Fascist Consortium Forcibly Silences Volunteers
Sat Jun 26 21:08:05 MDT 1999
ATTRITION Staff

"shut it down"

Earlier this evening, John Vranesevich and Brad Davis of AntiOnline LLP
shut down a public IRC server in an attempt to quiet negative opinion.
Upon joining the channel #koan on the IRC server otter.happyhacker.org,
Vranesevich was asked several questions related to AntiOnline. During
the conversation, some users expressed negative feelings toward AntiOnline
and the quality of its content in recent months. 

Rather than answer the questions, Vranesevich resorted to threatening
the users of the IRC server. "If you want to keep [these resources] available
to you, you don't start abusing then, or the people that provide it to you."
This threat is interesting in that, AntiOnline LLP has no part in offering
these services to the public. Members of the group tg0d volunteer their
time and resources to maintain the server. The primary server 'otter' is 
owned by the tg0d member known as schematic. Vranesevich followed up the threat with
"I suggest you all move to a more productive conversation unless you'd like
this server firewalled from the router."

Minutes later, Vranesevich stopped responding to messages after saying
"I'm talking to carolyn, brb".  Returning, Vranesevich outlined his new directive
from Carolyn Meinel. "First off, Carolyn has said that attrition.org, dimensional
are going to be blackholed on the router. secondly, this server is going to be
blackholed for 24 hours from the happyhacker network." Channel members questioned
the decision, only to be told "here's the cool thing, I don't have to tell you
shit."

Shortly there after, CoreyG (a volunteer at AntiOnline) messaged one of the operators 
of 'otter' saying his wife had given him a message from Carolyn Meinel saying 
"take down otter". Once Corey had a chance to read the logs of the events, he saw 
no reason to drop the route to Otter, and re-established the connection.

In Control

Otter is one of many systems owned and operated by the group tg0d. Members come from
a wide variety of backgrounds and dedicate their time and effort to teach newcomers
to the world of hacking and security. Often spending eight hours a day on the server,
and putting in over 250 man hours a week, their service has made a profound impact on 
thousands of newcomers.

Making rare appearances to the IRC network, Vranesevich and Meinel are basically
unheard of. When we caught up with tg0d and the IRC moderators, we asked them
about AntiOnline and Meinel's involvement in the project. Some channel regulars
had no idea who Meinel or Vranesevich were. According to those questioned, 
Vranesevich will make occasional appearances on weekends, and "never answers
questions". Brad Davis (aka netshadow), network administrator for Antionline spends 
the most time on the server, but only answers newcomers questions "a few times". 
"netshadow is on sometimes.. he doesn't help too much" replied schematic.

The biggest shock came when we learned that Carolyn Meinel had been k-lined 
(or banned) from using the IRC server in April. That explained the answer of 
"maybe every five months or so" when asked how often she frequented the server.
Diode made the decision to ban her from the server after a falling out with Meinel.
"She did a virtual 180 on me. One day everything was fine, the next she was telling
my associates I was incompetant, may be on drugs, and making death threats.." Diode said.

These facts are made more interesting when compared to public perception. Mention
of the server can be found on AntiOnline's main page, as well as the Happy Hacker
home page. Displayed before any mention of tg0d's help, "Happy Hacker has its own 
IRC server". Vranesevich and Meinel are quick to take credit for the Happy Hacker
project and the affiliated Hacker Wargames, yet according to the people behind
the scenes, do "little to nothing" for them. Schematic replied to our questions
about their involvement with "We all appreciate very much the opportunity for the 
wargames, they are a great opportunity to learn. We do not appreciate the people 
that are running them."

Freedom of Speech

Tonights events fall at a time when Meinel is screaming about freedom of speech 
more than ever. In her near weekly complaints to anyone that will listen, her 
claims of hackers stopping her right to free speech are being called into question.
Regardless of hackers activities directed toward Meinel, many people are beginning
to ask her about her own actions in limiting free speech of her outspoken
adverseries.. and the curious bystanders.

In mid 1998, Meinel started rejecting posts to the Happy Hacker mailing list from 
a variety of people. No explanation was offered as to why, and all attempts to
make the subscribers aware were unsuccessful. Now, AntiOnline has followed Meinel's
lead by not posting negative comments on their Mailbag. The few pieces that begin
to express the real feeling about AntiOnline are clipped up and responded to
in a harsh and unprofessional manner by Vranesevich.

Where things go from here is up in the air. Otter regulars are upset at the 
fascist control being exerted on a server run by volunteers. Why did the IRC
server get shut down? Depends on who you ask.

	"We helped bring this war games alive, damned if we are gonna let ppl 
         insult us with lies" - Brad Davis, AntiOnline

	"He felt his pride was insulted." - Apparition, Otter Volunteer


See for yourself what happened:

06.26.99 Log of JP/Otter right before it was shut down.


tg0d is punchdown, temas, schematic, bladerhater, caffiene, adrenilinerush, typo, 
diode, cryptik, runlevel6, apparition, MrNfector. Their primary web server is 
currently down for upgrades, and will return at http://tg0d.org.

Carolyn Meinel can be reached at cmeinel@techbroker.com

John Vranesevich can be reached at jp@antionline.com

Brad Davis can be reached at brad@antionline.com