IMPLICATION:

By employing someone to create a high profile web hack, and subsequently 
reporting it as "breaking news," serious questions should be raised
regarding AntiOnline being a "news source" by any means.


PROOF:

This e-mail and article on John Vranesevich's site shows that AntiOnline
considers this an exclusive report. Being exclusive, they are the only
ones to directly benefit from such a story.



From: news@antionline.com
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 20:20:01 -0400
Subject: US Senate Website Hacked - AntiOnline Exclusive
To: news@antionline.com
X-Sender: jp@smtp.antionline.net

US Senate Website Hacked
Thursday, May 27, 1999 at 19:42:37
The hacker "counter strike" continues, as the the official
website of the United States Senate is defaced.

=-=

http://www.antionline.com/cgi-bin/News?type=antionline&date=05-24-1999&story=senat.news
  The official website for the United States Senate has been
  hacked by a group known as MOD (Masters of Downloading),
  to protest what they call the FBI's latest hacker witch hunt. The
  www.Senate.gov website was defaced at around 7:38pm EST
  today. The defaced site had a message from MOD to the FBI
  which read in part..

  In an on-line interview given shortly after the attack, the MOD
  told AntiOnline that they accessed the senate webserver by first
  gaining access to another computer that was on the out skirts of
  the same network (using ttdb), installed sniffers, and stole the
  administrator's usernames and passwords as they logged into
  the primary senate.gov server. 

=-=

Breaking news on previous MOD events:

http://www.techweb.com/voices/harrow/1998/0519harrow.html
  If you have RealAudio capabilities, you can listen to some validating
  detailes from John Vranesevich, the reporter who broke the story
  about Masters of Downloading on AntiOnline.

http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/content/msnb/0421/309021.html
   The Antionline Internet site, which focuses on computer security issues, reported that members of the
   group known as Masters of Downloading/2016216 contacted its staff to brag of the intrusion.
   AntiOnline reporter John Vranesevich said he interviewed two members of the group last week in an
   Internet Relay Chat and was given files they said were obtained from the classified Defense
   Information System Network.

http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/info/042198/info3_8760_noframes.html
   Vranesevich, who runs the computer security website AntiOnline, said members of MOD contacted him last
   week to brag about their alleged "exploit," which if as wide-ranging as they claim, could mark one of
   the most serious breaches of U.S.  defense systems ever.