his data before officially destroying it, and sometime in the future, Ken receives a complete backup of his data, site and all, from an anonymous user. If Jeff is all Ken cracks him up to be, I wouldn't doubt that this has already been done.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
It used to be www.genocide2600.com/~tattooman/, why cant it just go back there?
It sure didnt last very long at harvard, did the new file part every get working?
I wrote to Leo Donnelly, one of the network engineer/admins at Harvard (as quoted in the original email), and he informed me that the files are NOT (no longer?) being destroyed.
To quote...
All of the site's data is being returned to the owner. An offical statement will be released later today. NO data was destroyed and the owner is aware the data is being returned.
In any we can confirm that is a the right one -letter... went to the place a couple of times, and never saw it the supposed /jp site linked... then again i went for the real content (thing which antionline never had, and im damn sure IT WILL NEVER have... ). But im fair, lets assume there was such a a site (im not sure) well... damn, sick id be mad as hell. So what i do?
talked it calmed and go fix things with Ken!
not run away to mommy harvard... your adopted son is messing with me...
jp out there is more serious, than in your own little world. meaby if u didn't have such a hated site that u'd have to spend 24/7 guarding the thing better than the pentagon because everyone that has a linux box, and has heard about u tries to hack it... u would know that out there, behind yer desk, in yer bought site... there is a real world
It's now 11:24am and www.antionline is now off the web. They cannot be reached. Thank you.
As for the rest of my message, Ken was a very good to all of us. He was one reason I moved over to Linux. I find it great that HackerNewsNetwork and the cDc both had something to say Slashdot. Hackers are like a mob family. Treat them well and you can enjoy great riches, like Packet Storm, 2600's Off the Hook, and DefCon, but if you cross us, you will be fitted for electronic cement shoes.
As for some of the comments about mirrors, Ken didn't allow them, so no one had them. The security at Packet Storm was tight, and JP knew that. The only way he could get rid of Ken was to get Harvard to pull the plug.
I was even thinking about going there, just to work with Ken, or to talk to him. That may not happen now.
From the konsole of,
Louis Blue
P.S. The next "Hacker's Jargon File" needs to have a place in it for Packet Storm Security and Ken Williams, and how JP made it all go away.
Speaking as a UNIX SA, and a former head SA of an ISP, I couldn't imagine running a service without one.
For some ungodly reason, people have to be told that they can't send 'get rich quick' mails to millions of people, that they aren't allowed to use their shell account to pingflood other internet users, and that they are not permitted to fill their home directory with gigs of warez and give their login to everyone on IRC.
If you terminated the account of someone who just finished spamming half a million internet users and you did not have an AUP in place the spamming user could SUE you for disconnecting his service.
AUP's protect both who run the system and those who use it from those who abuse it.
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
Actually, I expect that Ken had every right to rant and rave about JP on his web site. Generally, saying nasty opinions about someone is acceptable. HOWEVER, the letter by JP also mentions that Ken apparently reflected/copied large chunks of copyrighted information from JP's site. This is known to be unacceptable behavior. So, if in fact this was the case (I haven't seen the site), Harvard had a right and in fact an obligation to remove the site or those portions of the site that were infringing. This was brought out quite clearly in the Netcom v. RTC case (http://www.eff.org/pub/Censorship/CoS_v_the_Net/w hyte_netcom_112195.order), when the ISP is notified of infringing activity, they must take action. Otherwise, they may be held liable for contributory copyright infringement.
On the other hand, I do not believe for a second that Harvard actually destroyed the backups. I expect they only removed access to the site from the Web. This is a legitimate step to protect themselves from suit. If they destroyed the backups (or the original, in fact) they could be implicated in destroying evidence. After all, at that point, if there is a suit, JP could not prove that such a site existed and/or had infringing materials. So, Harvard probably told Ken that the site was destroyed to keep him from badgering the SysAdmin who allowed him to put up the site for a copy. (which I expect he could still do.)
In any case, there are two sides to this issue. And we have only seen one, and haven't seen the original site that caused all this trouble.
I doubt that Harvard would bring a suit. Few people are willing to commit perjury, and the SysAdmin who invited Kevin would be sure to testify. So Ken shouldn't worry too much.
As a side note, the ACLU and others are happy to provide pro-bono (that's free for you non-legal types out there) legal services to defend the first amendment.
He *did* have backups. Didn't you read where Harvard was in the process of destroying all backups? The data would have been fine in the event of a simple server crash.
"Please don't sigh like that, maam"
But he doesn't make backups of his important data?
JP may be an ass, but KW's a twit. The loss of his data is his own fault. What if the server simply crashed? Who would he blame then? Not himself, it seems.
Seems to me some of his sniveling should be directed at his own ineptness.
Maybe somebody should archive Slashdot...I'm sure there's something JP (or anybody else) might not like here...
This is ridiculous...
I hope, that if this is actually true, and there isn't some tremendous mitigating circumstance explaining Harvard's bizarre and rash actions, that they and AO get sued into the dirt...
The net community must show that this kind of bullying will not be permitted in our community
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
"Where do most of the child molestors come from ?"- --
-----------------------------------------------
Where?
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
That .history log was a hoot but towards the
end I started to doubt its plausibility.
"write robbie ha ha i nuked him"?
Does that sound like something _anyone_ would
type (except in a work of fiction)?
IMHO, libel laws are silly. A very wise person
once said:
"Sticks and stones may break my bones/
But [words/names] will never hurt me."
We all learned this in the first grade, but once
people realize you can make money from being
"libelled" this fundamental lesson in life gets
forgotten. Threats are one thing but grown adults
should be able to cope with being mocked and
ridiculed.
On another front, this guy is fairly well-known
in the security realm (mostly because of his own
self-promotion) which makes me think that he
is a "public figure" (at least within the
community in question). Isn't it the law in the
USA that public figures have less protection under
these types of laws (libel/slander/etc)? Esp
when the person attempts to make themselves
very visible.
Also, what kind of "threats" could be stored on
a webserver? Don't you have to inform the target
of your evil intentions for it to become a threat?
It looks like JP wasn't on out of the loop about
http://packetstorm.harvard.edu/jp/ so no one was
actually threating him...
LOL... oh god, I guess /. is next on JP's hit list.
"Greetings Anonymous Coward,
First of all let me say that I went to a great
deal of trouble trying to locate the person
in charge of www.slashdot.org. Now that I've
found you, I'd like to draw your attention..."
Well, the Harvard authorities are reportedly returning the site. Presumably it will be restored, somewhere. Past experience says that the controversy will be resolved in and by the glare of publicity and concentrated attention.
One credible? The other? Both, despite specific disagreements and rivalries? Neither?
After repeated attempts to view this site earlier, I finally got through and was able to read the posted statement.
/. keeps visiting the site it will probably go back down again. When I was browsing around some pages took a couple of tries to open. Serves them right...
It's appalling that jp claims to be a major supporter of free speech and then when he is slighted decides that somehow this is against the law.
If
"We have word that the PacketStorm site has not been deleted and that Harvard University will be supplying Ken Williams with a back up copy of the site. "
-- as yet unconfirmed, from www.hackernews.com
-- r . m o s q u i t o --
I noticed when checking Ken Williams letter posted on both sites AntiOnline and HNN that there were some discrepancies. See for yourself: http://www.antionline.com/archives/editorials/pack etstorm.html and http://www.hackernews.com/orig/williams.html Scary how the AntiOnline version is tweaked just enough to make Ken Williams seem vengeful and juvenile.
If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.
Kill the JayPee bastard....that sonuva bitch..
he ruined my daily round of internet meal..
boycott antionline.com
I just received an email from Leo Donnely at Harvard re: packetstorm saying the following:
ALL of the sites content is being returned to the owner and the owner is aware of this. A formal statement will be issued later today.
Regards,
Leo.
Should be interesting to see what they say.
Obviously this guy is clueless to the situation. And it should also be noted that anyone in their right mind would know that JP's petty threats mean jack sh!t. I get them all the time for running AntiOffline and I could care less what JP and his college dropout lawyer squad say or think. Hopefully Ken can retrieve his school work which is absolutely the most important part. Secondly I hope that this moronic childish, please-dont-call-me names outburst by that fag doesnt tarnish Ken's reputation which I highly doubt. Anyone who knows Ken, who has interacted with him knows he's a great guy 100%. Anyone else who begs to differ would be lying to themselves.
xp0rnstar Packet Storm Fan Club
sil@antioffline.com
sil@macroshaft.org
Want Root?
Better yet, how about asking them if they would treat a student in this fashion?
Don't be a non-conformist student at harvard and annoy a litigious individual, they'll take your $50,000 then kick you out with a tarnished reputation, no degree, and a bunch of failing marks!
So ask them, if you're a prospective student or graduate student, mention that too.
Two questions, was this what was actually sent? It might be.
Next question, were there such pics as he described on the site? If there were then harvard was right to drop the server, but not the contents of the server, immediately. If there weren't, and those pics were part of JB's paranoid imagination, then harvard and JB should be slapped, hard.
Likely JB chose just the right words to get harvard to drop it immediately, without getting them to check if the accusations actually were true, to force them to act as if they were true. Had harvard not dropped it immediately, and the accusations were true, then JB might have probable cause for suing.
Harvard is not completely to blame, but they completely mishandled it. Had they just taken it down momentarily to VERIFY the accusations and consult, likely nothing would have happened. But rather JP and their own nature caused them to act heavy-handed, and they did.
If there is one thing that the internet despises, its heavy handed behaivor companies or organizations squashing the little guy.
Funny how some people who claim they believe in free speech tend to flip-flop when it comes to speech they don't like, huh?
As far as I can see, destroying backups is illegal in two respects: 1) They are destroying evidence 2) They are destroying data that doesn't belong to themselves. This puts Harvard and JP in the same league as the crackers that they claim to deride and hate.
Packstorm is one of the top Security Site and the biggest free Security Site(as far as I know of)
Packetstorm is visited often by many of top security company employees as a requirement by their company.
So, I'm hoping some of those company
will stand up and help ken to kick antionline's butt(opps, or should I say F#ck antionline and harvard up)
As a security professional PacketStorm was a huge resource with huge amounts of work put into it, and was really an asset to those working in the industry.
:P
I feel that this whole issue is utter scandal and bullshit, and am completely outraged at the current actions of JP, Carolyn Meinel and the backstabbing nature of Harvard. Ken Williams may not even reclaim his acdemic work!
This is utter outrage and I believe that the community is not going to take this well. I guess antionline is down cos JP dont want it to be fdisked a few times
jus
From what I understand, Harvard hasn't actually deleted the files and will be getting them back to him. It may well be that they're no longer hosting it, but it'd be the trashing of his stuff that would worry me most. ...JZ