From: McIntyre (McIntyre[at]attrition.org)
Cc: errata[at]attrition.org
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2000 09:50:45 -0500
Subject: Hackers did NOT steal Bill Gates' credit card info

Hi all-

You are getting this e-mail message because you are, in one way or another, involved in 
the propagation (or on the receiving end) of the news story that Curador (the
Welsh-based kids who stole upwards of 65,000 credit cards) stole Bill Gate's credit 
card information.

First off, anyone should be VERY wary of printing such a story. As near as I can tell 
the story originated from The Telegraph,
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=002595646834577&rtmo=aTJJ4W6J&atmo=KKKKKKY M&pg=/et/00/3/26/nhack26.html) 
where reporter Rajeev Syal hedged on whether or not Gray's claims were true. At least he 
used the word "claimed". Then Reuters picked up the story and claimed it as fact. I'd 
like to know how they can claim undeniably that this is true....especially when they 
never saw the Web site in question.

As it just so happens, when all of this Curador nonsense was going on, I managed to 
mirror several iterations of his sites. Attrition.org has made these mirrors
public at http://www.attrition.org/mirror/curador .

You can view what is allegedly Bill Gates' credit card info at:
http://www.attrition.org/mirror/curador/curador02022000

Let's start with the name. To my knowledge, William F Gates is the name of the foundation 
overseen by Bill Gates father, William H Gates Sr. (making Bill Gates, William H Gates jr.).

Second, look at the phone number: 425-705-1900 ext. 1 ? I highly doubt MS is 
irresponsible enough to make Bill Gates' extension "1".

Third, the credit card number itself: 135724689764

Come on....the first numbers 1357 all odd....the next set 2468 all even....the next 
number in sequential order "9" and the last two appear to be somewhat random.

No credit card company is stupid enough to generate a credit card number like this 
for someone like Bill Gates let alone the general public. Don't even get me started
on his password and "hint".

What is going on with journalism today? How many more instances of irresponsible
reporting do there have to be before a complete and total review of fact-checking
activity in this "instant deadline" industry of online media?

In fact, this is actually the second story that Reuters has gotten wrong recently. 
The other issue was the story of the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.
When "Coolio" had been taken in to the FBI, Reuters came out with a story saying that 
Coolio was a former member of the hacker group "Global Hell" when, in fact, about 8 
other media outlets came out with similar stories mentioning nothing of the sort. 2-3 
weeks prior to this event, it had been well established that Federal Law enforcement 
visited another hacker known as "Coolio" who was a former member of "Global Hell" but 
resided in Southern California. Note that the "Coolio" that was finally picked up by 
the FBI for 3 Web site defacements actually resided in New Hampshire.

The problem is that editors and producers continue to believe in the gospel that are 
wire services. But in this online world where fact-checking takes more time than
editors are willing to allow, quality is going right down the drain. I am ashamed to 
see such a story appear on so many respected media outlets with no attempt 
whatsoever to verify this obviously false information.

I hope someone will write a retraction or counter article pointing this out.