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Thread: What happened to Antionline!?! -- JP and crew

  1. #1
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    What happened to Antionline!?! -- JP and crew

    JP and crew,
    I've been following this site for at least four years or so. I happened across it sometime during my senior year of high school, followed it throught four years of college, and even now at my real job I read it occassionally. I've cited it for presentations on information warfare for the ROTC department at my school, for papers on information and national security, and to friends who were interested in learning some basic security information.
    As a result, I've seen the previous few versions of the site and it seemed that when you (JP) weren't making a dime off of any of this, you actually posted things instead of just mirroring articles from other sites. I would impatiently wait each week to read the mailbag first thing on Mondays. It made them pass so quickly. I would read and be entertained by your rants (whether they were off base or not, they're usually funny). Don't get me wrong, I NEVER agreed with eveything you said or say (like the whole democrat thing), but it was always entertaining and interesting to have another viewpoint.
    Now, as far as I'm concerned, there's not much on this site to keep me coming back more than once a month or so. The news articles seem to be mostly from the AP wire or mirrored from other sites, which I read cnn, msnbc, wsj, and slashdot everyday anyway. The mailbag is sporadic at best and every three months at worst. The site seems to have been dumbed down. The person who has always been concerned about security and privacy now requires us to register to get the morsels that are of value. And now, on a Tuesday morning, the latest update listed on the main page is from LAST Wednesday, except for the crappy news articles.
    JP, I honestly appreciated the site more before you got your nifty offices (And yes, I do think they were nifty from the pictures that you put up quite awhile ago), but the last two versions of the site seem to be going downhill on information, analysis, and commentary. Did you know that Bush didn't choose a Tech Czar until just a few weeks ago? It seems as a democrat, you'd pick up on that and have a field day.

    I, for one, want the old Antionline and the old JP back. And for anyone who wants to flame me for this sentiment, get over it.

    binky

  2. #2
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    JP has expensive habits nowadays. In order to feed those expensive habits and to keep those nifty offices, he has to do contract work. Since that is the case, this website has to make revenue and JP has less time to develop the website. I still like the user interaction that we are now able to achieve. Perhaps you and Chris would like to create a better security website. I would like to see that.
    You\'re either a 0 or a 1, alive or dead

  3. #3
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    Greetings All:

    Well, maybe in a way he's right. Back when I was in highschool, and my year at Pitt (argh), I had a heck of a lot of time on my hands. I could write articles on a regular basis (and I am TRYING to get back to doing that, but it's tough).

    Now, let's face it, I'm out on my own, and have to earn a living.

    As visited as AntiOnline is (we may reach a half a million unique visitors this month), and as many hits as we get (probably 7 million this month), websites just don't pull in a ton of cash from ad revenue. You'll notice that a lot of security sites are slowly shifting to a paid subscription model (or "premium services" as they call it), and soon you'll have to pay for access to those "smallest little bits of useful information". I've vowed not to do that with AntiOnline.

    Add on top of that, the fact that a site like AntiOnline costs a fortune to run (for example, just buying the rights to "mirror news stories" costs us over $1,500 each month, not to mention hardware costs, software licenses, t1 lines, office space + utilities, staff, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.)

    Regardless, I still put as much time as I can into the site, and if I could work on it full time, I probably would.

    But, on top of the site, I'm also preparing for and doing lectures, making media appearances, and working on, at times, multiple defense department research contracts at once. Add on top of that the occasional consulting job, and needless to say, this keeps me busy.

    I recognized the lack of updates that the site was getting, so during the current time that I have between contracts, I've been investing my time into designing a new site. The idea with the new site, is simply that I'm not the only security minded person out there. If users could interact with one another, share their thoughts, opinions, advice, skills, etc., AntiOnline would be a far more valuable resource than if it was just me running my mouth alone.

    Granted, that paradigm shift will take a while for our users to get used to. Right now, we're still going through the "why the hell should I have to register", and the "why can't I just ftp to the downloads section and rape you that way" stage. Hopefully, we'll get past that.

    It's true, you can get a lot of the stuff that you see on AntiOnline from MSNBC, CNN, or the like. But I'll tell you what you can't get there: The type of intelligent, dedicated, resourceful, experienced, and interesting security-minded people that visit AntiOnline.

    All I have to do, is find a successful way of bringing these people out of their shells. Easier said than done....................................

  4. #4
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    Jp & Crew...
    Is it possible with whatever NDA's and NCA's that you're under to post some of these presentations and summaries of projects onto the site? I'm guessing that it's probably a bit difficult (I do contracting for misc gov agencies too...).
    I'll be the first to admit that I don't do any deep reading of the forums, but there are many interesting situations out there that I would love to hear a more hands-on, front line description of. Code Red is one of the things that has been heavily thrown about in the media without any true useful information being presented. As a result, you don't hear of many sysadmins telling of the fight they've had or creative things they've done to counter it (besides the Apache counter attack stuff).
    I think one of the most interesting things to me at this point would be a discussion among some of the professionals who have had to deal with hacks, who have fought to track down people, maybe a few who tried to fight back. I, for one, found the Hacker Profiling that you laid out quite awhile ago very interesting and useful.

    My 0.02,
    binky

  5. #5
    AO Antique pwaring's Avatar
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    How about letting other trusted users post news etc. outside the forums (i.e. proper news stories, their thoughts etc.) that could be kept on an archive that's updated every week?

    This would reduce the workload on JP whilst allowing AntiOnline to continue producing loads of decent security information. Even if JP had to moderate each article before it went live, it would mean the workload would be shared between 5 or more members instead of just one.

    This idea would benefit everyone - the users get more articles and the writers get the fame, prestige and recognition of having their work on AntiOnline.

    How about it?

    pwaring.
    Paul Waring - Web site design and development.

  6. #6
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    Greetings:

    Great Idea! That's why I had already thought of it

    Take a look on the main page, on the left hand side. You'll see a box called "Contribute". Under that, you'll see "Submit An Article". You can post articles there, they go up for moderation, then onto the front page!

  7. #7
    AO Antique pwaring's Avatar
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    Nice one! Now all I've got to do is find something to write about...

    Hmm, this might be a bit difficult!

    It looks like you've thought of everything JP.

    pwaring

    P.S. I'll be setting up my own site soon with a large section devoted to security anyway!
    Paul Waring - Web site design and development.

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