Dear Antionline,
I'm sick and tired of hearing lots of bull. People really anony me when
they expect me to seriously look up to them for ping flooding people or
using statd on a site no one uses. I think it anonys everyone to think
that exploits are handed out to kiddies, and they go around exploiting
sites thinking they are cool and safe from using a wingate to telnet. The
truth is, these are the kind of people that need to be taught a lesson,
so they don't think they are god. No one is god for downloading a exploit
then compiling it, then running it and typing 'whoami'. It really makes me
mad to see these people actually go around and brag about it. On irc
anymore, your never protected from little icmpfloods or nukes. "Wow you
tookout a T1 with a pingflood, you must be really there buddie, you are
god." Theres a difference between clueless people and people who know what
they are doing. I think everyone knows that. Everytime i look at
.bash_historys on my machine, sometimes i see thier 'leeto' gcc -o n n.c
./n then whoami. I know everyone wants this stop, because it really is
lame. Another stupid things these kiddies do once they gain access is
change the webpage! Oh boy, a big way to get caught. "tHiS PagE WaS haCKeD
By handle". That gives ya away right there. People need to STOP bragging
about this lame crap and focus on trying to learn something. "I Got root
on a OC3, i will pingflood you". I bet, how many of you heard that on
irc?. I seriously don't think a person with router/root access to a big
machine with a big connection will pingflood you, because they would be
smart enough to know its LAME. So if your a imap, statd, phf , sendmail
100 times kiddie, stop now and like learn something, after all your NOT A
"Hacker", what should you be called?



-localhost



You have several very good points. In the past, individuals that had the capacity to
break into systems, didn't. Mainly because that it took them a long time to learn the skills necessary to do so, and through
that learning process, came maturity. Now a days, with "point and click hacking tools", individuals are gaining the power
to break into systems far before they've had time to develop any sort of maturity. It shows.








I'm having trouble with your homepage using Win98's (RC5) integrated browser (IE4). The advertisement seems to be causing the entire page to refresh every 3 seconds or so, making it impossible to read your pages.

Is this intentional or have you been hacked?



Thanks -- Keith.



You wouldn't believe how many of these emails that I got. Haha. No, it wasn't intentional, and no, we weren't hacked. Our ad
firm changed ad code on us, and it caused all sorts of problems. But, we fixed it, and all is now well (for the time being anyways).








JP:
Walked in to work today, and my Boss (not the most computer literate guy,
but an otherwise groovy cat) was gazing at what was supposed to be the
Adidas homepage.

Lo and behold, this would be my first exposure to M.O.D., and to your site
(kudos, Sir!)

After prowling religiously through, I gotta say I hope y'all at AntiOnline
keep on fighting the good fight, and I'll join to watch the fun as often as
my schedule permits--after having been an SysAdmin for the past five years
(on a minor level), I must now go flog myself repeatedly for not knowing of
you before.

Oh, and if you can figure out why a group of Elite who are busy breaking
into multi-national defense systems decided to hack into a sport shoe
company site, please let me know. Does Adidas supply basketball shoes for
the national defense industry? Yeeesh. (But thanks for the link, M-Boyz.



Later,

Kev-a-lator



Yes, for those of you that missed it, the MOD did indeed hack Adidas. Take a look at
AntiOnline's Coverage Of The DISN Hackers for a mirror of the hacked
page etc... Why did they do it? Not sure exactly.








John,

I read about you in the paper. There seems, at least to me, to be a parallel between you and one Bill Gates.
The whole 19yr old college student that rides out of the university for his own vision thing. It's inspiring to see
and even more exciting considering your field of expertise.



Thanks and keep it up.



LEDLYL



Now I'm an inspiration, huh? That's just scarry. As for Bill Gates, yeah you're exactly right. Only
difference between him and me is around 40 billion dollars. Oh, and there's that minor thing I've heard about him creating some
operating system or something. Hahahaha. Minor details.








I loved the letters from Pete Farrell, it was so nice of him. I would like to thank you for publishing those letters and him for giving his email addies and especially phone number. hehehe


PS. Great site

PPS. Pete Farrell deserves to be sacked

cyall



Don't you go off hacking Peter Farrell. I think he left a long lasting impression with most people
that read his emails. Don't be leaving a long lasting impression on the other side of the fence by harassing him.








I am at a loss...

I can not comprehend the nature of how easily your country's military,
governmental, etc. servers have been hacked. The only thing I can
attribute it to is the saying that even the strongest fortress -must-
have an entry point, in order to see who would try enter. Humans, by
nature, follow the path of least resistance, and I am certain, that no
matter how 3133+ these gentlemen hackers say they are, when they find
that easy open hole, they will jump all around in it until they find
whatever scraps of info that was -left- by the admins.
Its like in a jewelry store, the counters have those flashy, sparkly
expensive looking showpieces just laying there, which attract you to the
counter for a closer look. These pieces are left there FOR YOU TO STEAL
THEM, because the store knows damn well it would rather afford to lose
a 100 dollar necklace, than eight 2000 dollar necklaces and the
contents of the cash register.

....

On a happier note, you guys rock otherwise. I have not too much
experience with the world you seem to be a part of, but have definately
gotten the most information about it from you. Your site is, as it has
been pointed out, an indespensible source of information on security
and other protection methods. Thanks alot for the help you have
inadvertently given me. (I must sound schizo with this letter).



-sympatico.ca



Yeah, the US is looking pretty bad in the international community in that respect. It's yet
another case of the US government rushing forward with things, without thinking about possible ramifications :-/ On
a happy note: thanks for the kudos =)








Hi John,



Read, with great interest, your response to letters written
to you by the "Defense Contractor". You, young man, keep
doing the right thing! Good job! You have a lot of good
people that support you.

Regards,

Bob



I know the DISA email story is old, but I keep getting sooo many emails about them, I just
have to keep posting a small selection in the mailbag. Thanks for the kind words Bob. Hey, what is it with the
name "Bob". Every Bob that I've ever met is a techie. Is this just me? I think someone needs to do a study
on people named Bob. A national survey. One of my mentors when I was in highschool is named Bob. Bob Davis,
he is just cool, and along with Chuck Townsend were the two greatest teachers, mentors, and indeed, friends, that I had
in my highschool career. Thanks
for this letter Bob. It gave me a great opportunity to plug my mentors, and now, the highschool that I went to,
The Beaver Area School District. I founded their website, and helped
spread it into the community, and now, another fine staff of students is keeping Beaver Online as we called it,
alive and well. Go visit them, and send them an email letting them know they're still getting kudos from their 'ol Johnny V.
Haha, they'll get a kick out of it. Man, did I ramble or what? I was worried about this week's mailbag being small, because
I didn't want to post too many DISA email letters, so I guess I have just made up for that. Hahaha.






I would like to congratulate you on Anti-Online. I am an infosec professional and your stories help me
in some of my duties. I am a contractor for a high profile govt. agency and was suprised at the letter from a
contractor. When I do something like that I must include a statement that this is my opinion only and not that
of my company or govt. agency. That I have just done. I am the security awareness guy here (among other things)
and your efforts help me in my efforts.



-wisemahd (I'm not going to post his email so that he doesn't get fired for talking nice to me, haha)



It's letters like these that help restore faith in our government. A little bit anyways =) Thanks for the
kind words and continue to visit, enjoy, and learn from our site.








I was going through your weekly mailbag when I noticed a letter from Finite
describing a hack of a domain server. He went onto say that it is very
important to plug up the simplest holes in a network. Another letter from
and ex DISA employee described their "I am un-hackable" attitude. This fact
that these people were hacked is sheer ignorance/arrogance on the part of
those admin.'s. Some people use the excuse that a Professional Security
person costs too much. Or perhaps it's simply that their ego's won't allow
them to go to others for help. I myself hope people who think they are
cyber-god's to get off their high horses and see the light. We are all
human (Well most of us anyways ) and are prone to the simplest
mistakes. So (like when writing an essay) get someone to proof read your
work. I myself have other Admin.s check and attempt to hack my network a
couple of times a year. And I do the same for them. This is a cheap and (if
you are up to date) effective way to secure your network. If all people had
a positive attitude about sharing and accepting information and advice (Big
thumb's up to you at Antionline, Rhino9 etc...) networks would be whole lot
more secure around the world. Keep up the excellent work and don't give
into the Bully-Boy techniques of DISA or any other gov't / Corporate
agency. If they don't like what you do it only serves to show that they are
scared of their own insecurities/inadequicies. Too bad there wasn't a
Viagra for their own computer impotence.



-Michael Fourdraine



Hahaha. If nothing else, I get the greatest catch phrases from having this
MailBag every week. "Viagra for their own computer impotence." Maybe I'll start a "best of
the catch phrases from The MailBag" section of AntiOnline. I also like the idea of the "hacker exchange program".
System admins helping out one another. What a novel idea.








to JP

I have been reading alot of the mail on this site lately, and i've noticed that alot of people are, should i say "paranoid", about the idea of someone hacking their system.
i would therefore like to make a simple statement to all.
I am a 22 year old hacker myself, and the best hackers i know can get in and out of a system without anyone knowing they were there. If someone goes into a system and does no harm fine. But if they tamper with the system or create a problem in any way, sure id be mad too, but dont hold us all responsible for the foolish ones among us.
thanx

Stalker



Well, I won't comment here, to make up for the long comment I made with Bob's letter. Heh.