[The first thing that should be noted, is that ALWAYS, Vranesevich and Meinel never give the URL of the supposed threats. They make vague and libelous accusations against Williams and PacketStorm, then cry that he is maintaining an archive with libelous material in it. When several people looked through the other public mirrors of the '/jp' directory, the only thing close to the description was a picture of JP and what appears to be his sister. This picture includes her name, but no address or any other info. It was taken from a public copy of their highschool yearbook.] http://www.antionline.com/archives/editorials/packetstorm.html PacketStorm Is Shut Down An AntiOnline Editorial Thursday , July 01 1999 Apparently for some time now, PacketStorm Security, a popular underground collection of security related tools and information, has been maintaining a vast archive of materials about AntiOnline. These materials included entire stories, copies of the weekly mailbag, e-mails, and other materials copyrighted by AntiOnline LLP. On top of that, and what was far more serious, the site contained dozens and dozens of items which included: e-mails, messages, documents, images, and even public surveys. These materials were libelous, and in some cases, were blatant threats against members of my immediate family, myself, and my company. [There were no threats on the site. The survey referenced was just that, a user survey with a single option saying 'JP should be killed'. That is not a threat from Ken Williams or PacketStorm.] While I value the right to free speech as much, if not more, than the average American, I do not believe in individuals posting threatening and harassing documents about another individual, and their family members. It [Yet one former (?) associate of Vranesevich is well known for making personal and physical threats against other people over IRC. Vranesevich tolerated these threats..] was for this reason, and no other, that I contacted Harvard University, which was hosting the PacketStorm Website, and requested that it be shut down. I did not threaten legal action, but simply directed University [He makes it very clear here. He did not follow the standard internet etiquette in contacting a site to resolve a problem. For over a decade, there has been an unwritten chain of command for any issue that needs resolving. One of those is to contact the site owner and ask for offensive material to be removed. Vranesevich did not contact Ken Williams and ask for it to be removed. Vranesevich did not contact Attrition staff before complaining to our upstream ISP either. Instead, he resorts to vague mail designed to ellicit a hasty and irrational response. Even in contacting Harvard, he did not ask for the offending material to be removed, he asked for the entire site to be shut down. Apparently, JV is not familiar with the idea of archiving information. Sometimes, questionable material may slip in. This is why you contact the site and make sure they are aware it is offending, then move on. Readers should be aware that JV/AntiOnline conveniently sent a letter to our upstream claiming many of the same things. This is not JV doing what he thinks is right. This is a systematic campaign to rid the net of those speaking against him.] Administration to the website, for them to view, and to judge, on their own. Below is a copy of that letter: [A copy of the letter.. but no copy of the material that *JV* deemed offensive. Sory kids, you don't get to make that decision until you find the other public mirrors of /jp around the net.] Greetings: May I first say that I did my best to see that this letter got sent to the appropriate individuals. I had some difficulty determining who those individuals may be, so if I have made an error, I would greatly appreciate it if you would forward this letter on to the appropriate individual(s). [This is an outright lie. The appropriate individual is Ken Williams, and JV knew that. Worse, he did not attempt to mail root@, postmaster@, or abuse@ packetstorm.harvard.edu, the obvious "appropriate individuals".] My name is John Vranesevich, and I am the Founder and General Partner of AntiOnline LLP, a computer security company based outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Earlier today, one of my colleagues forwarded me the following URL: http://packetstorm.harvard.edu/jp/ [snip..] I have worked to help several educational institutions develop 'Acceptable Use Policies', and if Harvard is similar to them, the above URL would be a clear violation of that policy. [And of course JV will not quote which educational institutions those are. I somehow doubt his resume has any such work.] [snip..] Tonight, Ken Williams, the founder of Packet Storm Security, released a letter to the public. The letter read in part: Funny how I spent the past few years donating my time, literally thousands of hours, to "the security community", never making even a penny off the time and work I invested, and have now lost it all because some asshole named John Vranesevich is able to make a quick phone call, fabricate absurd stories about criminal activity and bullshit I never did, and effectively ruin years of work, my education, my career, my life. Ken, I know what it's like to dedicate many, many, thankless hours into a project, believe me. But, you did not loose your site because of me, you [Notice JV conveniently left off the part about making money. The real motive behind his actions. It will come as no surprise to us when AntiOnline announces a new or improved tool archive.] [snip..]