[UNDERGROUND BUNKER, TX] - Nomad Mobile Research Centre (NMRC), The world's leading hacker group fueled by Chai, revealed the truth about rumours of legal problems late last night to a packed room of reporters at a nearby Arlington, Texas Starbucks.
"Yes, it is true we are being sued by Novell Corporation. It seems Novell was upset with all the press Microsoft got when their source code was leaked, and asked us if we were planning on leaking any NetWare source code," said a rather subdued jrandom, who only identified himself as the NMRC Spokesman in Times of Stress.
"When we informed Novell we had deleted our old copies of NetWare source to make room for the Microsoft source code, they apparently took the news rather poorly." NMRC, once known as a hotbed of NetWare hacking tools and research, has released nothing related to Netware for years. Responding to reporter questions, NMRC member Cask3t commented that the Novell source was basically untouched and simply "a waste of space" on the drives. Fellow member Aj added to Cask3t's comments stating, "So we develop a new NetWare hacking tool, and what? We help two guys break into approximately three sites. Big effin deal.".
"We even tried to give it away to other hackers first," stated jrandom, "but they were completely apathetic. Some didn't even know what NetWare was. There were those who thought it was a new hacker clothing line."
"As a direct result of our actions in trying to give away copies of the source code, we were kick-banned from #phrack on EfNet. We will be appealing that action to PHC, and our loss of access to #phrack will probably form the basis of our countersuit against Novell."
NMRC founder Simple Nomad said, "We had been bracing for a lawsuit from SCO since we are running Linux on a number of systems, so this Novell thing is really out of left field.". NMRC went on to state they probably would "ignore" the lawsuit, since they "seriously doubt anyone would show up to court, including the judge" because of the loss of market share by Novell in recent years.
In related news, NMRC Mayhem Specialist Weasel reported that NMRC's attempts to "piss off" SCO have apparently failed. "We were going to 'leak' some proprietary SCO source code, but we couldn't find any anywhere," said a visually disappointed Weasel. "And trust us, we've looked," added Daaihliuh.
Daaihliuh, NMRC's Disinformation Officer also revealed that Starbuck's, the premier purveyor of the finest coffee and chai in the world, has joined the growing list of companies suing NMRC, though the grounds remain uncertain. Initially, Starbucks claimed rights to NMRC intellectual property based on the number of Chai orders placed by NMRC, stating that their hacker code and exploits wouldn't have been possible without Chai fueled energy. Further investigation revealed the awful purpose of the frequent excusions by NMRC members Simple Nomad and Weasel to the Arlington, TX Starbucks. It seems the recipe for Chai has been reverse engineered by these notorious hackers. It is unclear if laptops were used to capture the Starbucks Chai packets out of the ether or if other nefarious methods were used, but Starbucks claims an uncanny resemblance to their Chai recipe has been released on NMRC's site.
In a retalitory form, Weasel stated that "their Chai sucked ass anyway, not nearly spicy enough" in spite of the fact that the press conference was at Starbucks and he was drinking Chai from a Starbucks cup.
In other news, Phuzzy Logik, the group's deepest-placed Canadian government mole, reported that HellNbak's liver transplant seems to have gone well. "In retrospect, HellNbak's injuries sustained during his most recent stabbing may have actually saved his life. It forced his doctors to truly examine him, and they discovered his liver was also in an unrelated but nonetheless damaged state," said Logik. HellNbak was not in attendance at the press conference, but it was reported he was "getting stronger" and was "already breaking in the new liver.". HellNbak should be completely healed by DefCon 12, and will more than likely be allowing people to take pictures with him and his latest knife scar.
Queen Grace Clovia Terre reported that the plans for a "combination thong and sniffer software" product had to be scrapped. Citing production problems and "a massive and embarassing lab accident" as the main reasons for cancelling the product, she also cited that R&D projects would no longer involve "my idiot husband going to strip clubs for 'inspiration'". A sheepish Simple Nomad had no comment in spite of prodding from curious reporters. Queen Grace did mention "positive numbers for NMRC" while introducing NMRC's Financial Officer.
And the numbers for 2004 were looking good for NMRC. In spite of offering no goods or services and generally "feeding off of a less-than-intelligent security industry" with misdirection and lies, NMRC Financial Officer Sioda an Cailleach reported, "Our acquisition of a new security industry Psuedo Random Number Generator (PRNG) from mi2g will allow us to invent all kinds of new numbers with literally no basis in fact. We expect this false sense of self-importance to level the playing field between us and, say, iDefense."
NMRC and mi2g are also in court because of NMRC's leaking of the source of mi2g's numbers -- the mi2g PRNG. An open source version of the mi2g PRNG adapted for general use for any government agency or company can be found at http://www.nmrc.org/project/misc/nmrc-prng-0.1.tgz.
Sioda expected the Starbucks case to settle quickly, enabling NMRC to market their own Chai brand. "Allegations that we stole the source of our Chai from Starbucks are complete nonsense", Sioda stated, "Our Chai is much spicer than theirs. We expect sales to soar, after a complementary shipment to eEye."
Finally, NMRC closed out the conference by announcing they would not be insulting Russ Cooper, which was met with a round of groans from the assembled reporters. "Why beat a dead horse?" replied jrandom.