The State Of AntiOnline

[AngelicKnight]

Ok, time to bring the fresh blood up to speed again.

I'm so fascinated with these old stories of AO's "golden age". Is there any trace of the Attrition/AO rivalry that cab be found in the archives?

[KissCool]

You can search in www.attrition.org archives for some old angry text. But the "real" www.antioffline.com had been replaced by a real one (what makes me spectacularly laugh). It's sad.

You will discover what "terrible threat" JP was (irony inside).

edit: Stop! "Real" AntiOffline still exist! It is located here. It makes me nostalgic.
edit2: I apologize, albn. My edit impolitely crossed your post.

[albn]

http://www.antioffline.com/antionline.html

That's some funny stuff. KissCool, yeah, it does bring back fond memories. I am also taking my own advice and changing all the PDF's MsMittens made and making them browsable. Shouldn't take too long.

[er0k]

Tiger Shark: why does it matter? cause i wanted to? I apologize if the page loaded that many ms slower for you but geez.

and she was a nemesis to jp as she caused him problems in the past. and no i dont remember exactly what the problem was.

[Tiger Shark]

Erok: I guess I'm just trying to work out your brain.... Everyone could already see the whole of the OP's post, I was wondering why you felt a special desire to repost the whole damn thing simply so you could put a "two liner" underneath it..... You have adequately delineated you brain function with line one of your subsequent response...... Sad really, don't you think... That you have so little respect for others?

Look at the definition of the word nemesis. You use it wrongly. You could beat Carolyn! Many here today could too.... Carolyn was a FUD artist that didn't even know her "trade".... Well, I guess she did - she is a reporter that scared people - if you suckered for that then you have my condolences and I hope you will learn better in the future.

Erok... You spout opinion without source.... Show me some substance.....

[neel]

You don't like the thread so you start to act like a polite dickhead ?

(...thread - ...head, ahahaha)

[albn]

neel: Yeah, I find it kinda ironic he bitches about bitches when he bitches too.

[JP]

Greetings All:

I still troll the site on occasion, and came across this thread. I tend not to post or contribute at all, due to the way Jupiter decided to screw me over after acquiring the site. It was obvious that they wanted me to have nothing to do with AO, including contribute to it, and have basically done everyone they possibly could to turn me off from it. My non-compete runs out in a few months though. Not that I have any plans or anything... ;-)

However, I came across this thread, and was impressed by the ideas and opinions expressed in it by those who posted. So, for their sake, and for those who have remained active in the AntiOnline community, and who would like to see it evolve and grow, I figured that I would throw in my 2 cents. Take them for what they're worth, just about 2 cents:

What's Wrong With AntiOnline? Or, What Could Make It Better?

1. What made AntiOnline unique "back in the day", was best said by an ABC News reporter when he profiled the site. AntiOnline was a "Rick's Cafe In The Casablanca World Of Hacking". What did he mean by that? Basically, that we were in the unique position of being able to cull information from the underground world, from those who where causing the problems and doing the damage, and bring it out of the shadows to the rest of the world of computer administrators and assorted geeks. This no longer happens. There is no longer that conveyor belt of information and ideas from the criminal and underground side, to the "legitimate" computing world. That's why AntiOnline grew, that's why it was popular, and that's why you were constantly seeing it in the news. From what I've seen so far, I don't think Jupiter Media will ever be able to produce such a conveyor belt, and for that matter I don't think they have any desire to do so.

2. The site is no longer run by computer security experts. Instead, it's run by a rather bazaar amalgam of novice computer administrators, outsourced programmers from India (at least that's where they sound like they're from based on the contact i initially had with them), and technology clueless business people. Granted, there is a moderator or two who have a security background, but for the most part the site is operated by your run of the mill "IT Guy/Gal". You can clearly see how that has changed the focus of the site.

3. The site no longer has a figurehead. Any community, whether it be in the real world or the virtual one, needs a leader. I was kind of surprised that Jupiter didn't move in someone to take my place so to speak. Someone that would be the spokesperson for this community, who would drive it, and who would inspire it. At the end of the day, people need someone that they can look up to, look down upon, admire, hate, like or dislike. All depending on your respective point of view, of course.

4. Many people have mentioned this one in the thread, in many different ways: The site now relies too much on its users for content. It's great to have users adding their thoughts and ideas to a site, to teach and to learn from one another. However, I've always believed that a site needs to contribute as well. Where's AntiOnline's contribution to its users? The only content that the site has that it's offering to its users, is the content that I made way back when I owned the site. None of which has been updated, and most of which is now out of date, by the way. Of course, since there aren't any security experts involved in the operation of the site, there is probably no recognition at the managerial level of exactly how out of date that material is. It's almost embarrassing to me, to be honest, to see such out of date material hosted on the site with my name all over it.

5. The site is no longer attracting a lot of true security experts for all of the reasons mentioned above. If you look at recent topics, discussions on AIM Chatrooms have dozens of replies to them, while discussions on serious Cisco vulnerabilities have zero. That says something.

[[WebCarnage]]

Posted by: JP
5. The site is no longer attracting a lot of true security experts for all of the reasons mentioned above. If you look at recent topics, discussions on AIM Chatrooms have dozens of replies to them, while discussions on serious Cisco vulnerabilities have zero. That says something.

Maybe we need an Exploits/Vuln -specific forum?

But now all the saints will come down hating because apparently we're helping scripties.

But then again, one can argue that all "security-related" sites help script-kidiots and must be shut down. And that Full Disclosure should be brought to a halt, and that Security Focus's mailing should cease...

We might aswell catch up to where the pros are, guys. Immitation is suicide, so lets not just carbon copy security focus, or slashdot, or whatever other security sites you visit.

Put some soul into it

[P.S. - The forum could host a slew of user contributed, or user found POCs - ]

[Ennis]

Glad to see you posting JP I think MsMittens and Neg are pretty much running the site at this stage on the daily basis so why not have them as 'figureheads' for want of a better word?